A Cook's Tour

In this book, the author of Kitchen Confidential sets out to travel the world in search of the great culinary experience. This does not simply mean the memorable meal he eats at the highly rated French Laundry in San Francisco. Bourdain wants to live out his Apocalypse Now and Joseph Conrad fantasies, so he journeys to dangerous and out-of-the-way places and explores the outer limits of eating and drinking. This is not a book for the faint-hearted. In Portugal, Bourdain helps with a pig slaughter, in Vietnam he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra and in Scotland he samples deep-fried haggis in curry sauce. Extreme experiences aside, this is a multi-faceted work. It is a travelogue, bringing to life the scenery, sights, sounds and smells of, among other places, Vietnam, the Basque Country, Moscow and the Northern Sahara, where Bourdain dines on a whole roasted lamb with Tuaregs. It is a study of food in different cultures, from dinner with the Russian mafia to the diet of Sumo wrestlers in Japan. It is also a polemic about the fastidious attitude of the First World exemplified by well-to do vegans in Berkeley when inhabitants of the Third World have to use every part of an animal to survive. Bourdain is fearless in his attitudes - he smokes, drinks, swears, takes drugs and talks frankly about sex. Yet behind the macho blustering there are some vulnerable moments, such as the nostalgic trip to France he takes with his brother to recapture childhood experiences which makes him realize he is actually looking for his late father. This is a full-blooded, visceral book with a strong narrative drive, which throws the reader headlong into Bourdains culinary experiences, tolerable and intolerable. On this evidence he is the Hunter S Thompson of cookery writers. (Kirkus UK)