Ater co-authoring a study showing that many kitchen staffers have come to view mistreatment and abuse as a mundane—and often inevitable—part of working in restaurants, University of Hawaiʻi Hilo Sociology Professor Ellen Meiser is the newly published author of Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen.
“I’ve written the book for a broad audience—not just sociology nerds, like me—with the goal of it appealing to anyone interested in cooking and how the culinary industry works,” she said.
Originally from Alaska, Meiser arrived at UH Mānoa as a graduate student in 2012 and learned to DJ at KTUH before earning her PhD in Sociology in 2021. She applied her graduate research to Making It, flying across the country to interview more than 50 chefs and cooks.
“I grew up in restaurants. My first job was when I was 13 at a family friend’s Chinese buffet back home in Alaska, and I was hooked by the fast-paced environment and how hands-on the work was. After high school, I went to culinary school and my dream was always to open my own place—something I still dream about today,” Meiser said. “When it came to figuring out a setting to study to explore success, averageness and failure, my mind went to cooks and chefs because of how artistic, yet cut-throat the restaurant industry can be, as well as my connection to this group of workers.”
She designed her graduate study to make better sense of concepts of success, averageness and failure in creative industries that also have commercial pressures.
Meiser said, “This book looks at how chefs and cooks judge and perceive the success-failure spectrum within their profession, and the various elements that impact it.”
Meiser said many people at UH have been hugely influential to her career. She credits her PhD advisor, Professor David Johnson, for encouraging her to “think big,” and for coming up with the name of her book. She has remained close to classmates Penn Pantumsinchai and Omar Bird.
“They are wonderful people, funny and so smart. Penn, Omar and I have a sociology-focused podcast together called The Social Breakdown that we created in 2017, and have had a fun time using it as an excuse to get together, gab and gossip,” Meiser said.
Learn more about Meiser and more outstanding UH Alumni.
