Anthony Bourdain: Have Some Courtesy, Have Some Sympathy, And Some Taste

After a round of welcoming applause died down, the first thing Anthony Bourdain said was there was to be no Rachel Ray jokes. However Sandra Lee did come in for a drubbing as he described her as “pure evil” a few times. The first third or so of his routine consisted mostly of invective directed at various hosts of Food Network shows. However, he did offer some praise as well. Julia Child changed things for the better and people such as Ina Garten, who can actually cook in Bourdain’s estimation, make for good TV as viewers come away having seen honest to goodness skill on parade. To be perfectly honest, most of this was lost on me as I don’t have cable and consequently don’t watch any Food Channel programming. I recognized some of the names but really have no idea what these people are known for or what their gimmicks are. To the question of whether Sandra Lee can cook or not, all I can say is: who is Sandra Lee? Once he moved away from food celebrities I began to laugh more. He admitted to making fun of foodies but he’ll be damned if his daughter eats anything other than organic produce. Furthermore his wife is a co-conspirator in luring their daughter away from fast food by hook or by crook. One plot involves putting the girl to bed and two of them standing just outside her door talking just loudly enough to be heard on the other side. “Another boy who went to MacDonald’s disappeared tonight?” Despite this, Bourdain admitted to having an unseemly affection for the mac & cheese at KFC. The final part of his 90-minute monologue was dedicated to his tips for traveling abroad. He repeated many times throughout the night that he felt incredibly lucky to be able to travel around the globe, eat food, meet people, and get paid for it. It’s a dream come true. Likewise, he said that, if we the audience members go abroad, we should feel lucky to have an American passport and a few grand to spend. So don’t drop all that money just to have your picture taken in front of a Starbucks thousands of miles from home. And for God’s sake do your best to adhere to local customs. He described being at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul when he noticed some tourists including a teenaged girls wearing Daisy Duke shorts. Teenagers are teenagers but why would the parents allow her to dress that way? “Would dad wear a Speedo to the Vatican?” Bourdain talked about how he adores Japan but he’ll always be considered a gaijin, an outsider. Despite this, he at least tries to keep their customs and they appreciate his efforts. Courtesy was also the reason he couldn’t abide vegetarians. He said he’d met many poor people in his travels yet they opened their home to him and fed him. While he didn’t care what vegetarians ate at their own homes, when someone opens their door to you and gives of themselves through food, you should eat what is put before you. The Q&A was amusing although I admit that I was left in the dark fairly often as people made references to various episodes of No Reservations of which I’ve only seen a handful of episodes. One woman asked how he stayed so thin (“I eat shit that tastes good.”) while a former serviceman pleaded with Bourdain to do a show on military chow to shed light on how god-awful it is so that it can be improved. And of course someone had to solicit his opinion on a strictly local matter - the train. Why Madison audiences invariably feel compelled to drag visitors into local politics that they likely know nothing nor care nothing about is beyond me. One thing that I did find amusing was that his next season is slated to include a trip to Congo where he will attempt to retrace the steps of Charles Marlow, he of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Bourdain had arrived here in Madison just a couple hours prior to show time and was off to Florida the next day so there was no camera crew scouring the food scene here. However, he did have a Point Special brew with him onstage.