Anthony Bourdain has not been to Asheville recently, despite rumors to the contrary. But he has a vague understanding of what we’re about from a previous trip years ago for a book-signing. “I remember this hip island of enlightenment,” says Bourdain, who doesn’t recall much else about the visit, including the date.
And while some may choose to attribute that lapse in memory to Bourdain’s purportedly high-partying lifestyle in years past, it’s more likely that it can be pinned on the fact that the chef-turned-writer has been, quite simply, just about everywhere you want to be — and plenty of places where you might not.
Bourdain is coming to Asheville again on Saturday, Nov 5, this time to talk about food and travel, and how life in general relates to both. He took more than a few minutes out of his day to chat with Xpress from the back of a car taking him from New York City to Waterbury, Conn. He lost reception several times (lucky for us, he was game about being called repeatedly). Bourdain had plenty to say about vegetarianism, food trucks, hunger and mediocrity.
X: I recently read the article — well, drunken rant — in David Chang’s Lucky Peach in which you, Wiley Dusfresne (of wd-50) and David Chang (of Momofuku), are all basically bitching and drinking. Was that as fun as it seemed?
TB: I wish that all of my interviews or articles were as easy to do and as much fun. It was basically me, Dave [Chang] and Wiley [Dufresne] and all of us were in Spain for Gastronomica. We sat down in this little bar with some tapas and some Spanish wine and had a free and frank argument. It was a lot of fun.
In the beginning of the article, you state, “I’m an expert in mediocrity.” Explain.
Dave and Wiley are two chefs who, their whole careers, cooked at a completely different level. Wiley has always, very heroically, sought always to do the hard thing. He’s worked with nothing but the best people and he’s maintained a restaurant and a menu that asked a lot of questions and is, in a lot of ways, challenging to the dining public. Dave Chang is fanatically dedicated to perfection, I think to the detriment of his own health.
I’m a guy who got famous writing about my life, not for my career, necessarily. I’m a guy who banged around — a journeyman cook. I’ve never had a career like either of those guys, and I’m quite sure that, even though we’re friends, neither of them would have ever employed me.
In the same article, you allude to the fact that you hate hippies. How fast are you going to want to get the hell out of Asheville?
I don’t hate hippies. I was a hippie. I like hippies — as long as they have a good work ethic.
What was it like for you slowly moving out of the kitchen and into the spotlight as an icon and entertainer?
There was no slow transition; it happened almost overnight. It just took me a while to realize that it had changed. One minute I was standing there broke and uninsured, desperately in debt, and the next, I was a best-selling author with the world as my oyster. It took me a while to realize it, but I tried to grab hold of the situation the best that I could. And I continue to try to not screw it up.
Do you miss the kitchen?
I miss the camaraderie … I miss being a part of a faceless horde. There’s a security in that.
Being famous involves a complete loss of privacy. That must, at times, drive you pretty crazy.
You know, you give something up, but you get so much, particularly in my case. It’s not like I have to go to work at some television studio and make some happy horse-shit, over-caffeinated television. I might have to sign an autograph [while] running through an airport looking for a bathroom, but on the other hand, I get to travel anywhere I want in the world and create these self-indulgent shows with friends without any creative interference from the network. I get to hang out with people that I’ve hero-worshiped for years. I’m having a lot of fun. I cannot complain that, oh, it’s so tough being famous. Compared to working a really busy brunch at a restaurant you hate at the pancake and waffle station, you know, life is pretty f***ing good.
The poached eggs — that’s what always got me.
I kind of liked poached eggs. It was the garnishes and the omelets — the spilled omelet that would cake on the stovetop and the spillage that would cook soufflé-like throughout the shift. That smell. The smell of old steam-table water. The sticky strawberry fans and orange twists. Fruit salad — I hated that shit.
Frank Bruni from the New York Times sort of took you to task over your criticizing of Paula Deen for basically stuffing an already obese America with butter and lard. He said you were a culinary elitist. What do you think of Bruni’s assertion?
I guess what I have to say to that is, it’s bullshit. This notion that there’s “red-state/blue-state” food is far more elitist than anything I could have said. I’m in the business of championing street food and indigenous food all over the world; most of what I eat on my show and most of the food that I love most is made by poor people for poor people. Even the food that we eat in restaurants now — this super-chic, nose-to-tail — these are all dishes and recipes that were developed by hard-working people with very little time and very few resources.
This notion that we should just abandon the underclass and the working poor to the predations of Paula Deen and Ronald McDonald is offensive. I think he just missed the point. Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean it’s any more acceptable to put a bacon-cheeseburger with an egg on top between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There’s nothing socio-economic about that. To suggest that Paula Deen, who’s whacking people $28 for a grouper, and actually more for a steak than I did at my restaurant, is somehow the champion of the underclass, well, I would disagree with that.
It’s not as though you’re a stranger to pork fat, or you spend all of your time nibbling on vegetables.
I’m not even an advocate of health for healthy living! There’s a line beyond which we move beyond good taste. I hasten to add that my show comes with a parental advisory.
Do you think that hers should?
I think that it inevitably will. I think that, as the health of our nation declines, I think that, legislatively we’re moving in the direction where they’re going to start treating food like that, and shows that celebrate over-the-top, novelty, super-high calorie, super-processed food, that’s going to have to come with a warning label, just like the cigarette packs do. I wish we wouldn’t reach that point, but I think we’re going to.
When cities are banning trans-fats and parental advisory labels are being slapped on movies for smoking and drinking, I think you’re probably right.
Yeah. As a libertarian in a lefty sense, as a person who feels strongly about personal liberties and choices, it offends me to think that any regulatory body would have the power to step in and tell you what you can and can’t put in your mouth. It’s a fundamental decision you think we’d be left alone [to make] … But there’s nothing funny or ironic about diabetes.
Or hunger, for that matter. In A Cook’s Tour, you detail some pretty intense scenes of just that. One that struck me was when you met a horribly scarred beggar in Saigon while globetrotting and stuffing yourself sick. Did this experience change you for the long-term in any way?
It was the first of many, many moments over the years of traveling now where reality intrudes in a really powerful and uncomfortable way, where you realize that what you are doing is not that important, where it comes home to you how charmed and lucky [your] life is. And since that time, I’ve been in a lot of situations where I’ve seen devastated populations. Beirut in 2006 would come up as an obvious example where really appalling, horrifying things suddenly happened to very nice people in a seemingly arbitrary way, and I’ve seen that a lot over the years.
I’m a conflicted guy to start with — I don’t know if I’m clinically bipolar, but I certainly try to look at both sides of an argument and I can shift really quickly from feeling strongly one way to feeling very strongly about another on a dime. I’m used to having the air taken out of the room by a simple thing.
I try very hard to not let politics intrude into what is essentially supposed to be a show about how people eat and what makes them happy as it relates to food. But sitting in the mountains in Laos near the Plain of Jars, my host is missing two limbs. It’s worth asking the question, “Gee how’d that happen?” And when he tells me that, ‘Well, all those millions of bomblets you guys left behind at the end of the war, well apparently you didn’t get all of them, and I was plowing my field a few years back even though I was a kid during the war and I lost my limbs … ’ It’s a sad fact, and there it is. It’s not necessarily an indictment of American politics in Southeast Asia, but it’s worth thinking about — and it’s certainly worth mentioning when something that obvious is right there in front of you.
Food is important, and I guess that, increasingly over the past few years, the show is sometimes as much about what the people aren’t eating as much as what they are eating.
On a lighter note: Final meal? Is it still bone marrow?
These days, actually, I think I’d go for one piece of sushi — I’ve had a lot of bone marrow over the years. One nigiri of really good, high-test sushi rice made by a master, really good seaweed and some good sea-urchin roe.
I asked a few chefs in town if they wanted to ask you a question. Katie Button, the chef of Cúrate, where your book signing is going to be, posed this question: Many chefs absorb themselves in their work. Is it possible to be a great chef and balance family, life and work? Can you have it all — and if so, how do you do it?
I don’t think you can. I don’t know of any chef that’s ever been able to do it, honestly. To be a great chef? I mean, a really top-flight, national-profile respected as being at the top of your game — somebody’s going to pay the price there. Not just you, the people that love you, the people that count on you. You can’t be a fully formed personality and maintain the kind of hours necessary and the kind of focus [it requires]. I know a lot of chefs with really happy marriages, but they’re not normal marriages, and everybody understood going in that somebody’s taking a secondary role to say the least. Somebody loses in the end. An enormous sacrifice is called for.
Nate Kelly, who operates The Low Down food truck asks: What’s your opinion on food trucks?
Any alternative to the conventional American fast food is a good thing. I see food trucks as an alternative to McDonald’s, so that alone is a great thing. You’re creating a market for individually owned and operated businesses serving, presumably, fast, cheap and delicious [food] — that’s a positive thing. A lot of cities are fighting back. They don’t like these trucks and see them as a threat to brick-and-mortar; they don’t like the health aspects … and there’s the likelihood that as we reach some sort of hipster fission, the bad guys will get in. You will see an Olive Garden food truck; it’s inevitable. But for the time being, I think it’s a really positive thing. I love them, I think they’re valuable, and they provide an opportunity for a lot of entrepreneurial chefs to do a lot of interesting things. They are so many examples of that around the country, particularly in Austin, L.A. and San Francisco, where they’ve been very supportive of the trucks.
Adam Bannasch of Zambra asked: What’s your favorite American food city?
It’s gotta be New York. I’m a New Yorker, and that’s where all of my friends are cooking. There’s just so much of it. We benefit from having many people of different incomes that are able to support so many different types of restaurants and so many large ethnic populations from all over the world, large enough to support restaurants that are cooking for them, not some Western concept of what Thai or Chinese or Japanese or Korean should be like.
Plant’s Jason Sellers wants to know if you would be willing to visit his vegan restaurant to “quell some of that open animosity with some open-mindedness.”
Listen, I’m perfectly OK with vegetarians practicing whatever they want to do. I just think they make for bad travelers. That’s what pisses me off. If you’re eating vegan for religious reasons, fine. What you do in your home — or hometown even — in the industrialized world, I’m OK with that. That’s your personal choice. I think the notion that you can travel — and I’m not talking about Rome or Paris, of course you can call ahead and say, “do you have any vegetarian options?” You can’t do that in the developing world without offending people … It’s awkward and hurtful to go to grandma’s house and turn down the turkey. I just see it as rude and incurious.
Anthony Cerrato (Fiore’s), an Italian chef from Nutley, N.J., would like to know how growing up in New Jersey affected your palate.
I lived really close to New York City, we looked at from the cliffs. It created a yearning for New York and a mystery and a magic about the place — it was always the focus of my desires. That was where the good stuff was. At the time when I grew up, it was sort of the Mad Men era, there wasn’t much good food, if any good food in Jersey, really. It was just bad, pedestrian southern Italian.
Suzy Phillips (Gypsy Queen Cuisine) would like to know: What are your guilty pleasures as far as food is concerned that you don’t like to admit?
The macaroni and cheese at Popeye’s … I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I crave that shit every now and again, but that’s my most shameful guilty pleasure.
It seems like you and Paula Deen could probably get together on that one.
Yeah. Processed cheese and overcooked pasta. Yeah.
Great interview. Too bad he can’t be in town a day earlier for the Offal Dinner.
Really a great interview, Mackensy. Good questions, good answers.
Love The Anthony!
Thank you very much! I’ve been a fan of his for a while, so I certainly had a few questions in mind.
Awesome interview. I’m with him on the vegetarians and travel.
He calls vegetarianism rude? What’s rude is that while many children in Western NC go hungry, couples are paying $500 to dine with Bourdain. And we wonder why some say “eat the rich!”
The evening
Here’s an article from this week’s Atlantic that I hope open-minded people will read:
“Only When Meat Is Stigmatized Will Factory Farms Stop Thriving”
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/10/only-when-meat-is-stigmatized-will-factory-farms-stop-thriving/247139/
Factory farms are indeed bad. Not all meat must come from factory farms. Removing meat from one’s diet does not necessarily mean your food does nto come from a factory farm.
Here’s an article highlighting the recent UN-report announcing small-scale farming, which includes animal husbandry in a closed-loop system, is more appropriate for regional communities than top-down, grain and legume-based monoculture advocated by those such as yourself:
http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf
And, here are my quotes for the day:
“The denial of rights to other animals by humans (speciesism) is analogous to the denial of rights to lesbians and gay men by heterosexuals (heterosexism). Both these forms of oppression derive from a prejudiced and chauvinistic mentality which devalues ‘difference’ and ‘otherness.’ Likewise, animals deserve rights for much the same reason that lesbians and gay men deserve rights. All human and non-human animals have a shared capacity for feelings. This recognition gives society the moral obligation to confer the right to be spared physical and psychological suffering on all animals, irrespective of their species, race, sex, class, disability or sexual orientation.” Peter Tatchell, cofounder of ACT-UP London and OutRage
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.”
Leo Tolstoy
As long as humanity continues to be the ruthless destroyer of other beings, we will never know health or peace. For as long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
–Pythagoras
“The denial of rights to other animals by humans (speciesism) is analogous to the denial of rights to lesbians and gay men by heterosexuals (heterosexism). Both these forms of oppression derive from a prejudiced and chauvinistic mentality which devalues ‘difference’ and ‘otherness.’ Likewise, animals deserve rights for much the same reason that lesbians and gay men deserve rights. All human and non-human animals have a shared capacity for feelings. This recognition gives society the moral obligation to confer the right to be spared physical and psychological suffering on all animals, irrespective of their species, race, sex, class, disability or sexual orientation.” Peter Tatchell, cofounder of ACT-UP London and OutRage
Wow. So homosexuals that eat meat are what?
responding to Orbit DVD’s comment, “Wow. So homosexuals that eat meat are what?”
They are hypocrites. They want to be treated with respect, which they, of course, deserve. But they won’t offer respect to others who are “different” than them. When they choose to eat animals, they buy into “might makes right.”
“As long as human beings go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a la Hitler and concentration camps a la Stalin. There will be no justice as long as a man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor
Why are you trying to ram your hobby horse into issues that have no connection, resulting in utter absurdity?
Comparing people who eat meat to Nazis is beyond absurd. It’s disgusting.
As probably the crappiest vegetarian of my own acquaintance (because I do eat meat when not doing it would cause more social hassles than I’m up for, including dinner with the folks), I can’t go all the way either way here. But what I can say is
a) if Bourdain did eat at Plant, he’d get some wicked good food;
b) the “bad travelers” thing is a new revision of some probably-careless statements from way back for which Bourdain took a lot of pretty-well-justified criticism: he used to say (as in Kitchen Confidential) that vegetarianism was turning its back on real enjoyment of food…which is why he’d have a nice surprise at Plant; and
b) if we’re seriously talking about “the developing world”, a whole lot of it is already vegetarian or semi-vegetarian. Not entirely by choice, probably, in most cases–but when you’re really down there financially, meat is money. It gets sold to richer people. A festive dish might have a hock in with the beans. So my sense is that my vegan friends can travel pretty comfortably to the rural and impoverished areas of the world, and that this isn’t really about Grandma or rudeness.
Just saying.
You are mistaken if you believe that regions of the world that are poor are generally ‘vegan’. Eschewing animal products is generally a wealthy trend. The poor know they must extract nutrition from whatever sources available, and rarely make such bourgeois distinctions in source.
Have you ever actually traveled the world to test your theories of how the ‘poor’ eat?
just saying…
Well…that would be why I said “vegetarian or semi-vegetarian”, not “vegan.” And you don’t have to travel very far–not even out of the country or this region–to find a lot of rural people who sell any meat they raise rather than eating it.
Slow down, y’all. Please focus on the interview and respect each other’s points of view.
Stewart, I reckon I’m just an ol’ Southern homosexual hypocrite, though I’m sure I eat less meat than my forebears (or than another celebrity chef, Paula Deen, advocates. Of course, she generally says that everything’s better with a big pat of butter.)
You are the guys giving him the platform so he can compare meat eaters to homophobes and Nazis.
A little clue for you, Stewart David. Most of the food eaten in this world does not come from the factory farms you so denounce and from which you extrapolate amazingly erroneous diatribes.
CONFLATIONISM of unlike paradigms (thanks, piffy, wherever you are) works only so far, Stewart, in furthering your personal agenda of meat bad, veggies good.
It would serve you well, Stewart, to watch an Anthony Bourdain show sometime, or even his more extreme companion what’s-his-name with the bald head.
OK. Enough. Get back to your beef with Bourdain (the real topic of this interview).
I have no beef with Anthony Bourdain or this interview. In fact, I like Bourdain’s show and I like the interview by your food person Mackensy, which I said so above, but does that really mean that I must roll over and bare my throat when Stewart David pounces with multiple diatribes and linkages about factory farms, which had absolutely nothing to do with the Bourdain interview?
This speaks volumes regarding what kind of person Mr. Bourdain is. Jason Sellers is not only a great vegan chef, he’s a great guy. He’s apparently read some of the nasty things Bourdain has said about vegetarians and vegans, so he asks if Bourdain would be willing to visit his vegan restaurant (Plant) to quell some of that open animosity with some open-mindedness.”
So how does Mr. Bourdain respond to Jason’s kind offer to come over for dinner and sit a spell and talk? He doesn’t even acknowledge the invitation, he just continues to make disparaging comments about vegetarians.
Bourdain seems to think we should partake in the local customs when in other countries so that we don’t offend people. Would he eat human flesh among cannibals? Everyone draws the line somewhere as to what they feel is and is not ethical behavior. It just seems like Bourdain could offer the same respect to vegetarians and vegans that he does to indigenous people. Sure, vegetarianism/veganism may not be a religion, but it is a belief system based on non-violence.
And, as I said before, he could at least politely accept or decline a dinner invitation rather than ignore it and then be hostile. Where are his manners?
More and more people in WNC are going to bed hungry, and I think Bourdain’s visit exemplifies the disparity in our society. Does anyone else find it discomforting that couples are paying $500 to dine with him while so many go hungry?
Does anyone else find him arrogant and the whole “foodie” thing just a bit pretentious?
I’m curious. Those of you who are fans of his, what, exactly, do you like about him? I don’t watch much TV and have never seen his show. Does he swear this much on TV?
You’re welcome, Mackensy. I saw your “thank you” on the home page although it looks like it won’t show up here. Is there a hidden Bourdain thread somewhere?
I replied to your post up above, but you may have notifications disabled(?)
I guess the Mountain Xpress posting rules, at least with Margaret in charge, are pretty clear…
Her pal Stewart David can post with abandon, calling those he disagrees with immoral murderers and even comparing people who eat animal foods to Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, but if I respond with a fact based post, without comparing anyone to Hitler, my post will be blocked.
Great policy. Really fair. So sensible. You should be proud of yourself.
Stewart, I have to confess (though I’m a bit of a Food Network junkie) that Bourdain isn’t one of my faves. The first food show I ever watched was “Two Fat Ladies” (two large British women who were charmingly tongue in cheek, unapologetic meat eaters and gourmands).
No, wait, actually, the first food show that cracked me up was that Cajun guy … Justin Wilson. Oh, and I loved old episodes of Julia Child, which I watched late at night during my college days (when I wasn’t watching late-night kung-fu theater).
But here I show my age. Food television has evolved, and Bourdain is part of that mix. How fascinating about our culture that chefs can become celebrities. But I’ll note that Mackensy has reminded me that the really good chefs go unnoticed but by a very few.
Stewart, I can’t speak for everyone else on why they like Bourdain, but here’s why I do: When I was a young line cook in my early 20s and writing in my spare time, Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential, proved to me that someone could write about food from the “inside.” In other words, you don’t have to be a wealthy, affected, effete snob who spends lavish amounts of money on top-tier meals to be able to enjoy
Stewart, it seems rather useless for anyone to try to discuss anything with someone who has no prior knowledge of the subject, i.e. your having already castigated the Anthony Bourdain television series without ever having seen it, but since you asked, I will summarize why I like the show.
It is not your mama
I don’t think Bourdain is showing any animosity towards the people who own Plant or vegetarians/vegans in general. I think he is simply stating that “when in Rome, eat like the Romans do” especially if it’s the Romans offering it up to you themselves. Let’s face it, this is a man who has eaten foods like fermented shark in Norway and warthog rectum in Namibia.
I like Anthony Bourdain and his show. Some parts of his comments might offend some, but he isn’t twisting your TV remote finger to watch his show. In a way, it is like watching the History channel because I always learn somthing, the most important being how insignificant I am in the world perspective. He is always courteous in his visits to foreign countries and if he did offend his hosts, I thing he would be mortified. He is who he is and that is good thing in the countries he visits where Americans are NOT thought well of.
Do you think Bourdain’s views on food and travel can help bridge cultural divides and promote understanding and empathy among different communities around the world?”,
“refusal