A Cooks Tour by Anthony Bourdain (Of Kitchen Confidential Fame)

What a wise-cracking, hilarious look at both foreign travel and delicious, yet sometimes frightening foods around the world. If you have ever seen chef Anthony Bourdain in his Food TV series A Cook’s Tour or more recently on Travel Channel series Anthony Bourdain :No Reservations then you know that this New Jersey boy speaks like a native often being bleeped out by Broadcast Standards people for his penchant for using 4 letter words. He brings this irreverent quality to his writing as well, often citing his excessive drinking, excessive smoking, and hippie pot-smoking youth.

Yet, what differentiates this book from many travel books is the eccentric characters Bourdain visits around the world. He is both willing and able to eat and experience other cultures with sensitivity, humor, and infinite joie de vive. This is more then a travelogue or a foodie tome, it is a celebration of the differences that make everyone so similar. I know that my assessment may strike people as trite, but I was captivated by Bourdain’s boyish delight at eating a roasted pig in Portugal. His wonder and admiration at seeing every piece of the animal used made me think about the animals I take for granted everyday.

Describing firing an automatic weapon during his visit to Cambodia Boardain has this to say:

Firing bursts from heavy weapons at paper targets of charging Russians is fun. I did surprisingly well with the AK-47 and the .45, hitting centre body mass almost every time. At one point, his hands over his ears to protect them from the racket of my discharging weapon, my waiter tugged my sleeve, “So ... whey you from?”
“New York,” I said.
“What you do?” he inquired.
“I’m a chef.”
My waiter looked at my target, which I’d pretty much shredded from neck to crotch, smiled encouragingly, and said, “You could be a killer!” That’s what passes for a compliment in Phnom Penh, I guess.