Anthony Bourdain, the chain-smoking bad boy of the Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, has a few choice words for all you food bloggers out there: Just eat it.
Apparently, despite Bourdain making a fortune as well as a name for himself trotting all over the globe documenting and analyzing all manner of foodstuffs, there’s something really wrong with bloggers who do exactly the same thing — only with smaller cameras and thinner budgets.
Confused? Me too.
In last Monday’s episode of No Reservations, Bourdain tags along with several food fanatics/bloggers including eGullet‘s Jason Perlow and Steven Shaw, and Opinionated About Dining‘s Steven Plotnicki. Gawker’s Mike Byhoff reports:
[In the episode] Bourdain claims that these three men are so obsessed with food, it’s come to the point of disillusionment about what food actually means. And in the middle the interviews with the each blogger, they each took out their cameras to photograph the food. This is where Bourdain, for some reason, berated them. He voiced serious disapproval when it comes to taking pictures of their food for the purposes of posting those photos to their blog.
Now you’d think Bourdain would be able to appreciate the passion these fellow food-fixators have for their subject matter. After all, this guy is seriously food-obsessed. You’d have to be to subject yourself to consuming such unfathomable dishes as unwashed warthog rectum and fermented shark. Or crazy. Or on drugs. Or both.
But apparently while it’s cool for Bourdain to scrutinize the exotic cuisine of cultures around the world while his Travel Channel camera crew documents each and every delicious or disgusting bite, when food bloggers do it (with their little notebooks and digital cameras), the process is suddenly akin to “keeping a diary while having sex,” as he put it.
In a scene in which Bourdain and Perlow talk turkey (or cow) over a decidedly greasy looking burger, Bourdain tells Perlow he’s missing out on the sensuous pleasures of eating by taking so much time to document the actual food:
Do you think there’s a danger in over-analyzing? I mean it’s just a f*&@#ing hamburger, man. And it’s a good one. But I’m a little concerned about this, actually. What makes it so good is all you’re thinking about is how good it tastes — the grease is running down your chin, you’re tasting the onions, and it’s all good. If you stop to think about it or take pictures . . . I mean, that’s sort of like keeping a diary while you’re having sex.
To which the lambasted blogger replies:
We’re trying to do the same thing you’re doing. We’re trying to share our experiences. Not everybody can just fly to Southeast Asia . . .
Oh touché!
But Bourdain just shakes his head at the tragedy of it all.
Those poor, lowly bloggers — they just don’t understand. Only with a full film crew at your disposal can you truly experience the pleasure of eating and still be able to tell others about the splendid thing upon which you have just supped, and which they — bless their plebeian souls — shall never sample.
Okay. I made that last quote up. Bourdain would never say supped. That’s a word reserved for dorky English majors and not ex-druggie, epicurean egomaniacs. But I swear that’s what he’s thinking … only with more expletives.
Related posts:
- That Gritty Taste Is The Delicious Animal Slowly Dying Jenna I’d-rather-go-naked-than-wear-leather Jameson has fallen off the PETA wagon. Again....
- Tyra Is Helping Miley Develop a Talk Show My worlds collided when Deceiver heavyweights Miley Cyrus and Tyra...
- Dear Tom: You’re Not Helping Are you looking around for that Cruisetastic Scientology recruiting video...
I don’t see it as hypocritical. yes he has a tv show, but its his job vs someone self-stroking analysis of a hamburger for their blog. bourdain wants to show ppl new things, but he’s not analyzing it to the nth dress in a food version of navel gazing.
or think of it as the professional writer who reviews video games vs the frothing rantings of some guy on youtube, declaring himself the end-all judgment of all videogame kind.
Tony Bourdain is a far left immigration-amnesty, ex heroin user.
He’s also an acquaintance, so I’ll just say that other than being a Bush-basher, he doesn’t really have any moral highground, and deep down I think he’s ashamed he sold out.
Sarah,
Your comparison might be more applicable if said game reviewer was playing video games with the YouTube ranter.
SJS,
I agree, this is hypocrisy
This is the closest I’ve come to putting my hands over my ears and pretending I don’t see the post. You’d think he could’ve at least met them on some common, foodie ground without being an asshole.
Punk rock my ass.
Stupid bloggers.
If you are going to blog about food, you NEED pictures, in my opinion. When I read any sort of food review, I want to see what the food looks like, to get a full sense of what I’m reading about. Presentation and appearance are part of the food “experience”, so not including pictures would be stupid. Also, if you pause for a moment to take a picture of the food before you eat it (I assume they aren’t pausing after every other bite to document the meal), how are you overanalyzing? I also have to laugh at his assertion that you should only thing about how good the food tastes, but in the same breath criticizing “stop[ping] to think about it”. Either you think about it or you don’t, but one can hardly do both!
Though, I must say, anyone who eats unwashed anything, especially something’s rectum, has no business claiming to be an expert on food. That’s not food, that’s stuff you shove down your throat if you are starving. Maybe.
I don’t think that Bourdain is being deceptive or hypocritical at all. At worst, he was a little rude and dismissive of someone not as successful as himself. He presumably gets the pleasure of enjoying the food because someone else is doing the grunt work of documenting it. The documentation process if, you have to stop the moment to do it, IS disruptive. I recently went on vacation with some girlfriends and one of them made us all jump off the same rock into a river like sixteen times because she didn’t like the way she looked in the photo we took of us doing it. I ended up feeling like the trip itself ended up secondary to the photos she wanted to post to facebook to show everyone how much “fun” we were having.
‘He’s not analyzing it to the nth dress in a food version of navel gazing.’
Actually, that pretty sums up the turgid excess that is Bourdain’s shows. It’s all about him, his reactions, his feelings, his discomfort, his pleasure. He is a narcissist that uses food to teach us plebians how clever he is.
Except he’s not really. He’s just an old money snob who believes that, if you don’t enjoy food HIS way, you’re worthy of adbuse.
I knew there was a good reason why I liked Andrew Zimmern’s “Bizarre Foods” better.
I don’t want to sound stupid, but since it is inevitable, please let me know what are his qulaifications? Is he a trained chef? Food journalist?
@ LN:
According to his Wikipedia page, he is “A 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a 28-year veteran of professional kitchens,[1] Bourdain is currently a chef-at-large whose home base is Brasserie Les Halles,[2] where he was executive chef for many years.”
*shrugs*
The guy is still a raging asshole though, and I refuse to watch that show or take his opinions seriously. The guy is so full of himself it will literally nauseate you. It’s pretty unbelievable.
I’m purty sure that mr.B used to hang with a slew of us up in greenwich, ct back in ‘da day (early ’90′s), and he was not exactly mr. cool, he was alright, but def not cool!
@Bunny – touche’ baby, touche’ he may be a tad bit heavy, but he’s def “cool”.
Bourdain is *such* an asshole. But I love him for it. I just love his writing, he comes through on a page very well. Not so well when he’s on screen (Zimmerman definately has the better show).
Is this hypocritical? It certainly looks that way.
But I still love the guy.
He is a huge snob, is he not? I was watching the Rachel Ray show while at the gym…. while I find her obnoxious, it would be far more likely for me to try one of her dishes than anything they cook at Les Halles. Bourdain is one of those chefs and food personalities who think only French food can be “good.” BS, I say – Lidia Bastianich FTW!
Still, for all his snobbery and rudeness and poseur-ness, I still enjoy the show. I like Zimmerman’s shows too, but I find Andrew’s dialogue and voiceovers to be too stilted and forced.
The idea of a “celebrity chef” is beyond stupid. A snobby celebrity chef? Doesn’t that sound dumb? I really don’t understand it at all.
Go make me a hamburger and shut up. You want to eat pig, or ox balls or something? Fine. Why does that have to be on TV? Who cares what they eat in Asia. Dogs. There. Now you know what they eat in Asia. Give me a TV show.
We’ll give you a TV show Pasta, if you show us your diary about sex.
per Fortunate Son’s post:
‘and deep down I think he’s ashamed he sold out.’
hence the extreme anal retentiveness.
I dont see this being hypocritical, I see this as him just being an ass to people. Which is his “thing.”
He didn’t seem to be yelling at them because they didnt have a big show like he did, he was yelling because he didn’t seem to like them and thought they apparently sucked at reviewing food, no matter if it was on just a blog or not.
Seriously, when is SJS going to learn what the meaning of hypocrisy is? If you work at a site that is for hypocrites, write about hypocrites, not people being jerks. It’s not the same thing, and it’s annoying to sit through posts only to find out it wasn’t even a hypocrisy. If I wanted to read about people being jerks, I would go to TMZ. This is getting ridiculous and is bringing the quality of the site down.
At least she ran the spell check this time, eh?
*Sigh*
Pasta- the only thing worse than those darn bloggers are the idiots who comment on their blogs. Those people are such losers and should be ashamed of….uh….um….nevermind.
I imagine that he thought rimming a warthog was the highlight of that trip.
You know who else hated people that comment on blogs Hurricane? Hitler. Are you agreeing with Hitler?
bigmama, my philosophy has always been, as long as there’s no permanent scarring. No diary needed.
It’s Tony being Tony. He’s slammed other celebrity chefs for years. Emeril Lagasse became a running gag in “Kitchen Confidential,” he mocked Jamie Oliver in the Tuscany episode of “No Reservations,” and he was reluctant to admit that the food at Bobby Flay’s Mesa in Las Vegas (also on “No Reservations”) was actually pretty good. Rachael Ray is one of his favorite targets. It’s not surprising to me that he’d turn his guns on foodie bloggers. It’s a bit like Anna Wintour kvetching about the girls who take pictures of themselves in dressing rooms, modeling whatever’s in the stores, for their fashion blogs. It’s fun to watch “No Reservations” but I think bloggers usually live closer to reality.
Pasta- it’s a little known fact that the rise of Hitler caused the creation of bloggers (and their half-breed breathren of commentors) so I’m kinda torn here…..
“But some of our crew got subcutaneous larvae, which I thought was pretty cool.”
Yeah, sounds like a real prince of a guy to me. “Prince”, as in “major jerkoff”.
He said the Food Network got pissed at him for all the Emeril branded depilatory jokes.
Also said Alton Brown was a complete ass to him at the James Beard awards.
Not sure if anyone has seen Alton Brown’s Welches commercials, but he looks like he is dying of a terminal disease in those spots.
Don’t have any inside info, he just looks… different these days, and not in a good way.
While I enjoy food, I don’t consider myself a “foodie” which may be why I think you people all take yourselves way too seriously. Christ, get a grip – and a life. While the beauty of the internet is that anyone can have a blog or website, it is also one of the downsides. There are 100s of food blogs. Having one makes you nobody special – just a person with opinions and a lot of time on your hands. And I agree with Bourdain that the word “foodie” in obnoxious in and of itself. And also with Pastafarian that this over analyzing is just so much foodie navel gazing and self obsessive crap.
I watch Bourdain more for the travel than the food and I find him witty, intelligent and insightful in the extreme. I think a lot of folks are simply jealous. He got this gig because he’s a very good writer who knows food (it all came about from “Kitchen Confidential”, as I’m sure you know) and it is writing and editing of the show that make it enjoyable, IMO. I don’t want to just watch someone eat. How boring is that? The locations, the people, his take on the day-too-day life there (esp. in less democratic areas)is something I look forward to watching. And while Zimmerman man be a really nice guy, watching an overweight bald guy stuff wriggling worms in his face is not my idea of a good time.