— Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw (via fortuneandglory)
sick·en·ing·ly
1. causing sickness or disgust
lib·er·al
1. broad-minded; especially: not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms
2. a political philosophy based on belief in progress Ask me anything
— Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw (via fortuneandglory)
(Source: amazon.com, via fortuneandglory)
—
I have never really been able to explain why it is I subject myself to foods that cause physical pain. I’m talking burn-my-nostrils, make-me-cry pain. Why?
When I was eleven years old, I had my first extra sloppy, extra spicy chicken wing from a local pizza joint - mild by my current standards, but excruciatingly painful to a child who grew up in a salt and pepper only household. A friend of my older brother - Steven was his name, five years older yet never treating me like an inferior or annoyance as so many of my brother’s other friends did as I tried so desperately to butt my way into the teenage world - brought them over on a Friday night after a football game and asked if I was interested in having some. “They’re damn hot,” he warned me, and I did not hesitate to prove my worth, to show him that I was just as much of a hardass as the rest of them, scrawniness be damned. Those wings burnt - and I panted my way through eating a half dozen, sauce dripping from my fingers, my chin - but they burnt so good. I was hooked.
Soon, my teenage love affair with jalapeno, serrano, and habanero peppers took off. Exploring atomic and suicide sauces with mandatory waivers became a priority. Middle school lunch competitions to see who could bring in and eat the spiciest sauce without blinking or taking a drink became a weekly occurrence.
Nowadays, my more subdued adult self still has an addiction to adding ingredients which cause burning sensations and when asked, I have never really been able to explain it to friends and family. Reading Bourdain’s Medium Raw tonight, I think he did a damn fine job of explaining why it is those of us who love spicy foods enjoy it so much.
(via fortuneandglory)
— Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential (via fortuneandglory)
— Anthony Bourdain, The Layover (Montreal)
(Source: fortuneandglory)
— Anthony Bourdain on eating his first oyster as a child - from his memoir Kitchen Confidential. (via fortuneandglory)
- A Snickers bar at the airport. It was slightly past its expiration date and had the flavor and texture of peanuts preserved in wax. It nearly strangled me as it descended my gullet and it just sort of sat there, choking off my digestive process with its corporate nougat.
- A Big Mac eaten between shoots at a Cardiff McDonald’s. It was a greasy, fatty, and grayish-brown lump of wet meat slathered in mustard-colored sauce I’m guessing was produced from industrial solvents by a machine that has to be water-cooled. You truly get the sense of America’s reach when you’re gulping down poorly-cooked American beef covered in American processed cheese substance while a doughy man with rat eyes yells at you in Cymraeg.
- Skittles? I don’t know what a Skittle is, but it tastes like iodine and corn syrup. They are the sort of miserable pellets that sink to the bottom of an Easter basket when you’re a kid and you don’t even care enough to untangle them from the grass. Handed to me by my guide, Zyrikikov, during a truck stall on a particularly treacherous mountain road.
- There was a Taco Bell at the bus terminal in Trblej. I had something called a “Mexi-Melt” that I assume is a rough approximation of what you would get if you used a heat ray to melt a Mexican. With cheese. It did not mix well with the homemade vodka I drank from a surplus military boot.
- A so-called “BK Broiler” at a Rangoon Burger King. I think “BK” is an element forgotten on the periodic table, something mined very close to hell, that they then “broil” in a microwave until all of the juices have been replaced with gristle nodules. The sandwich was so appallingly bad it made me homesick for an Arby’s pile of wet sheets of beef paper on a soggy bun.
(Source: somethingawful.com)
Bourdain makes a damn good case for why pho is one of my very favorite dishes (food porn, indeed). The carefully prepared broth, the tender mix of meats, the extreme contrast of flavors… if you haven’t tried legitimate Vietnamese pho, you don’t know what you’re missing.
—
Anthony Bourdain on keeping an open mind when traveling.
When traveling, one can do it the way of the tourism guide (you know, coming back with those mundane stories that everyone dreads listening to) or the interesting and potentially life-altering way.
Take a wrong turn? Don’t drop the f-bomb. That only serves to make everyone else in the car cranky. So what? Go with it. Keep driving. Switch off that GPS. Go, damn it. The GPS will guide you back later. Pull over at the strangest looking restaurant in the area. Skip the club with the line and check out the dive next door. Talk to people - my god, talk to people. You go places to experience, not to have an exclusive conversation with your travel buddy about how the weather is so much different than back home. Let loose. Don’t worry - none of these people will ever see you again. Just experience it and save the regrets for the morning.
(via fortuneandglory)
(Source: The A.V. Club, via fortuneandglory)
— Anthony Bourdain on how to find the right places to eat while traveling rather than the tourist traps. (via fortuneandglory)
(Source: The A.V. Club, via fortuneandglory)
— Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook (via fortuneandglory)
(Source: emotional-algebra, via fortuneandglory)
— Anthony Bourdain (via fortuneandglory)
(Source: tvguide.com, via somebodysaiditbetter)
