Review: Nasty Bits

Anthony Bourdain spent years sweating behind the stoves at Les Halles in New York before Kitchen Confidential kicked the kitchen door off its hinges in 2000. Suddenly chefs weren’t anonymous guys hiding behind swinging doors anymore. They were pirates, philosophers and occasionally complete lunatics.

I picked up a copy of Nasty Bits in Singapore several years ago. Unlike his earlier books, this is a collection of essays, magazine pieces and assorted observations, stitched together with duct tape, profanity and Bourdain’s unmistakable voice. Many of the stories grew out of his travels for A Cook’s Tour and No Reservations. One of the best ones is “Food and Loathing in Las Vegas”, where he and Michael Ruhlman embark on a gloriously reckless tribute to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson would probably have approved. Or at least nodded before ordering another drink.

Bourdain was never interested in playing the friendly television chef. He write like a man who had survived too many dinner services to care about polishing the edges. His opinions arrive without warning and without apology. When he famously declared, “If you put ketchup on your dog, I will fucking kill you”, you never got the feeling he was joking entirely. It certainly wasn’t language you’d expect from Jamie Oliver.

He eats anything with a smile, including Hákarl (rotten shark, a popular dish in Reykjavik) which appears to be the most disgusting thing he’s ever tasted. Well, apart from the warthog anus in Namibia where he got a parasite and was hospitalized.

When I read about his culinary adventures, I wished I had stopped by those restaurants on my own travels. He mentions El Bulli, close to Cadaqués on Spain’s Costa Brava, where Ferran Adria arranged “a long gastro-thrill ride ranging from the farthest reaches of chemistry class to the stunningly simple”. What did I have in Cadaqués last summer? A pizza.

Brazil is described as a great place for sushi, since the country hosts the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan, but the only sushi I had in the country was a mediocre plate in the suburbs of Sao Paulo.

In New York he goes on about chopped liver and washing down hot-dogs with frothy papaya drinks. My own gastronomical memory of that city consists mostly of blueberry pancakes and greasy burgers. Mea culpa.

We’ve both had gumbo in New Orleans, with the difference being that I didn’t enjoy it. But at least I’m pretty sure he hasn’t tasted whale tartare in Svalbard. Yet.

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks – on your body or on your heart – are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”
–Anthony Bourdain (Nasty Bits preface)

But the real joy of Nasty Bits isn’t the food, although there’s plenty of that. It’s the curiosity. Bourdain approaches the world with the appetite of someone who genuinely wants to understand it, whether that means eating fermented shark in Iceland, wandering through unfamiliar neighborhoods, or pulling back the curtain on the absurdity of television production. He’s willing to look foolish if that’s the price of seeing something real.

Like any collection assembled over several years, it’s uneven. Some essays hit harder than others. This isn’t a carefully engineered tasting menu, it’s a late-night feast of leftovers, scraps and unexpected delicacies. The title tells you exactly what you’re getting.

One of the book’s best surprises comes at the end. Bourdain revisits each essay with the benefit of hindsight, cheerfully dissecting his younger self, admitting where he was wrong, where he was lucky, and where he’d still happily pick the same fight all over again.

If this is your first encounter with Bourdain, don’t stop here. A Cook’s Tour remains one of his finest books, packed with stories that never made it onto television, while No Reservations offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of the series that made millions of people want to pack a bag and eat something they’d never heard of before.

The only real danger in reading Nasty Bits is that you’ll finish it with an unreasonable craving for oysters, noodles, barbecue or a plane ticket. Preferably all four.

Bon appétit.