Review: A Cook’s Tour

Even before he became the patron saint of world-weary travelers and street food geeks, Anthony Bourdain had already detonated the culinary world with Kitchen Confidential. Published in the summer of 2000, it turned an anonymous New York chef into an unlikely celebrity almost overnight.

Anyone picking up Kitchen Confidential after watching No Reservations or Parts Unknown might expect a passport full of adventures. Instead, they’re thrown headfirst into the sweat, profanity and macho bro culture of professional kitchens. Cooks aren’t portrayed as refined artists. They’re swashbuckling pirates and sleep-deprived maniacs held together by caffeine, nicotine and all sorts of substances. It’s less a travel memoir than a kitchen war diary, somewhere between Orwell’s 1993 memoir “Down and Out in Paris and London” and a documentary about particularly violent dinner service.

The real travel story doesn’t begin until the final chapter. In the spring of 1999, Bourdain boarded a plane to Japan. At forty-three years old he had barely ventured beyond the American mainland, save for the occasional boozy Caribbean vacation. That single trip changed everything.

After Kitchen Confidential became a runaway success, his publisher suggested a sequel. Producers Chris Collins and Lydia Tenaglia saw the potential and showed up at his workplace Les Halles in NYC to pitch the idea of filming him during the travels. They somehow convinced the Food Network to finance the madness, and A Cook’s Tour was born. The television series eventually spanned two seasons, while this companion book arrived in late 2001.

Looking back today, the TV show feels like discovering your favorite band’s first demo tape. The production is rough around the edges, Bourdain occasionally looks uncomfortable in front of the camera, and nobody involved quite knows what the show will eventually become. But all the ingredients are already there.

The book, however, is where the real magic happens. Freed from television edits and tidy story arcs, Bourdain lets his thoughts roam wherever they please. He can be generous one page and insufferable the next. He occasionally behaves like an arrogant jerk, then follows it with an observation so sharp and funny that you forgive him before reaching the next paragraph. His prose is dry, brutally honest and effortlessly entertaining. A raw unfiltered Bourdain train of thoughts put on paper.

More importantly, this is Bourdain before he became the Anthony Bourdain trademark. He’s still wide-eyed and surprised. He slowly discovers that food is rarely the point. Every country is experienced through the people serving the meals, the conversations around the table, the history hidden beneath the recipes and the beautiful chaos that happens when you stop acting like a tourist and start paying attention.

Years later he would become a seasoned traveler, capable of walking into almost any city on earth with the confidence of an old regular. Here he’s still learning and writing with curiosity. Still making mistakes. Still occasionally getting things wrong. That’s precisely what makes A Cook’s Tour such a rewarding read.