Seeking Self-Verification: Motives for Private and Personal Chefs’ Boundary Work

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with private and personal chefs, this study highlights the interplay between internal and external forces shaping boundary work. Private and personal chefs’ social and professional position is ambiguous, and their employment is precarious. In order to navigate their uncertain standing and assert self-worth, some drew boundaries between themselves and clients. They disliked clients who were wasteful, lacked the ‘right’ motivations for hiring a chef, or lacked the ‘right’ taste or approach to food. But rather than simply seeking to establish superiority, the chefs distanced themselves from and disregarded clients who seemed not to see them as they saw themselves – as skilled and valuable workers. This article argues that a desire for self-verification – to have one’s self-views verified by others – can activate boundaries. It suggests that an uncertain standing might foster this desire, and that workers’ views of themselves vis-à-vis other workers can drive their evaluations of clients.

Keywords

boundary work personal chef private chef self-verification symbolic boundaries worker–client relationship valuations evaluation uncertainty

Introduction

More than 20 years after scholars called for more attention to the categories and distinctions that organize our lives (Lamont, 1992; Lamont and Fournier, 1992), symbolic boundaries and boundary work still provide analytical traction for understanding how individuals make meaning in their lives and struggle for self-worth (Lamont and Molnár, 2002; Pachucki et al., 2007). Symbolic boundaries are conceptual distinctions that can be used to categorize people, and boundary work, as defined by Michèle Lamont (1992), is the process by which people distinguish themselves from others.¹

This article adds to scholarship on workers’ symbolic boundaries (Pacholok, 2009; Purser, 2009; Sherman, 2007, 2010; Stacey, 2011; Vallas, 2001) by examining the symbolic boundaries that private and personal chefs draw between themselves and their clients or employers.² Typically, private chefs are employed exclusively by one household, while personal chefs are self-employed and offer services such as prepared meals, dinner parties, and cooking classes to more than one household (Private Chefs, Inc., 2013; Wallace and Forte, 2008).³

Private and personal chefs make an ideal case for studying boundaries and workers’ pursuit of dignity. Caught in an ‘occupational middle ground’ (George, 2008: 115), their status vis-à-vis both clients and other workers is uncertain. Their position is not only ambiguous, but also precarious. They are among a growing number of contingent laborers (Kalleberg, 2009), and earnings for the self-employed are unstable and, for many, relatively low. Drawing boundaries is one way to manage these uncertainties and maintain self-worth (Lamont, 1992, 2000).

Responding to calls for more attention to mechanisms activating boundaries (Lamont and Molnár, 2002; Pachucki et al., 2007), this article incorporates social psychological theorizing on identity and the self to argue that a desire to have one’s self-views verified by others can activate boundaries. It also highlights the interplay between external forces (e.g. social structure and culture) and internal forces (e.g. self-views) shaping boundary work. Gaining self-verification is an important goal in interaction, and people take steps to achieve it (Burke, 1991; Burke and Stets, 2009; McCall and Simmons, 1978; Swann, 1983). A desire to demonstrate difference from and superiority to clients might have motivated the chefs’ boundary work to some degree. However, I argue that the chefs also wanted to distance themselves from or disregard clients who threatened their self-conceptions. Especially given their tenuous position, these chefs wanted clients to confirm their own self-views as valuable and skilled workers and/or as social equals to clients. Boundaries allow us to define the self, so attention should be paid to how (desire for recognition of) self-views might drive boundary work, and how one’s social position might foster a need for self-verification through boundary work.

In what follows, I first discuss private/personal chefs’ relevance for study. Next, I present the theoretical framework for the article. Then, after describing my data and methods, I present my findings. Drawing on in-depth interviews with private and personal chefs, I describe the boundaries that some chefs drew between themselves and clients. The chefs disliked and implicitly distinguished themselves from clients who were wasteful, lacked the ‘right’ motivations for hiring a chef, or lacked ‘good’ taste or the ‘right’ approach to food. I argue that a desire for self-verification, not simply for superiority, motivated these boundaries. These types of clients threatened the chefs’ self-conceptions as social equals to clients and/or as valuable and skilled service providers. As such, the chefs’ boundaries concerned their standing vis-à-vis other workers, not just their clients. After reflecting on implications of the chefs’ boundary work, I conclude by recapping the main findings and contributions of this research.

Private and Personal Chefs

The fields of private and personal cheffing expanded in the early 2000s, and they exemplify several recent developments in the United States (Ferguson Publishing, 2008; Frank, 2007). Firstly, food has taken center stage in the American cultural landscape. Consumers’ interest in eating and cooking gourmet, specialty foods has increased, the status and visibility of chefs has risen, and culinary schools are attracting more students (Fine, 2009; Johnston and Baumann, 2010; Rousseau, 2012; Webley, 2011). Secondly, the service sector, specifically the area of personal and domestic services, is rapidly expanding (Duffy, 2011; Lopez, 2010). Beyond housecleaning and childcare, new, more specialized services ranging from love coaches to dog walkers are now sought and offered (George, 2013; Hochschild, 2012). Thirdly, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and those at the top contribute to demand for ‘luxury’ personal and household services (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001; Milkman et al.,1998; Sherman, 2007). Finally, employment security is a thing of the past. More and more individuals today are employed on a temporary or contract basis (Kalleberg, 2009).

Scholars have taken note of these changes, but gaps in the literature still remain. Attention has been given to chefs (Harris and Giuffre, 2015; Leschziner, 2015; Rousseau, 2012), an array of new forms of ‘expert service work’ (George, 2008: 115, see also Blakely, 2008; George, 2013; Hochschild, 2012; Sherman, 2010, 2015), and the relationship between service workers and their clients (Bélanger and Edwards, 2013; Korczynski, 2009; Lopez, 2010). However, there is little research on private or personal chefs, and what does exist does not address their boundary work (see Pratt, 2007; Sherman, 2015).

Beyond filling an empirical gap, focusing on private and personal chefs is worthwhile because of their fundamentally ambiguous position. Private/personal chefs perform low-prestige household care work (Duffy, 2011), yet they belong to a profession (the culinary profession, broadly speaking) that has recently gained prestige (Fine, 2009; Harris and Giuffre, 2015; Rousseau, 2012). Expert service workers like themselves balance expectations to meet clients’ needs with their own desire to establish their authority, and the roles and power dynamics within this relationship are not always clear (George, 2008). Their clients’ wealth may exceed theirs, but chefs’ culinary cultural capital may surpass that of their clients. Moreover, many of these chefs are career-changers and may have educational or professional backgrounds similar to those of their clients (Hendley, forthcoming a). These chefs’ occupational identity and status is precarious, but so too is their employment. Freelance self-employment is less stable than private work, but even private employment still typically offers no guarantee of long-term security.

Studying workers whose standing is so uncertain draws attention to how a desire for verification of self-views may motivate boundary work. Boundary work can be an important tool for negotiating identity and status, and the worker–client relationship is a prime site for workers’ struggles for self-worth (Corrado, 2002; Gimlin, 1996; Sherman, 2007).

Boundary Work and Self-Verification

Boundary work is a means to gain or sustain self-worth, or positive feelings about oneself. People’s ‘sense of self, their security, their dignity, all are tied to particular boundary distinctions, and these personal investments are bound up with authority and hierarchy’ (Fuchs Epstein, 1992: 237). Lamont (1992, 2000) identifies boundaries by asking participants to describe whom they feel similar to and different from, whom they feel superior and inferior to, who they like and dislike, and with whom they prefer not to associate.

While differentiating, evaluating, and distancing may all ultimately serve the same purpose, they do not necessarily always share the same motivation. This article thus offers a new perspective on mechanisms activating boundaries (Lamont and Molnár, 2002; Pachucki et al., 2007). A desire to define ourselves favorably in relation to others activates boundaries (Lamont, 1992). However, I argue that a desire to have one’s self-conceptions verified by others can also motivate boundary work. A desire for self-verification (or to avoid threats to self-verification), in other words, can be viewed as a mechanism or motive activating boundaries.

Social psychologists argue that we want others to see us as we see ourselves, and we will take action to accomplish this goal (Burke, 1991; Burke and Stets, 2009; McCall and Simmons, 1978; Swann, 1983). Swann (1983) describes different ways in which people work to obtain verification of their self-conceptions. ‘Interacting with the “right” people in the “right” situations’ and avoiding those who do not verify one’s self-conceptions is one important way to ensure self-verification (Swann, 1983: 38). Paying more attention to feedback that confirms self-conceptions than that which challenges them is another strategy (Swann and Read, 1981).

These insights suggest that people may dislike or distance themselves (figuratively and/or literally) from others who threaten their ability for self-verification. Drawing symbolic boundaries allows us to selectively affiliate with those who pose no challenge to our self-conception or to dismiss those who do pose a threat. Certain people may be disliked, that is to say, because their appraisals are not self-verifying. Boundary work can foster self-verification.

A desire for self-verification and a desire to position oneself favorably compared to others may often be intertwined, but these motives can operate independently. People want self-confirming feedback (even if it confirms negative self-views), not just self-enhancing feedback (Stets and Burke, 2014; Swann and Bosson, 2007). My goal, however, is not to argue that the chefs’ boundary work was motivated only by self-verification and not by self-enhancement. Rather, both motives seem to be at play in most cases. Recognizing the presence of both prevents assumptions that establishing superiority is the sole purpose behind boundary work.

Rachel Sherman’s (2007) discussion of boundary work performed by luxury hotel workers is a helpful example. She details the way in which workers, through ‘explicit comparative talk [about the guests] … presented themselves as superior rather than subordinate’ (Sherman, 2007: 155). A desire to ‘neutralize their subordinate position’ motivated their declarations of difference from and superiority to hotel guests (Sherman, 2007: 181). But workers also disliked and avoided guests who ‘violated their sense of self as knowledgeable and authoritative’ (Sherman, 2007: 165). This suggests that disliking or preferring to avoid certain guests was also prompted by workers’ desire to avoid or discount the challenges to self-verification that these guests posed.

Bridging two theoretical perspectives allows one to better discern the target, so to speak, of boundary work and see how workers’ views of themselves in relation to other workers can drive their evaluations of clients. We typically think of the target of boundary work (in this case, the client) as being the ‘other’ against which the self is being defined. Boundaries ‘emerge when we try to define who we are … identity being defined relationally’ (Lamont, 1992: 11). However, workers may draw boundaries between themselves and clients who threaten their self-view as a certain kind of worker. It might be other workers then, not simply the client, who are the ‘others’ against which the self is being defined. Scholars have examined workers’ differentiation from and evaluation of other workers (Abbott, 1981; Burri, 2008; George, 2013) as well as clients (Bearman, 2005; Macdonald, 2010; Rollins, 1985), but this article points to a potential interplay between these boundaries.

Self-verification theory complicates interpretations of workers’ ‘mental maps’ (Lamont, 1992: 4) and status struggles, and the case of private/personal chefs provides fertile ground for thinking through the interplay between external and internal forces shaping boundaries. Lamont (1992, 2000) shows how structural conditions and cultural frameworks shape the boundaries that people draw. In contrast, I primarily focus on how self-views and a desire for self-verification may shape and motivate boundaries. But I also point to the utility of combining these perspectives by suggesting that certain structural/cultural conditions (e.g. uncertain occupational status) might foster a need for self-verification.

Data and Methods

This article draws on in-depth interviews conducted between 2010 and 2012 with 41 private and personal chefs⁴ in the Central Coast, Los Angeles, and Bay areas of California. These regions were ideal settings for this research. They are known as prestigious culinary ‘fields’ within the United States and sites of vibrant food and wine cultures (Kamp, 2006; Leschziner, 2015). With a relatively high per capita income, there is also a market for luxury personal services (Hochschild, 2012; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001).

I recruited participants primarily through internet searches and email queries.⁵ I also recruited at food-related events and received referrals from other participants and personal contacts. I conducted most interviews in person, though I used Skype or the phone for eight. On average, interviews lasted a little less than two hours. Interviews were loosely structured, and question areas included the chefs’ work and educational history, motivations for pursuing private/personal cheffing, logistics of their business, identity as a chef, impact of gender and/or race in their work, relationships with clients, factors contributing to their success, challenges of the work, and future plans. For the most part, however, I tried to follow the ‘natural’ flow of the conversation. The emphasis I placed on certain question areas also shifted as I refined my research focus, somewhat limiting my ability to make comparisons between groups of participants.

I approached this research with an interest in the ambiguous position of these chefs, yet the application of boundary work as a theoretical frame emerged inductively from early analysis of the data (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Throughout the process of data collection and analysis, a wide-ranging set of initial interests and themes was eventually narrowed to a focus on boundaries and the chefs’ negotiation of their uncertain identity and status. I incorporated deductive coding during later phases, paying particular attention to how the chefs drew boundaries between themselves and other chefs, other types of workers, their clients, and other versions (e.g. past, ideal) of their own selves.

Most of the chefs I interviewed were self-employed. At the time of the interviews, only eight were private household employees (though most among these eight also did some freelance work). I interviewed 29 women and 12 men, and their average age was 43. Twenty-nine participants identified as white, Caucasian, and/or of European ancestry. Three identified as Black or African American, one as Hispanic, and one as East Indian. The remaining seven identified in some way as multi-racial/ethnic.⁶ Twenty-four had made a major career change (having left work, or plans to work, in a different occupation) into culinary work. Twenty-three had earned a Bachelor’s degree or higher, and 17 had completed some college, an Associate’s degree, or a trade certificate. The chefs’ annual income spanned a large range, with 13 earning less than $35,000 (usually personal chefs) and 11 others earning over $75,000 (usually private chefs).

National data on the demographic composition of these fields is not available through government agencies. However, my sample appears to be fairly representative based on two other sources of data: 1) the demographic profile of chefs represented by Private Chefs, Inc. (PCI), the most notable placement agency for private chefs, and 2) a 2013 online survey that I conducted of members of the United States Personal Chef Association.⁷ Based on these two sources, it appears that most private and personal chefs are white and middle-aged. Women made up a majority of personal chef survey respondents, though only about a quarter of PCI chefs. Most survey respondents made less than $50,000, whereas PCI chefs earn at least $65,000 (C. Paier, founder and president of PCI, personal communication, 20 August 2013).

Findings

Drawing boundaries between themselves and clients is one way that some chefs negotiated their uncertain position. As discussed above, they are positioned between low status domestic workers and high(er) status culinary professionals. Clients’ income and wealth likely exceeds that of the chefs, but the chefs may have similar educational or professional backgrounds as their clients and very likely more culinary capital. Moreover, self-employment can be unstable and even private chefs have no certainty of long-term employment.

By drawing boundaries, the chefs ‘define[d] and discriminate[d] between worthy and less worthy persons’ (Lamont, 1992: 1), or, specifically, between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ clients. The chefs did not often make direct comparisons between themselves and their clients, but such comparisons seemed to underlie descriptions of ‘bad’ clients. To be sure, there were other qualities or behaviors of clients, besides those discussed here, that some chefs disliked. My goal is not to outline the most common characteristics of ‘bad’ clients. Rather it is to suggest an alternative framing of boundaries that may otherwise be taken as simply comparative. I focus on cases that highlight the potential multiplicity of motives for boundary work.

I concentrate on two broad categories of boundaries, recognizing that moral judgments were often intertwined with both: 1) boundaries concerning clients’ wealth, waste, and/or status displays, and 2) boundaries concerning clients’ taste and/or approach to food. The former encompasses what Lamont (1992) referred to as socioeconomic boundaries (evaluations based on wealth and uses of wealth) and antisocioeconomic boundaries (negative evaluations of interest in gaining or displaying status). Boundaries concerning taste and/or approach to food are considered cultural boundaries, distinctions based on cultural knowledge and discernment.

One can interpret the chefs’ boundary work as being motivated by a desire to demonstrate superiority to certain clients. However, I argue that it was at times also motivated by a desire for self-verification – verification of self-views in relation to clients, but also to other workers. Drawing symbolic boundaries allowed the chefs to distance themselves from or disregard clients who did not confirm their self-conceptions as valuable and skilled workers and/or as social equals.

Judgments of Wealth, Waste, and Status Displays

Though there were chefs who preferred very wealthy clients or ‘old money’ (as opposed to ‘new money’), ‘very wealthy’ and ‘celebrity’ clients were more commonly described as cheap, demanding, out of touch with reality, and wasteful. Elizabeth, a personal chef, said, ‘the richer the people were [where she formerly lived], the bigger pain in the ass they were’.⁸ Specifically, some chefs opposed wealthy clients’ extravagance and waste, along with their ability to hire a chef just for the convenience. Some chefs also disliked clients who seemed to view them as status symbols. Moral judgments often underlie these criticisms. As Lamont (2000: 3) notes, ‘moral standards function as an alternative to economic definitions of success’.

This boundary work may position the chefs as morally superior to the wealthy and/or those who prioritize material markers of status. As Bourdieu (1984) argues, conflict within the dominant class – between holders of cultural capital and economic capital – is the most fundamental symbolic struggle. Yet establishing superiority to these clients may not always be a primary motive. These types of clients were also disliked because they seemed not to see the chefs as they saw themselves.

Extravagance and waste offended some chefs’ view of themselves as artists. Anne, for example, had worked off and on as a private chef throughout her 20-year career. She explained that it does not feel good to prepare ‘vast amounts of highly intricate food that gets either thrown away or ignored, and then in the end being treated like you’re totally replaceable’.

The people I stay with, they get it. ’Cause I am an artist you know? And they come to me they go, ‘you know I don’t know how you do this, but this is – you know you’ve honored our family by being here, and thank you’ … most chefs are artists, one way or another, there are very few that are just technicians … so if the family’s mean, it’s like you’re nothing, your work’s nothing, but ‘here’s your check’, so it feels really bad.

Anne may feel superior to wasteful and unappreciative wealthy people. However, her evaluation of employers is also based on her desire to be recognized as an artist, one who wants more than a paycheck for her creative work. By defining herself as an artist, Anne lays claim to an exalted social status. The work of artists, in the popular imagination, is understood as a unique expression of uncommon, almost otherworldly genius (Inglis, 2005).

Forty-one-year-old Antonio, who has witnessed private employers filling pools with chocolate and getting acupuncture for dogs, considered the lavish lifestyles of some employers to be shameful. According to Antonio, employers required household employees to sign non-disclosure agreements because ‘they [are] embarrassed [about] what they do … A person who needs that kind of environment should be embarrassed’. Antonio presented himself as morally superior to such people, but, like Anne, he also wanted recognition of the worth of his work. He saw his food as ‘an extension of [himself]’. Recounting the ‘tipping point’ that prompted him to leave a high-paying job, he described cooking all day to create a 40-foot-long buffet table of holiday-themed food. As requested, the food was ‘steaming’ and ready by 5:30. But instead of eating right away, the ‘super wealthy’ family left and did not return for three hours. ‘My work is more important, my food is more important’, he thought to himself, and the next day he resigned. For Antonio, his employers’ waste and disregard was problematic and suggested that they did not value his food or see him as he saw himself – as a creative producer whose work was a personal form of self-expression.

Chefs also drew boundaries based on clients’ motivations for hiring a chef. One motivation that was not ideal was hiring just for the convenience. For Barbara, working for ‘very wealthy clients’ was different than working for clients who make ‘a pretty decent salary’ but are ‘not wealthy people’.

That’s [working for very wealthy clients] a whole different ballgame. And not quite as satisfying cooking for them. It’s more about – when you’re cooking for them, it is a little bit more about the money, um … ’cause you don’t care quite as much, ’cause they don’t need you quite as much. They can afford you, but they don’t need you. And it’s different, I mean I can’t say I don’t cook well for them or anything, but there’s a different feeling. I think I put a little bit more into the ones that I feel need me …

I asked if her wealthy clients needed her less because they did not have young kids, and she responded:

[They needed me less] because it’s a convenience. And they just didn’t want to take the time, to do the shopping, and the planning and the cooking, because they’ve got seven other things they’d rather do like have lunch with their friends, and go to the gym, which is – there’s nothing wrong with that, trust me, I’m not making any judgments here at all. But it was just more, ‘Boy that would be really nice to have her do that for us’. Rather than, ‘I’m dying when I get home from work, and I’m ready to scream, and we’re not eating well and we’re tired, and we’ve gotta find a solution’. There’s a big difference between the two. And I’m glad to have either.

Despite claims to the contrary, Barbara seemed to suggest that those who just want the convenience of a personal chef are ‘less worthy persons’ (Lamont, 1992: 1). But her boundary work does more than distinguish worthy from unworthy clients or herself from the unworthy ones. Barbara, like many of the chefs I interviewed, got satisfaction from helping people. She wanted to help by making busy clients’ lives easier and taking care of families. In fact, she sometimes described her service as ‘kinda like grandma coming to cook in your home, or your mother’. In contrast to those who ‘needed’ her, clients for whom she provided only a ‘convenience’ could threaten her self-view as a valued caregiver. This self-view, especially as described in familial terms, positions her as a social equal to clients and as different from subordinate paid service providers.

Bethany was similarly concerned with clients’ motivations and wanted clients to have a need and an interest. Bethany wanted to make a difference in people’s lives and help them eat more healthily. Cooking for those who are ill was particularly satisfying. ‘I really do take pride in the food that I cook for people who I feel like really need it’, she said. Bethany also loved when her cooking inspired her clients to cook for themselves.

I really like it when they show an interest in cooking and want to learn more. Rather than just treat[ing] it like, ‘Oh I’m outsourcing it to you so I don’t have to think about it’ … Even if you are completely wealthy I don’t think to have a personal chef in your home forever is like a really good use of your money. But that’s me you know? I realize some people just are challenged in that way and are never gonna get it together.

Bethany did not want to work for someone who outsourced food work because they disliked or were disinterested in it. Like doormen who consider doormen to be an unnecessary luxury for ‘impotent’ tenants (Bearman, 2005: 147), Bethany thought that having a personal chef ‘forever’ was unnecessary. She differentiated herself from clients who hired a chef without having a real need or an interest in cooking for themselves.

Such clients undermined Bethany’s sense of self. For someone who does not really need the service or have any interest in food or cooking, Bethany may be just another hired hand. But she wanted to be in a position to help, teach, or inspire clients – positions of power – not just to perform household labor for them so they ‘don’t have to think about it’. She described herself as a professional (mentioning that she had a graduate degree) and felt that she was different from typical household staff. Realizing that in some homes she was essentially staff had been ‘interesting’ and ‘funny’ for her. Bethany may see herself as superior to clients who ‘are never gonna get it together’. However, I argue that she also wants verification of her self-views as different from typical domestics and as a social or intellectual equal to clients.

Some chefs also disliked clients for whom they seemed to be just a ‘status symbol’. Employing domestic workers has traditionally been a marker of status (Rollins, 1985). Consequently, clients who saw them as only status symbols undermined chefs’ views of themselves as skilled workers and as social equals to clients. Danny, for instance, said that some clients hire him because ‘they want good food’ or ‘have some kind of a special need’, but others hire him ‘simply for the status … for the look of somebody that’s gonna show up in a nice, pressed white jacket’. Danny might oppose this behavior on principle, but he also disliked being used to display or gain status. From his experience, the status-seekers tended to treat him ‘like staff’, expecting him to be ‘seen but not heard, or not spoken to’. Danny saw himself as a professional chef, not ‘staff’.

Viewing himself as a social equal to his clients might have also shaped his feelings towards status-seekers. Danny described clients who, in contrast to the status-seekers, insist that he sit down, have a glass of wine, and chat with party guests, or those who hug him before he leaves. Some people consider him ‘an extension of their family. And that’s really nice’, he said. Rather than stemming solely from a desire to claim superiority to clients, Danny’s opposition to status-seekers seems also motivated by a desire for mutual recognition of personhood with clients and distinction from subordinate household workers. As Sherman (2015) shows, independent semiprofessionals like these chefs tend to be more inclined to help and ‘care for’ clients than to serve and ‘cater to’ them.

Monitoring and evaluating the motivations that clients have for hiring them is one way the chefs negotiate their ambiguous position. Their uncertain standing, in fact, might help to explain why some of the chefs made these sorts of evaluations, whereas the personal concierges that Sherman (2010, 2015) studied did not. Personal concierges, whose services can include things like picking up dry cleaning and shopping for gifts, work hard to convince potential clients that they are entitled to their services, no matter their motivations (Sherman, 2010). Though Sherman (2015) argues that personal concierges have a greater struggle for legitimacy than workers like personal chefs, I think that in some ways the chefs’ position is more ambiguous. The chefs more closely resemble traditional domestic workers than do personal concierges, who usually refuse to do any food or cleaning work and whose work is not focused as exclusively within homes. Chefs’ concern with clients’ motivations, in contrast to personal concierges’ lack of concern, may reflect this greater ambiguity and need for self-verification.

Drawing boundaries against the wealthy, wasteful, or status-seeking did not stop the chefs from invoking their cultural capital. The next section examines the cultural (and implicitly moral) boundaries that some private/personal chefs drew between themselves and clients.

Judgments of Taste and Disposition

Like other service providers, private/personal chefs must carefully walk the line between satisfying their clients and ‘educating’ their clients (thereby satisfying themselves) (Corrado, 2002; Fine, 1996; Gimlin, 1996; Sherman, 2007). Many of the chefs I interviewed prided themselves on their willingness to please their clients. Nevertheless, most also were clear about what foods they thought were best, whether or not they expressed these views to clients.

The chefs’ cultural boundary work reflected their definitions of good food. In general, they defined good food as healthy food prepared with fresh (and often organic, local, and/or seasonal) ingredients. But ‘good food is frequently constructed to meet both aesthetic and moral criteria’ (Johnston and Baumann, 2010: 129). Just like their socioeconomic and antisocioeconomic boundaries, cultural boundaries also often had moral undertones.

The boundaries that Jennifer drew positioned her as superior to certain employers. She told me about leaving a job after being asked to fry Spam for the kids. ‘It was just too much of a conflict’, she said. ‘I can’t in good conscience feed your kids that food’. Her employer claimed to want healthy food made from scratch, but she instead bought processed convenience foods for her kids.

The wife goes to the store because she wants to buy her kids some treats. Oscar Myer Lunchables, Jell-O pudding packs, gummy bears, Ho-Hos, I mean, a 7-Eleven. You’re like … what? I’m supposed to cook from scratch and you’re feeding your kids frozen lasagna and garlic bread? […] Plus because then I just get into this whole moral crusade, because it’s like what are you feeding your children?

Concern for the health and wellbeing of children came up in several other chefs’ remarks. Children are, after all, a rallying point for moral crusades about food (Cairns et al., 2013; Rousseau, 2012).

Jennifer’s boundary work may have also been a response to the challenge that such an employer posed to her view of herself as a trained professional, someone who is able to ‘cook restaurant food at home’. When a former employer referred to her as ‘hired help’, Jennifer remembered thinking, ‘What the heck? I’m doing something you can’t. I’m a hired professional, alright?’ By emphasizing her training and skill, Jennifer differentiated herself from employers but also from unskilled service providers. If, by her estimation, an employer lacks discerning tastes, then recognition of that skill may be missing.

Cultural boundaries were also drawn regarding how clients thought or felt about food. Some chefs expressed a preference for clients who love food and have what Bourdieu (1984) calls an ‘aesthetic disposition’ towards it – people known contemporarily as ‘foodies’ (Johnston and Baumann, 2010). Someone with an aesthetic disposition towards food cares less about its functional value than its potential ‘as a topic for serious aesthetic consideration, deliberation, and appreciation’ (Johnston and Baumann, 2010: 58).

Thirty-two-year-old Lauren, a personal chef, drew boundaries concerning her clients’ approach to food. Her ideal client was ‘a person who loves food and loves to eat’. She described one of her favorite clients as a couple who really valued her service and loved collaborating with her to create their menus. ‘I have the most success with my clients who it’s not just an afterthought, like “Oh we need a chef”, but “How great that we have a chef! Like that’s so fun”, you know?’, she said. Lauren did not want clients who love to eat any type of food, however. She wanted people ‘who are willing to pay a little bit more for ingredients that are of higher quality [and] that are concerned about the things that [she is] concerned about, like organic, local, the nutritional values’. Lauren’s preferred clients evaluate food according to the same aesthetic and ethical criteria that she does.

‘By pleasing the customer, [chefs] deny the validity of their own standards. The legitimacy of their aesthetic standards are invalidated by external demands’ (Fine, 1996: 185). Clients who treat food like an afterthought and are not concerned about health or sustainability undermine Lauren’s view of herself as someone who has ‘a pretty well-developed sense of what is good for you’. The potential threat to self-verification posed by these clients concerns her position and knowledge with respect to clients as well as other workers.

Antonio similarly wanted employers who ‘appreciate’ food instead of treating it as ‘just something that they need to eat to survive’.

I did catering in this beautiful home in [city in the Central Coast region], people were really wealthy, and they have a refrigerator full of frozen stuff … And you know, once and a while they have a party in their house, and they’re trying to show off, but food for them is just, something. You know, it’s not important. And some clients, they – they love it! You know it’s important, they go to farmers’ market and shop everything organic, everything fresh.

Antonio contrasted people for whom food is not ‘important’ (as indicated by their stockpile of frozen food) with those who appreciate fresh, local, and organic food. Unsurprisingly, he preferred to work for the latter type. I asked if he would rather work for someone who appreciates food (but treats him poorly) or someone who treats him really well (but does not necessarily ‘appreciate’ food). According to Antonio, confronting that choice is unlikely because people who like food are generally ‘good people’. He assured me that he was not saying that ‘finicky people’ are ‘bad people’, but he did believe that ‘it’s kinda impossible to find a person who likes food that is [a] bad person’.

Antonio wanted his clients to respect his creativity and his food. In his eyes, the best compliment for a chef is being granted total creative freedom. The notion of an isolated and fully autonomous individual artist is a culturally and historically specific construction (Inglis, 2005). Nevertheless, producing ‘art for art’s sake’, beholden to no external pressures, is what many see as the mark of a true artist (Bourdieu, 1993: 40). A client who does not love food may not see cooking as a work of creativity, nor Antonio as a creative cultural producer.

By drawing boundaries between themselves and clients who have ‘bad’ taste or lack an aesthetic disposition, chefs like Antonio distanced themselves from those who were less likely (at least in theory) to verify their self-conceptions. Antonio, admittedly a ‘food snob’, defined himself in contrast to those for whom food is not ‘important’. But his boundary work also affirmed his position as a producer of cultural goods, not simply material ones – an artist, not simply a manual or domestic laborer.

Boundary Work and the Reproduction of Inequalities

This article has proposed a new way to think about mechanisms activating symbolic boundaries, but up until now it has said little about the implications of said boundaries. Framing boundaries in terms of morality, as often occurred in the chefs’ boundary work, works to legitimize and transform personal evaluations into seemingly objective, universal truths (Lamont, 2000). The effects of these evaluations are somewhat mixed, suggesting some challenges to, yet also some reproduction of, social inequalities.

Indicating opposition to wealthy and status-seeking clients, and also those with ‘bad’ taste, the chefs’ boundary work reveals a tension between ideologies of ‘democracy’ and ‘distinction’ (Johnston and Baumann, 2010). The chefs were critical of waste and status-seeking behavior, though criticisms were mostly waged against clients, rather than against the unequal distribution of wealth in the United States. Some chefs preferred clients who ‘needed’ their service, but most still often overlooked many individuals who might have benefited from their service but could not afford it. Regarding their cultural boundaries, what is considered ‘good’ food is usually what the elite think is good (Bourdieu, 1984). Fresh, organic, and locally-grown food, for instance, is most accessible and affordable for white, middle-to-upper-class populations (populations to which many of the chefs belonged) (Guthman, 2008; Slocum, 2007). Moreover, the distance from practical concerns that characterizes an aesthetic disposition is ‘a distinctive expression of a privileged position in social space’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 56).

This article has focused on boundaries drawn between chefs and their clients. However, I have argued that ‘bad’ clients also threatened chefs’ self-conceptions as workers. They drew boundaries between themselves and clients who challenged their self-views as valuable and skilled service providers. They did not want to be seen as unskilled food workers or domestic workers. By distancing themselves from those less prestigious workers, the chefs reinforced the devaluation of household care work, along with the devaluation of the workers – often women of color – who perform it (see Hendley, forthcoming b).

Conclusion

In this article I have shown how private and personal chefs, workers ambiguously positioned between high- and low-status work, negotiate their standing by drawing symbolic boundaries between themselves and their clients. Differentiating between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ clients, some chefs drew boundaries, often with moral implications, regarding clients’ wealth, waste, status-seeking, and taste in and/or approach to food. These boundaries implicitly distinguished the chefs from those clients they disliked.

I have argued, however, that rather than simply striving to demonstrate superiority to clients, the chefs were motivated by a desire for self-verification. Their evaluations, in other words, may have been in response to client behavior that somehow suggested that they did not see the chefs as the chefs saw themselves. The chefs wanted recognition – professional recognition, personal recognition (see Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001), or some combination of the two.

Boundary work is not always motivated by a desire for self-verification, nor was that necessarily the sole motive for the chefs. Indeed, demonstrating superiority was likely still an intention, but superiority to whom? Certain clients were disliked because they challenged the chefs’ views of themselves as skilled and valuable workers – as artists or professionals, for example. These self-views concerned their position in relation to other workers, not just to their clients.

By applying social psychological theories on identity and self-verification to the study of boundaries, this article provides a unique perspective on workers’ struggle for self-worth and shows how both internal and external forces may shape the boundaries drawn. I have argued that boundaries can be shaped by self-views and motivated by a desire for verification of those self-views. But I have also suggested that particular structural conditions (e.g. private/personal chefs’ tenuous social and professional standing) might foster this desire for self-verification as well as evaluations of clients based on this desire. It is an empirical question as to how varying motives for boundary work might compare in other occupations. Future research might explore whether boundaries motivated by a desire to claim superiority are more common among workers with a clearer occupational standing. Sociological studies of culture are fundamentally about meaning (Alexander, 2003; Spillman, 2002), so thinking more broadly about the meaning, motives, or mechanisms behind boundary work is a worthwhile endeavor.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the chefs who participated in this research, as well as the United States Personal Chef Association for their cooperation. She is also thankful for the excellent feedback provided by Maria Charles, John Mohr, Alicia Cast, Kimberly Nettles-Barcelón, Heather Hurwitz, Deidre Redmond, the anonymous reviewers, and the editor, David Inglis.

Funding

The author received support for this research in the form of two departmental research grants from the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Notes

Author biography

Alexandra Hendley is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Murray State University. Her general research interests are in gender, work, culture, and education. Her scholarly work has appeared in International Studies in Sociology of Education, Sport, Education and Society, Sociological Inquiry, and Teaching Sociology.

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