A Cook's Tour discussion thread

[SusanH]

Here is our discussion thread for A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain.

You can share your thoughts about the book here on this thread at any time during your reading. It would be helpful if you could post in the subject line the chapter you are on in the book. That way, we can open this thread during our reading without being surprised by any spoilers.

Here are some questions to spark discussion, but feel free to ignore them and just post your thoughts on the book! (These questions were chosen from the list on this page.

~Bourdain tastes some pretty exotic dishes in A Cook's Tour -- Tête de veau (calf's face), snake wine, and sheep testicles, to name a few. What is the wildest thing you've ever eaten? What is the thing you've always wanted to try? What is the thing you'd never try no matter what?

~When you travel to other places, how important is trying the cuisine of the region to you? Do you make a point of sampling as much regional food as possible or do you tend to stick to the tried and true, eating at McDonald's more often than not? Where that you've visited has had the best food and why?

~After reading A Cook's Tour -- and from your own personal experience -- what are some basic differences Americans have in their attitude towards food, meals, and eating, compared to people in other countries?

~Is A Cook's Tour more of a travel book, more of a food book, or equal parts both? If you could, would you want to embark upon a globe-trotting adventure similar to Bourdain's? What seemed most appealing and most unappealing about his trip?

~Bourdain makes many of his descriptions of eating good food sound almost like a religious experience. Do you agree that good food can have this effect -- or is it, in the end, just sustenance? If not food, what in your life do you feel this passionately about?

[jennifershepard]

This is going to be fun! Hope to post before I leave for vacation. Then again, I may have the food experience of my life.

[SusanH]

~Bourdain tastes some pretty exotic dishes in A Cook's Tour -- Tête de veau (calf's face), snake wine, and sheep testicles, to name a few. What is the wildest thing you've ever eaten? What is the thing you've always wanted to try?
I don't think I've ever eaten anything too offbeat, or wanted to. The most exotic food I had was in Georgia (former Soviet Republic, not the US State). They have fabulous food with a middle eastern flair.

What is the thing you'd never try no matter what?
When in Russia, I refused to eat tongue after seeing the entire tongue sitting on the table at 7 a.m. It was just too creepy! I refused octopus in France - it just seemed to rubbery and unappealing - and I refused to try tripe because let's face it, that's gross. I wouldn't eat half of what was in this book! I'm just not very adventurous, I'm afraid. I think the least appealing thing I ever ate was at my host family's house in Russia. Marina used to make a really odd dish of doughballs swimming in butter and sugar. Even other Russians had no idea what that was and it was just too heavy and bland. So not wild or exotic, just terrible.

~When you travel to other places, how important is trying the cuisine of the region to you? Do you make a point of sampling as much regional food as possible or do you tend to stick to the tried and true, eating at McDonald's more often than not? Where that you've visited has had the best food and why?
I do enjoy trying local cuisine, but I must admit that after a few months in the south of Russia I was really grateful to reach Moscow and have a slice of pizza that did not include sour cream and peas as standard toppings! I think the best food I had was probably Avignon in the south of France - wonderful fresh ingredients, delicious bread and pastry. It is so difficult in the US to get decent produce, especially where I live right now. I haven't had good summer corn or fruit since we got here. I miss the produce, avocadoes and burritoes in California and the Mennonite and Amish farmers markets in Pennsylvania.

~After reading A Cook's Tour -- and from your own personal experience -- what are some basic differences Americans have in their attitude towards food, meals, and eating, compared to people in other countries?
We focus too much on quantity instead of quality, and our mass production methods lead to very inferior produce and meat. I think the social attitudes towards food vary so much by family and ethnicitythat we can't really generalize.

~Is A Cook's Tour more of a travel book, more of a food book, or equal parts both? If you could, would you want to embark upon a globe-trotting adventure similar to Bourdain's? What seemed most appealing and most unappealing about his trip?
Definitely a combination of travel and food. I enjoyed the travel aspects a bit more, but the food search gave a nice goal for his trips. I wouldn't really want to visit a lot of the places he went to (Cambodia or Viet Nam) but I enjoyed reading about them. Some of what he ate was just revolting to me (the little birds that he ate beak, feet and all, the obsession with intestines, the calf's face....)

~Bourdain makes many of his descriptions of eating good food sound almost like a religious experience. Do you agree that good food can have this effect -- or is it, in the end, just sustenance? If not food, what in your life do you feel this passionately about?
Only desserts are religious experiences for me. I don't feel at all passionate about food, preferring comfort food to anything exotic or extravagant. My passion is definitely for reading! Just walking into a book store makes me feel happy and peaceful.

[jennifershepard]

bump

[jennifershepard]

Allow me to get started with just a quick response: I loved this book the first time I read this (received as a Christmas gift from a friend a few years ago, and I devoured it on the spot; I think I read most of it aloud to my husband), and I loved it the second time I read it.

The first time, I reveled in connecting with his personal experiences--his visit to Arcachon with his brother (sense memory, family history, and place)--and in learning about food traditions, such as the Japanese wrestler's meal. Bourdain writes about food and experience with such rich descriptions that I found utterly transporting (dusty ride through the desert in Morocco, smells and sounds of life on the river in Vietnam, the intimacy of sharing a meal with a Portuguese family).

And, I was reminded of these things on the second reading. I also occasionally found Bourdain's bravado was a little over the top, and occasionally it seemed as if he wanted to shock the reader by eating something disgusting or that he was playing to the television cameras. Still, he concludes, very humbly, that the perfect meal is taken quietly and simply with his wife.

~Bourdain tastes some pretty exotic dishes in A Cook's Tour -- Tête de veau (calf's face), snake wine, and sheep testicles, to name a few. What is the wildest thing you've ever eaten? What is the thing you've always wanted to try? What is the thing you'd never try no matter what? I have eaten tripe and blood sausage in France, and both were fantastic. But, they were on the menu, and if presented with them again, I would order either. I have also eaten shrimp heads (sweet ebi), which had been deep-fried but still have antennae and eye balls attached. Yum--great play with crispy and creamy, salty and sweet. I have also eaten all manner of raw seafood, which may not be exotic or strange, but many people won't touch. I would like to try sweetbreads, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find them. And, I would like to try seasoned fried bugs in the markets of Oaxaca. But no calf's face or head cheese or monkey brains or eyeballs or testicles of any sort (no matter that Bourdain says you must drop everything to try testicles). And, I'm quite certain I would never prepare any of these things myself. I will never again eat fermented soybeans--truly disgusting.

~When you travel to other places, how important is trying the cuisine of the region to you? Do you make a point of sampling as much regional food as possible or do you tend to stick to the tried and true, eating at McDonald's more often than not? Where that you've visited has had the best food and why?

~After reading A Cook's Tour -- and from your own personal experience -- what are some basic differences Americans have in their attitude towards food, meals, and eating, compared to people in other countries?

~Is A Cook's Tour more of a travel book, more of a food book, or equal parts both? If you could, would you want to embark upon a globe-trotting adventure similar to Bourdain's? What seemed most appealing and most unappealing about his trip?

~Bourdain makes many of his descriptions of eating good food sound almost like a religious experience. Do you agree that good food can have this effect -- or is it, in the end, just sustenance? If not food, what in your life do you feel this passionately about?

[jennifershepard]

~When you travel to other places, how important is trying the cuisine of the region to you? Do you make a point of sampling as much regional food as possible or do you tend to stick to the tried and true, eating at McDonald's more often than not? Where that you've visited has had the best food and why? It's very important to try the cuisine of the region where I'm traveling--even if that means corn or pork chops in Iowa. The food doesn't have to be exotic, but it is an important way of defining the culture, history, and economics of a place. I know that many people need to stay in their comfort zone when they travel, especially when they find every other thing about the experience (language, sounds, smells, currency) to be overwhelming, and not everyone is in a position to have a home-cooked meal in a foreign country, but I don't understand tourists who seek out McDonald's instead of trying the local fare.

I had an incredible meal on Christmas eve in Bordeaux, France that included raw oysters from the Arcachon basin (my first oysters and they were incredible, but my life won't be worse if I don't eat them again), different cured meats from salmon to pheasant, a capon, morels, and more over nine courses, with a wine or two for each course. For dessert we ate a buche de Noel and plates of petits fours and marzipan-stuffed dates and prunes.

I also have fantastic memories of the food I ate in Bariloche, Argentina: dulce de leche in small tubes that you carry in your pocket so you can have a sweet treat whenever you want; fondue, raclette, and goulash with spaetzle at the restaurant we ate at every night for a week; empanadas; hamburgers topped with a slice of Canadian bacon; pizza with bizarre toppings (including eggs); and wine for every meal because a bottle was less expensive by far than a 1L bottle of Coke. Oh, and I cannot neglect to mention the chocolate shops out of which customers would carry large paper containers (like Happy Meal boxes on steroids) filled with foil wrapped chocolates in every shape and size imaginable. We seemed to be the only people on our flight to Buenos Aires that didn't have two of these, forgoing other carry-ons for chocolate. My kind of people.

And tapas in the Basque country of Spain--incomparable. Patatas bravas, baby eels that were the width of a shoelace, squid stewed in its ink. Delish.

~After reading A Cook's Tour -- and from your own personal experience -- what are some basic differences Americans have in their attitude towards food, meals, and eating, compared to people in other countries? I agree with Susan--quantity tends to be the measure of good value rather than quality. And, restaurant portions are enormous. We are so acculturated to a faster pace of life and to keeping schedules that there is little time for family meals or healthy meals. Kudos to those for whom this isn't true. I find the growing number of prepared foods in our grocery stores to be appalling. I'm not talking about chips and cookies and crackers (this is always the first aisle I hit in when I'm in a grocery store in different region of the US or abroad), rather Hamburger Helper, frozen dinners, and meals in a can.

~Is A Cook's Tour more of a travel book, more of a food book, or equal parts both? If you could, would you want to embark upon a globe-trotting adventure similar to Bourdain's? What seemed most appealing and most unappealing about his trip? Equal parts travel and food book. I would love to have an adventure similar to Bourdain's, and I would love to travel to Southeast Asia and North Africa, especially for the food, and I would like to spend more time in South America and the Pacific Northwest (consistently the best eating in the US, from farmer's markets to restaurants). But, I would like to try the regional fare of the deep South.

~Bourdain makes many of his descriptions of eating good food sound almost like a religious experience. Do you agree that good food can have this effect -- or is it, in the end, just sustenance? If not food, what in your life do you feel this passionately about? Yes, food experiences can have an ecstatic quality that put them in the realm of the religious (on the other end of the spectrum, food bloggers often refer to food writing as a type of porn). I do feel passionately about food. I read culinary essays. I have a travel/food book set in Italy lined up and after that a 350-page book about pie. I love reading the introductory essays in cookbooks, and I subscribe to many cooking magazines (my favorite is Saveur, which has incredible articles with strong cultural elements). Earlier this summer I was in Italy where we ate a lot of wonderful things (especially cured meats and cheese--you can't get fresh pecorino here regretably--and gelato), and recently I was in Iowa where I had the opportunity to eat roasted sweet corn, hot pork wings (a particular shoulder cut with a bone in that you can eat like chickens wings or drummies) just off a grill, ice-cold watermelon, Beekman's raspberry ice cream, walking tacos (a taco salad in a snack-size Doritos package, not unlike Frito pie), and pies made by church ladies. I felt so connected to place with each meal, especially in Iowa where I knew the food was made with love.