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This book reveals some of why that was the case, giving insights into the tv production process here and there. This book is much more akin to what No Reservations has become - a show about exploring food and foreign cultures and being open to learning and experiencing new things in the world.This book is at times moving (the chapter in France - if you've lost a parent, you'll feel the same way) funny and always interesting. I'm a huge Bourdain fan. However, what I love about this book is that it has a soul and is revealing and emotional in ways that Food Network probably wasn't interested in. A great read, which I've returned to many times over the years. Kitchen Confidential is one of my favorite books of all time. His initial foray into TV on the Food Network was ok at best.
The small, dark, chewy nugget can only be described as tasting like salt-cured, sun-dried goat rectum".Throughout the book, Bourdain maintains his wry, sarcastic sense of humor, possibly as a survival tool to get him through his next meal. I for one would not be able to eat the traditional Vietnamese breakfast of soft-boiled duck embryo complete with feathers, followed by a steaming bowl of "chao muk", a hearty soup made from ginger, sprouts, cilantro, shrimp, squid, chives, pork-blood cake, and croutons; later Tony enjoyed some braised bat ("imagine braised inner tube, sauced with engine coolant"). After the natto, Bourdain finished with a dish described as "mountain potato": of this he said, "I could only handle a single taste. While Vietnam takes the proverbial cake, the book features other gastronomic nightmares from around the globe, with Japan coming in second in the contest for unusual and disturbing foodstuffs.
"A Cook's Tour" by the wonderfully worldly and well-traveled Anthony Bourdain, is a book about food like no other, and it is simultaneously entertaining, exciting, and revolting. He mocks a vegan potluck dinner as the "real heart of darkness", discusses fabled and exotic foods such as the unbelievably rank durian fruit, and always manages to do it while being respectful of local traditions and cultures very different from his existence in New York City. To this day, I have no idea what it really was. Tony travels the world in search of the perfect meal; it's an exciting quest for any chef to ponder, but along the way he comes across numerous local delicacies that can be best described as only for the strong of heart.
The foodie tour of Japan started out benignly enough, with an appetizer of "amuse-gueule of hoshigaka goma-an" (dried persimmon and fried soy curd with sesame paste), but quickly progressed to things like "suppon-dofu" (a soft-shell turtle in egg pudding with green onion and turtle broth), and culminated in the classic and beloved Japanese delicacy, "natto", which Bourdain describes as "an unbelievably foul, rank, slimy, glutinous, and stringy goop of fermented soybeans". This is a great book for anyone interested in foods and cultures of the world, and I recommend it highly. Although he encounters several problems with dishes from around the world (the Mexican sautéed ant eggs and Scottish deep-fried haggis with curry sauce and deep fried egg stand out), the most stunning for my money are the things he eats in Asia, and especially Vietnam. Even worse than that, though, is the concept of eating a still-beating cobra heart, after a very special snake disemboweling ceremony.
Often there is is drunkenness & there is the occasional oblilgatory inspired by the producers moment of Eat-This-Weird-Thing-While-We-Film-You-It'll-Be-Great-Remember-We're-Paying. This was good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as Kitchen Confidential. That's okay, but the notion of hunting down the perfect meal has an appeal to me & led me to expect something different. What works as voiceover makes for okay reading, but just okay.
All in all I think that this kind of thing works better as a TV series. Ultimately with travel I want to actually see the place, the food, the people. It was fun to read about his meal at The French Laundry, but I'm not dropping $400-$500 on a meal anytime soon & I much more enjoyed his writing about his adventures in Mexico with the families of some of his cooks from his New York restaurant. Great food also happens at people's houses, from street vendors, down at the local.
It's hard not to love someone who hits the jackpot with a best seller & says to themselves, "Hmmm. It can, but it doesn't happen only there. I've been trying to decide why & I think it's because ultimately this isn't so much a food book as it is a travel book. I like that Bourdain gets that great food doesn't all happen at 5-star restaurants.
If you've seen No Reservations you know the schtick - Tony visits exotic locale, meets interesting people, talks a lot, & eats cool food. Having said all of that, I enjoyed the book. I think I'll see if I can get someone to pay for me to travel around the world eating cool stuff & looking at cool & interesting places." That someone actually did agree to pay for this & that it was the Food Network makes it all the more amusing since he spends much of Kitchen Confidential slagging the Food Netwok & many of its chefs.
I would say that the subtitle of my 2001 edition, "in search of the perfect meal" is slightly inaccurate. The food descriptions are delicious, the stories are shocking and funny (sometimes in a dark way) and the book is terribly hard to put down. A humorous, dark and entertaining read. I see that the 2002 edition was renamed "Global adventures in extreme cuisines." While that may be more accurate, I would say that the book is more of a personal journey for Tony. I loved it will probably tear through a few more Bourdain books. After becoming obsessed with his travel channel show "No Reservations" I was drawn to delve deeper into the depths of Mr. Bourdain's twisted brain.
If you already have this book, read it once and then (you will anyway) give it away and move on to a different author. It just doesn't measure up to the standards set by any other foodie book I've ever encountered.Pick another at random and you'll have a more enjoyable and more educational read. This book doesn't evoke hunger, or foodie delight. It's a semi-abashed (because he's traveling with a camera crew, and has to cooperate) account of him going around the world seeking food without often finding it.This is not a terrible book.
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