A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain leads
readers to think about the essence of foods beyond the food itself by
challenging different kinds of food other than just western food. Bourdain describes
diverse dishes of food from different cultures based on his travels. By evoking
readers’ various senses: seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling, and hearing created
from the process of cooking and eating.
The
first place he traveled was Portugal, and it is interesting how as a chief,
Bourdain thought deeply about killing something for his cooking. This thought questions
where food comes from, and to me, I thought about origin of the sacrificed
ingredients for my appetite. I saw a clip from Food Inc. showing chicks’ beaks cutting off to fit in the
environment of industrial chicken farm, and I felt disgusted by that. After
watching it, I was more conscious about what I am eating. Bourdain says that
while the children of Portuguese town that he visited watching pigs getting
slaughtered, they had no emotional change on their little faces. Bourdain
illustrates that “They were farm kids who’d seen this before many times. They
were used to the ebb and flow of life, its at-times-bloody passing” (22). I
think that these kids will rather have less respect toward brutal killing for
foods as they grow up they will get used to this process before rethinking
about cruelty of killing animals. Although they know foods cannot be wasted due
to its intensive process of getting ingredients.
Also,
he describes another Portuguese food culture: large groups of people eating
together. I am impressed by this continuous eating tradition because this kind
of tradition is gone in many cultures due to transformation of cultures through
westernization and industrialization, so I raised these questions: What if all
the societies of different cultures continue this kind of tradition of eating
together as a family? Would there be less unhappiness and suicides because
there are more conversations among family members that can have emotional cures?
I personally think that it is wonderful to eat together as a family or as friends
because it is a social gathering of joy and fulfills satisfaction through
eating and talking at the same time.
I
like how he vividly and intensively describes each food from various cultures
by sensory effects because this book itself does not contain every picture of
every food that is mentioned, and it is hard for readers to imagine what
exactly foods are like unless they taste them. In the part when he was in
Vietnam, his description of pho led my mind yearned for a perfect bowl of pho.
“A bowl of clear hot liquid, loaded with shreds of fresh, white, and pink
crabmeat … garnished with bean sprouts and chopped fresh cilantro” (57). I
could totally imagine the colorfulness and lovely smell of pho. He continues to
portray spring roll, nuoc mam, and
when he describes Vietnamese coffee, I automatically shouted, “Yum…” Not only
having excellent descriptions of food, Bourdain captures the places where he
encountered authentic food that he usually cannot see back in his hometown, New
York City. As reading the depiction of the Vietnamese food market, it makes me
feel like I am perusing that market filled with people, smell of pho,
Vietnamese languages, fresh vegetables, and poultries hanging on the hook.
“How to drink Vodka”
chapter introduces the way of drinking vodka properly in a real Russian way
which was interesting. I, as a young immature student, usually thought that the
best way of drinking alcohol is just chugging it down, but it was actually
fascinating to know of a better way of enjoying alcohol consumption. The Russian
way of drinking vodka is that food must be present while drinking, especially
bread.
Although this book is called
“A cook’s tour”, and it is supposed to mainly focus on food traveling, one part
I found that is out of context, yet I love his astray insight about humanity. He
talks about how he felt horrible when he saw this Vietnamese guy who has been
burned in the past probably from the Vietnam War, and he has no nose, eyebrows,
and lips. This apparent physical scar made Bourdain sad and made him think
about why he is even writing a book about food which is considered as trivial
to this injured man’s pain. He continues to criticize Western tourism culture that
contains no real appreciation and ignorance toward native people and culture. Bourdain
shows true appreciation toward culture of each country he visited through
honest comments about authentic foods that he tasted. Providing detailed
descriptions of preparation, cooking, and eating of food reveals dynamic food
culture and tradition. He takes readers to join his food travel to find “perfect
food” supported with his humorous and blatant opinions about reading different
cultures through different foods.
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