A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal [Hardcover]

A Cook's Tour is the written record of Tony Bourdain's travels around the world in his search for the perfect meal. All too conscious of the state of his 44-year old knees (Crunch! Pop! Snap!) after a working life standing at restaurant stoves, but with the unlooked-for jackpot of Kitchen Confidential as collateral, Mr Bourdain evidently concluded he needed a bit more wind under his wings.

The idea of "perfect meal" in this context is to be taken to mean not necessarily the most upscale, chi-chi, three-star dining experience, but the ideal combination of food, atmosphere and company. This would take in fishing villages in Vietnam, bars in Cambodia and Tuareg camps in Morocco (roasted sheep's testicle, as it happens); it would stretch to smoked fish and sauna in the frozen Russian countryside and the French Laundry in California's Napa Valley. It would mean exquisitely refined kaiseki rituals in Japan after yakitori with drunken salarimen. Deep-fried Mars Bars in Glasgow and Gordon Ramsay in London. The still-beating heart of a cobra in Saigon. Drink. Danger. Guns. All with a TV crew in tow for the accompanying series--22 episodes of video gold, we are assured, featuring many don't-try-this-at-home shots of Tony in gastric distress or crawling into yet another storm drain at four in the morning.

You are unlikely to lay your hands on a more hectically, strenuously entertaining book for some time. Our hero eats and swashbuckles round the globe with perfect-pitch attitude and liberal use of judiciously placed profanities. Bourdain can write. His timing is great. He is very funny and is under no illusions whatsoever about himself or anyone else. So far, so PJ O'Rourke. But most of all, he is a chef who got himself out of his kitchen and found, all over the world, people who understand that eating well is the foundation of harmonious living. --Robin Davidson

'This is the stuff of real writing ... Bourdain is a great original'

Anthony Bourdain's last book, Kitchen Confidential, was an utterly engrossing (if scarifying) trawl though the prestige restaurant kitchens of the world that made similar writing in George Orwell read like Enid Blyton. And although we haven't been able to see the manuscript of this one, we're promised more of the same. Such was the audience created for Bourdainiana by the last book (which enjoyed a truly unprecedented word-of-mouth) that its successor is likely to do phenomenal business, given the author's profile, which is higher than ever. We're assured that the wry, caustic tone of voice and vein of black humour will be just as present in A Cook's Tour as it was in its predecessor.

'Bourdain is a very funny writer; sharp, honest and with a beguiling mix of belligerence and sensitivity'

'Bourdain lauds tradition, hates frippery, and wanders tirelessly for the perfect meal ... such entertainment ... enjoy the ride'

"It's a celebration of ingredients, an anti-blandness tract, a love-letter not only to grub but to the ambience it is served in."

Anthony Bourdain, life-long line cook and bestselling author of Kitchen Confidential, sets off to eat his way around the world. But being Anthony Bourdain, this was never going to be a conventional culinary tour. Inspired by Apocalypse Now, Bourdain heads out to Saigon where he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra (washed down with its blood), and then into Cambodia, the Heart of Darkness, where he travels deep into landmined Khmer Rouge territory to find the rumoured Wild West of Cambodia (Pailin). Other stops include dining with gangsters in Russia, a medieval pig slaughter and feast in northern Portugal, the Basque All Male Gastronomique Society in Saint Sebastian, paladars in Cuba (Commie Beach Party), rural Mexico with his Mexican sous-chef, a pilgrimage to the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and a return to his roots in the tiny fishing village of La Teste, where he first ate an oyster as a child. Written with the inimitable machismo and humour that has made Tony Bourdain such a sensation. A Cook's Tour is an adventure story sure to give you indigestion.

Anthony Bourdain, lifelong line cook and bestselling author of ‘Kitchen Confidential’, sets off to eat his way around the world. But being Anthony Bourdain, this was never going to be a conventional culinary tour…

Inspired by ‘Apocalypse Now’ Bourdain heads out to Saigon where he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra (washed down with its blood), and then into Cambodia, the Heart of Darkness, where he travels deep into landminded Khmer Rouge territory to find the rumoured Wild West of Cambodia (Pailin). Other stops include dining with gangsters is Russia, a medieval pig slaughter and feast in northern Portugal, a Basque All Male Gastronomique Society in San Sebastian, eating whole roasted land with Tuareg tribesmen in the Northern Sahara, rural Mexico with his Mexican sous-chef, a pilgrimage to the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and a return to his roost in the tiny fishing village of La Teste, where he first ate an oyster as a child.

Written with the inimitable machismo and humour that have made Tony Bourdain such a sensation, ‘A Cook’s Tour’ is an adventure story to tantalise your taste buds.

Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City. He is also the author of two novels GONE BAMBOO and BONE IN THE THROAT and one work of non fiction, KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL.

I'm sitting cross-legged in the bush with Charlie, deep in the Mekong Delta, drinking Vietnamese moonshine from a plastic cola bottle. It's dark, the only light coming from a single generator-powered lightbulb, and on the tarpaulin of stitched-together fertilizer and rice sacks laid out on the hard jungle floor in front of me, dinner has just been served: a humble farmer's meal of clay-roasted duck, duck and banana-blossom soup, salad, and stuffed bitter melon. My host, affectionately referred to as 'Uncle Hai', sits to my left, his right hand clutching my knee. Every once in a while, he gives it a squeeze, just to make sure I'm still there and that I'm having a good time.

I am having a good time. I'm having the best time in the world. Across from me, a ninety-five-year-old man with a milky white eye and no teeth, who's wearing black pajamas and rubber sandals, raises a glass of the vicious homemade rice whiskey and challenges me to yet another shot. He's a war hero, I have been assured. He fought the Japanese, the French; he fought in the 'American War'. We exchange respectful salutations and both hammer back a shot.

The problem is, nearly everybody at this meal is also, apparently, a war hero. This delta was an incubation chamber - a hotbed of VC activity during our country's time here - and everybody, one by one, wants to have a drink with me. Grampa, directly across from me, his legs tucked comfortably under his body like a supple sixteen-year-old's, has raised his glass in my direction six times already, fixing me in the gaze of his one unclouded eye, before knocking back another shot. Almost immediately, someone else tugs on my sleeve.

'Please sir ... the gentleman down there ... he is also a great war hero. He would like to drink with you.'

I look down the length of the makeshift picnic blanket to a tough-looking guy, fortyish maybe, with thick neck and forearms. He's staring right at me, not shy at all, this one. He's smiling, too - though not exactly the same warm friendly smile Grampa's been giving me. This smile says, I've killed a few of your kind, you know. Now, let's see if you can drink.

'I'm right here, Cool Breeze,' I say, trying not to slur. 'Come and get me.' Then I give him my baddest-ass Dirty Harry, jailhouse stare while I drain another glass of what I am quicky coming to believe is formaldehyde.

Three Communist party officials from the Can Tho People's Committee, picking at salads with chopsticks, watch with interest as the silly American, who came all this way - by plane, by car, by sampan - to eat clay-roasted duck with a rice farmer and his family, slugs back his twelfth shot of the evening and looks worriedly around the clearing at all the other war heroes waiting to do the same. There are about twenty-five men crowded around the tarpaulin, sitting with their legs folded tightly, tearing at duck with their chopsticks and watching me. The women serve, looming up out of the darkness with more food, more liquor, and the occasional sharp word of advice.

Don't make him carve the duck! I imagine they're saying. He's American! He's too stupid and clumsy! In America, everything arrives carved already! He won't know what to do! He'll cut himself, the idiot, and shame us all! A paper plate arrives with a small paring knife and another sizzling-hot duck: head, feet, bill, and guts intact. I position the thing as best I can with burning fingers, wrestle not too gracefully with it for a few seconds, and manage to remove legs, breasts, and wings in the classic French tableside style. I crack open the skull so my friend Phillipe can scoop out the brains (he's
French; they like that stuff) and offer the first slice of breast to my host, Uncle Hai.

The crowd is pleased. There's a round of applause.