Review: A Cook's Tour

     Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour gives the reader a glimpse inside the author's mind, as he travels the world in search of the perfect meal. Bourdain keeps the reader intrigued with his natural story telling ability, and his blunt personality. Bourdain has the rare capability to have both the “fight the man” attitude of a 1970's punk rocker, and the literary wisdom of a modern renaissance man. His deep intellect and sharp wit, as well as his ability to adequately portray and critically analyze a culture, its food, and the relation between them, makes his book a joy to read.

    In Anthony's first brave trip to Portugal, he educates the reader on where food really comes from. Months before the trip, Bourdain's coworker at the famous Les Halles in New York, urged him to accompany his family in Portugal for a pig dinner. Anthony agreed, and his friend assured him that a pig was already being fattened for the occasion. When the moment finally came for the dinner to be prepared, the moment of truth arrived. The pig would have to be killed, drained, and cut apart into a variety of slices for different dishes. Viewing this process is something Anthony readily admits he'd rather have missed. But he and his crew were guests at their home, and to not take part in the dirty work, Anthony says, would have been disrespectful. He goes on to describe the brutal act with incredibly vivid detail, ensuring that the reader's stomach turns the same as his did. Once the carnage is over and every bit, and I mean every bit of the pig is salvaged and prepared, dinner is served. Anthony finishes the chapter by sharing a bit of wisdom he gained from the experience, primarily being the understanding of where food really comes from, and how he can never in good conscious waste a piece of meat again.

    The next chapter is titled “Back to the Beach,” where the reader follows Anthony and his younger brother Chris to a small village in France, where the brothers spent summers as kids. They first go to visit the house they used to stay at, to find that very little or nothing had changed. Anthony even wonders if their toy soldiers are still buried in the place he and his brother had buried them thirty years prior. Later in the chapter they go to a nearby bakery in hopes a tasty pastry will take them back to the happier, simpler times of their childhood. Chris is quick to claim the taste is exactly the same, but Anthony isn't convinced. He feels something is missing, but can't quite put his finger on it. After a while of contemplation, he suddenly has an epiphany. The missing piece wasn't the taste of the pastry as he first thought, but it was instead the people he originally enjoyed the pastry with – specifically his father, who had died over a decade ago. He reflects back on earlier in the trip, and how often he had made reference of his dad to his brother, and how he had nearly been driven to hostility in his recollections of childhood. Most of this he felt was due to missing his father. This realization humanizes Anthony for the reader, making him a more relatable voice in the process.

    Through the first half of A Cook's Tour, I have come to better understand and appreciate what Anthony is seeking to do. He claims to merely be looking for the perfect meal, but I believe his efforts are much deeper than that. He is not only educating his audience on the food habits of different cultures, but he is also educating us of the political and historical context behind the foods. This I'm sure, has inspired many of his readers to learn even more about these cultures, and what they eat. I know it's inspired me.   

A Reporter's Kitchen: Review

Whether it's picnics in the gardens of Paris, or cooking for tribes in Morocco, there is very little reporter Jane Kramer hasn't seen or tasted. She is the kind of person who truly embodies what it means to live a life dedicated to food and travel. These two subjects are the driving forces of her writing, and serve as the fuel for her inspiration.

Cooking was not always such a prevalent part of Jane's life however. In her work, “The Reporter's Kitchen” she remembers back to her childhood, and how scarce the culinary knowledge of her household was. Her parents couldn't cook anything worth mentioning, and her brother had only mastered a single simple desert, made only for the sake of impressing a girl. It wasn't until Jane began writing that she also began cooking. She reminisces back to her time at Columbia University, when her free time was mostly centered around good books, good sex, and most importantly, good food. It was then that she began toying with her passions for writing and cooking, finding a way for one to complement the other. Shortly after she began experimenting with this relationship, her work was recognized and she was offered a job, catapulting her into the world of professional writing.

Through the many years in Jane's writing career, she has found time and time again that food and writing are not mutually exclusive experiences, but are instead interdependent of one another. The art form that is cooking, is an emotional and intellectual exercise for her. She has found that something as simple as an aroma or taste can take her back to the place the dish was first had. All at once, she begins to think and feel the way she did at the moment the food first entered her mouth, which in turn brings new perspective and motivation, which then contributes greatly to her writing.

Not all experiences with food are good ones however. Perhaps the most interesting of Jane's many stories concerning food, travel, and writing, is her story in Belfast, Northern Ireland. While in a hotel cooking a pot of cauliflower soup in search of inspiration, a terrorist's bomb exploded, and complete chaos broke out all around her. She and her colleagues now look back on the incident with horror, and she has since refrained from cooking cauliflower soup altogether.

Kramer argues that it is “sensible” to keep one's memories in the kitchen, because “that way they don't crash with the computer.” More than anything, Kramer seems to believe in cooking as a kind of “transcendental” or higher experience, that serves as a medium through which foreign cultures can be understood and unique perspectives gained. This conception of food, travel, and writing has been paramount in her writing process, and has served her well throughout her career.