Forget about four-star hotels or luxury spa treatments:
Bourdain is on a mission to illuminate underappreciated and misunderstood
cultures, whether it’s Myanmar or Detroit. He regularly takes viewers to the
sorts of places–Libya, Gaza, Congo–that most Americans know only from grim
headlines about political strife and body counts. Bourdain does all of this
with vivid narrative reporting, stunning visuals, palpable empathy, and a
relentlessly open mind.
As with Bourdain’s previous programs, A Cook’s Tour and the
long-running No Reservations, the premise is simple: he goes somewhere
interesting and hangs out with the locals. “We show up and say, ‘What’s to eat?
What makes you happy?’” Bourdain says. “You’re going to get very Technicolor,
very deep, very complicated answers to those questions. I’m not a Middle East
expert. I’m not an Africa expert. I’m not a foreign-policy wonk. But I see
aspects of these countries that regular journalists don’t. If we have a role,
it’s to put a face on people who you might not otherwise have seen or cared
about.”
— “Anthony
Bourdain Has Become The Future Of Cable News, And He Couldn’t Care Less,”
by Rob Brunner, Fast Company, September 24, 2014.
What do I like to eat after hours? Strange things. Oysters
are my favorite, especially at three in the morning, in the company of my crew.
Focaccia pizza with robiola cheese and white truffle oil is good, especially at
Le Madri on a summer afternoon in the outdoor patio. Frozen vodka at Siberia
Bar is also good, particularly if a cook from one of the big hotels shows up
with beluga. At Indigo, on Tenth Street, I love the mushroom strudel and the
daube of beef. At my own place, I love a spicy boudin noir that squirts blood
in your mouth; the braised fennel the way my sous-chef makes it; scraps from
duck confit; and fresh cockles steamed with greasy Portuguese sausage.
I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the
dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue
to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering
liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and
the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live
and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way
dysfunctional. We’ve all chosen to turn our backs on the nine-to-five, on ever
having a Friday or Saturday night off, on ever having a normal relationship
with a non-cook.
In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of
the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family. It’s a
haven for foreigners—Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Chinese, Senegalese, Egyptians,
Poles. In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón!
chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all
is well.” And you hear “Hey, baboso! Put some more brown jiz on the
fire and check your meez before the sous comes back there and fucks you in
the culo!,” which means “Please reduce some additional demi-glace,
brother, and reëxamine your mise en place, because the sous-chef is concerned
about your state of readiness.”
— “Don’t
Eat Before Reading This,” by Anthony Bourdain, The New Yorker,
April 19, 1999.
Anthony Bourdain, an influential American chef, author, and
television host, died in Strasbourg, France, on Friday June 8, at age 61.
Bourdain, whose rise to fame started with his book, Kitchen
Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, used his influence to
campaign for kitchen workers’ rights and for the marginalized communities he
encountered as part of his television show travels. While he was best known for
his nonfiction, Bourdain also wrote crime and graphic novels.
_____
De LONGREADS, 08/06/2018
Imagen: American Chef Anthony Bourdain in the Liberdade
area of Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Paulo Fridman/Corbis via Getty Images)
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