Niklas reviewed World Travel by Anthony Bourdain
Review of 'World Travel' on 'LibraryThing'
3 stars
This is a puzzle book of sorts. Itâs mainly built on an idea that Bourdain and Wooleverâthe latter of who is a writer and editor whoâs written Appetites with Bourdain and spent a decade assisting himâhad where they would collate Bourdainâs experiences as a travelling eater in his TV shows into book form.returnreturn
It was never my intention to be a reporter, a critic, an advocate. It was also never my intention to provide audiences with âeverythingâ they needed to know about a placeâor even a balanced or comprehensive overview. I am a storyteller. I go places, I come back. I tell you how the places made me feel. Through the use of powerful tools like great photography, skillful editing, sound mixing, color correction, music (which is often composed specifically for the purpose) and brilliant producers, I canâin the very best casesâmake you feel a little bit like I did at the time. At least I hope so. Itâs a manipulative process. Itâs also a deeply satisfying one.returnANTHONY BOURDAIN, 2012returnreturnBourdain was highly passionate about food. He also loved people, music, some culture, an old-world view of rock ânâ roll, and seemed to try to be a better person; upon revisiting foods, peoples, and cities, he reevaluated his old self and tried to come to grips with things. Where heâd been a full-blown drug addict who, after having attended rehab, wrote funny and glammy stuff about drugs and the cool life of a ârock chefâ, he later wrote truly introspective and contemplative stuff.returnreturnThis book consists of soundbites from different episodes of Bourdainâs TV series, paired with geographical info á la Lonely Planet guides; the book is updated with current information on all of the restaurants, hotels, and weirder places that Bourdain talked about, containing tidbits down to how much you pay for a night at any hotel.returnreturnThe book also contains at-times fascinating parts about the series from others than Woolever and Bourdain, for example, Jen Agg speaks of what her restaurant became famous for, post-TV:returnreturn
The camera operators planned their angles and shots for the next day, while Tom and I made small talk, into which he slipped, oh-so-casually, âI heard you guys do bone luges here.â I had no idea what that was, so he clarified: After scraping and sopping up the last of the glistening marrow out of halved and roasted veal bones, you pick something like sherry or bourbon, and hold the narrow end of the bone to your mouth, as you would with a beer funnel, while a game pal pours the shot down through the wider end, and into your mouth.returnreturnI was skeptical, very skeptical. I feared appearing on a show I loved as, essentially, a shooter girlâa fear that turned out to be entirely warranted. I also worried that if we did this whole bone luge thing on the show, weâd be doing it for guests, forever and ever, in an Edge of Tomorrowâstyle loop. I wasnât wrong about that, either. So I expressed a fair and reasonable amount of doubt. Weâd never served anyone a bone luge before, I said. It wasnât, like, our thing. At all. But Tom was adamant, and so, on shoot day, I played along, if a bit unhappily, pouring bourbon down a still-warm marrow bone into Anthony Bourdainâs mouth. I was incredibly uncomfortable, which is very rare for me. But I did it.returnreturnI watched the episode once, when it originally aired in 2012, and only recently watched it again. I was happy to be reminded that the only thing I said on camera was, âI feel like a shooter girl, and itâs actually just a little humiliating.â With the perspective of time, though, I have to agree with Tomâs instinct to insert this bit of bone luge weirdness. It crystalized the segment, was such a huge hit, and, to be completely honest, we made a lot of money off supplemental bone luges. Tony never knew that it was a manufactured bit, and, frankly, it became such a part of Hoof lore that it doesnât matter. Time really is a flat circle.returnreturnI mention it because fabrication is part of so many series. Bourdain never knew about that, it seems, and it doesnât really matter.returnreturnOne of the lovely things about this book is how it serves as a perfect reminder of how things were, historically speaking. Woolever writes of how Bourdain took time to prepare before visiting a placeâbe it in the USA or another countryâand read a lot about it beforehand.returnreturnAfter a Finnish fan created a Facebook page that garnered 100,000 votes for Tonyâs coming to Finland, he went:returnreturn
Helsinki, Finland. What I knew about the place wasnât, shall we say, encouraging. I knew the Finns were tough people, tough enough to fight off Nazis and Russians. Tough enough to handle the cold, harsh climate, the long, depressing winters, the short, binge-drinking summers. I knew it was a place not long on easy smiles, or even eye contact, for that matter.returnreturnOne thing that strikes me about Bourdainâs style of writing is that it somewhat matches that of the makers of The Wire; itâs not completely strange, then, that Bourdain was invited to write part of Treme, the TV series by the gang behind The Wire.returnreturnTheir style of writing spills back and forth over Bourdainâs lingo; itâs not surprising to know Hunter S. Thompson was a major literary figure in Bourdainâs life, as was Charles Bukowski. It works most of the time and provides Bourdain with the style for which he was known, slightly derivative, as it were.returnreturnI think Bourdain became a better writer with time; the older he became, the more he cut to the chase and didnât dance around. He embraced the world more and more. An example of this:returnreturn
In 1975, the newly independent Mozambique looked forward to a brighter future. But this was not to be. Yet rather than giving up after enduring a sixteen-year civil warâone of Africaâs most brutal and senselessâthe country picked itself up and began the enormous, daunting task of rebuilding, well, everything, from the ground up.returnreturnThere are very few places left in this world like Mozambique. The climate is nice. The people are really nice and the food is extraordinary.returnreturnYet today, Mozambique is barely a pit stop on the tourist trail. It was with all this in mind that I arrived on my first visit to this East African country of twenty-three million people.returnreturnMozambique, it should be pointed out, is a darling of the World Bank. Itâs seen as an African success story, and the fact is, things are good, very good, here, compared with how things have been in the past. Five hundred years of truly appalling colonialism, eighteen years of enthusiastic but inept Communism, and a brutal and senseless sixteen-year civil war ending less than twenty years ago left Mozambique with a devastated social fabric, a shattered economy, and only the memory of an infrastructure.returnreturnShockingly, people here, throughout the country, after being relentlessly screwed by history, are just as relentlessly nice.returnreturnItâs fun to read about places where both he and I have eaten, as with Quimet y Quimet, in Barcelona:returnreturn
If I lived across the street from this place, Iâd quit my job and just hang out here all day, until all the money was gone. Quimet & Quimet is a four-generations-old tapas bar in the El Poble-Sec neighborhood of Barcelona, which relies heavily on that Catalonian tapas bar staple of canned food.returnreturnThereâs an extensive wine selection, along with cocktails and beer, but the real draw are the montaditos, or canape-sized open-faced sandwiches populated with the likes of cipriones (stuffed baby squid), anchovies, mussels, tuna belly, sea urchin, Spanish and French cheeses, pickled vegetables and more, all prepared to order behind the barâthere is no kitchen on site, and itâs a tight space, with room for only about 20 guests at a time.returnreturnQUIMET & QUIMET: Carrer del Poeta Cabanyes, 25, 08004 Barcelona, Tel +34 93 442 31 42, www.quimetquimet.com (tapas 2â18 euros/US$2.25â$20)returnreturnAll in all, this book is quite interesting even though, at its worst, itâs fragmented. But if youâre looking for a rocky version of a Lonely Planet guide, this is it.