Anthony Bourdain: "Alice Waters annoys the living sh*t out of me." »
Posted By gamahuche 1 year ago in StyleCulinary crankypants Anthony Bourdain, the male flip side in the Rachel Ray world of food stardom, has made a habit of slamming other celeb chefs. Brilliantly so. During a recent interview, Bourdain took aim at Chez Panisse's Alice Waters: "Alice Waters annoys the living s*it out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic."
Bourdain added: “I'm a little reluctant to admit that maybe Americans are too stupid to figure out that the food we're eating is killing us. But I don't know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's.” (For more incendiary statements from Bourdain, check out the extensive Google interview below.)
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gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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Radiofreeeuropa1 year ago
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Bourdain is great at what he does. This is a little comic relief in a world full of little good humor. Kitchen Confidential was a really good book, and who can blame him for being his grumpy self indulged self? Face it, people who achieve in any endeavor ARE very opinionated, it's what drives their vision. Anyone who isn't won't be motivated enough to pursue anything at all. Though organic foods are nothing to fear, some are high priced others are not. One must take into account that Bourdain once said that a chef's french fries are the best indicator of what kind of food is prepared in that kitchen. If they aren't perfect, nothing else will be either.
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Simple as it sounds, it's probably true...I actually like his travel show "No Reservations"...yeah he's full of himself, but not a bad writer, he turns a phrase with the best...if not the rest. -
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gamahuche1 year ago
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I almost posted this under humour - chefs tend to be temperamental bunch, whether infuriated Chinese ones chasing unappreciative clients down the street with chopper in hand, others who liberally imbibe fine vintages straight from the bottle or find other less legal ways of coping with a very stressful job.
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Celebrity chefs are hardly a modern phenomenon but their work was dedicated primarily to their very wealthy employers and keeping up with menus like the following must have been VERY demanding - hardly allowing time for a whole lot of "being celebrated"..
This is a PARTIAL menu for one supper given for Marie Antoinette, from the imperial archives, quoted by L'Almanach des Gourmands pour 1862, by Charles Monselet. Her Majesty's Dinner, Thursday 24 July 1788 at Trianon:
Four Soups
Rice soup, Scheiber, Croutons with lettuce, Croutons unis pour Madame
Two Main Entrees
Rump of beef with cabbage, Loin of veal on the spit
Sixteen Entrees
Spanish pates, Grilled mutton cutlets, Rabbits on the skewer, Fowl wings a la marechale, Turkey giblets in consomme, Larded breats of mutton with chicory, Fried turkey a la ravigote, Sweetbreads en papillot, Calves' heads sauce pointue, Chickens a la tartare, Spitted sucking pig, Caux fowl with consomme, Rouen duckling with orange, Fowl fillets en casserole with rice, Cold chicken, Chicken blanquette with cucumber
Four Hors D'Oeuvre
Fillets of rabbit, Breast of veal on the spit, Shin of veal in consomme, Cold turkey
Six dishes of roasts
Chickens, Capon fried with eggs and breadcrumbs, Leveret, Young turkey, Partridges, Rabbit
Sixteen small entremets
(menu stops here)
One wonders if many of the diners may have needed at least a bathroom-break or two even before the break! -
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PsychoHosebeastComment removed: Spammer, Abusive
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gamahuche1 year ago
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Alice is a Taurus and has tremendous drive and energy to follow her very direct and straightforward purposes.
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She is strongly "mission-driven" and not ego-driven.
If she had been the latter she would have come a cropper a very long time ago; people would have been totally turned-off by her obsesssions if her drive and energy had been devoted to an ego-trip of SELF-promotion and - above all - she would never have been able to build the community and fulfil the dreams that she has.
I must admit my "interest" in her and in her projects, which already has a history of more than 30 years, and that I was one of the first people to experience her food epiphany when she returned from a visit to France where she discovered the simple magic of fresh, locally sourced, simply but perfectly prepared ingredients.
I also await my annual card from the "Chez Panisse Family" with eager anticipation. It always comes well into the New Year and this year has a picture of the White House disguised as a castle, with some older ruins on the grounds and a very esoteric looking garden laid out with neat and variously shaped beds - which MUST be planted with vegetables, though that is not self-evident - no visible cauliflowers or squashes.
The effect is much like the famous Rosicrucian gardens of Heidelberg - a wonder of wonders from the early 17th Century which has survived but has lost most of its extremely magical effects, if not its unique history. Rosicrucianism was also based on a vision of a new world and society - a vision of a golden age, which was savagely destroyed in the Battle of the White Mountain which took place just outside Prague in 1620 when the Catholic forces occupying the lower ground attacked the Protestants and in a bare 20-minutes defeated and massacred them.
This may seem like a far-fetched analogy but in terms of a planetary world-view the ideas of the Slow Food Movement - of which Alice is the principle US representative, responsible for organising the very successful annual colloquium which took place last autumn in San Francisco, the approach to sustainable agriculture and a system which guarantees fair prices to producers while ensuring the quality of what is produced is arguably the ONLY model which is truly sustainable and that makes sense. -
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gamahuche1 year ago
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Next question..
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Is Anthony Bourdain entitled to his opinion?
Absolutely!
Is it all part of the game?
Precisely!
He gets mileage, she gets mileage and - above all - the issues and ideas get mileage and hopefully traction.
P.S. I've never actualy HEARD of this Bourdain fellow before but I think that I'm reading him right..-
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Beau78901 year ago
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Here's a quote (from a link contained in this article) Alice Waters wrote to the President:
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Local, affordable, nutritious food should be a right for everyone and not just a privilege for a few.
Here's how Anthony Bourdain has interpreted her views (from the article):
We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic.
and
I don't know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's.
Anyone else see a disconnect between his interpretation and her words? His critical thinking skills appear to be akin to those of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.-
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gamahuche1 year ago
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You're right Beau!
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Thanks for perhaps bringing the story back to nuts and bolts!
Part of the nuts and bolts too is that ideas do thrive on opposition too.
If Alice weren't driven entirely by her ideals and vision she could be dismissed as being as pushy as hell.
But in fact the way that her ideas and ideals have been manifested has been something akin to family-building.She's encouraged growers by guaranteeing them a premium market, has encouraged any number of people to work with her and to move on and do their own thing - while others would complain of copy-cat plagiarism.
I don't believe that she has any opinion about closing McDonalds but definitely one about offering much better and healthier options.
Several schools in Oakland/Berkeley have created gardens and the kids grow vegetables which become part of their lunch:
http://www.chezpanissefoundation.org/edible.html
This is the effort at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. -
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aceofspades11 year ago
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Actually Bourdain never owned Les Halles, but, was the executive chef. As a pop chef he never actually does any cooking or gives any recipes, but rather currently takes the viewer on world tours of places of culinary interest. His unabashed and unapologetic carnivorism is commendable. He his not afraid to show his next meal "on the hoof" so to speak, rather than neatly vacuum packed.
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His inane philisophical platitudes deserve the trash bin.-
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Eagle_Eye1 year ago
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"He his not afraid to show his next meal "on the hoof" so to speak, rather than neatly vacuum packed." Gordon Ramsey does this in "The f Word", it so totally freaked me out at first until I realized while watching that the animals he was raising and eating were treated far more humanely than the animals are commercialy.
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Hubby tried to raise sheep for us but I have a problem eating anything I have seen and raised. That is unless it is a ram that has rammed me, then I have no problem calling the place to come and get him.
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Poulenc1 year ago
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It's a mite late in the day--though happily iconoclastic--to b*itch about Water's ivory-towerism. She's been preaching her particular gospel for thirty-plus years.
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I'll wager that not one human who had/has the ambition and financial wherewithal to follow her dictates will stop doing so because of hard times.
What Bourdain rightly targets is a certain self-righteousness on W.'s part. He'd be more to the point if he made general the degree to which Water's success was a result of the imaginative work of many hands over time.
But in her own way she seized the reigns. And no one can gainsay the sanity of her message, or its, well, righteousness. -
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Natureboy1 year ago
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Bourdain is being a douche.
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He says "We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market."
As if he is the champion of reasonably priced meals, but do you really suppose his restaurant is aimed at providing low-cost meals? I bet dinner for two at Bourdain's place breaks the hundred-dollar mark, so it is hypocrisy from the git.
And I don't know what the "green market" is. I do know that we have an ever-increasing number of small-scale, local farmers struggling for a foothold, and a partial key to success for this movement is buying from them. Typically, there is no middleman or "green market" needed between local farmers and local restaurants.
And the best/smartest/healthiest alternative is also the cheapest for the individual - if you want good, organic local veggies, get rid of some of that ridiculous lawn and just plant yourselves a vegetable garden.
One of the best and smartest things I have heard of is being done locally at a charter school. The kids learn how to garden (there is a greenhouse,) they have culinary arts classes where they learn how to cook what they grow as well as how to bake bread etc, and the whole school gets the benefit in the cafeteria, where fresh, grown-on-site veggies and fresh-baked bread are daily fare. -
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vallontina1 year ago
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We LOVE Anthony! The show where he was in some Asian country and was driven on a dirt bike to some old lady's house/restaurant and she cooked him 'Squeezle' was hysterical. I wonder what his GI tract is like? So he spoke his mind about another chef. So what?
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tanglingshadows1 year ago
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I am surprised that no one has rebutted with the obvious: meat is expensive, it ruins the planet (costs to raise and manufacture)and is essentially not a good idea for a healthy diet..Read Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet. Yes, organic out of season CAN be expensive, but the bottom line is that whole grains and vegetables and fruits are the foundation of a healthy diet and does not have to break the bank or the wallet...
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chefsikramer1 year ago
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I agree with Chef Bourdain. I am now retired, and I need to watch my expences carefully. I mostly shop at our local supermarket "Publix," for our daily marketing. The quailty of there fresh product is usually quite high, and a knowledgeable shopper (as I am) can get excellent product, when product is on sale savings can be enormous. "Publix" has shops that they named "Greenwise" but I do not shop there because it is to expensive. If I want something special then there are a number of independent shops that I can go to, as today, I wanted a choice of different varities of fish that "Publix" does not carry, so I bought it elsewhere. The cost factor of "Organic" food is not an option for most people, and in the advertising of organic foods where it makes people feel guilty because they cannot afford it is in my opinion wrong. Chef Boudain is right.
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m3207531 year ago
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anthony is ok except he acts like everyone he meets is his lifetime best buddy. also some of the crap he eats isn't fit for dogs especially when he's in vietnam or one of those other countries. as being the male rachel ray, he got a long way to go. most of his shows are pretty good like i said before he just needs a little tweaking. i would like to see him and ramseyin a kitchen together. now that would be reality tv
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IcarusinNy1 year ago
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There is absolutely no relationship or similarity between Bourdain and Rachel Ray. Ray is of the let's feast on mediocrity school of culinary arts, clueless, tasteless and uninspired in every manner. I don't think it would be possible to find a less relevant human being on the face of the planet than Ray. On the other hand, Bourdain knows food, he's earned his culinary chops the hard way working his way up from prep to chef. He's an intelligent man with a great sense of humor who is curious, adventurous, humble and appreciative by nature. His world-view is informed by someone who has lived an exciting life traveling the world, experiencing and learning about the unique traditions handed down to each subsequent generation by recipe and ritual. This guy is engaged in life, you really have to admire someone like him. Unlike Waters, he has a little perspective about his own place in the world. As much as I love Waters food, she lacks humility, she's come to think too much of herself and the opinions she holds.
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laurarvail11 year ago
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I love Anthony Bourdain's show and have even ventured to make some of the things he endeavors to eat. As far as Bourdain goes, even his insults are extremely beneficial to whoever he is slamming, becasue people will then go to Alice Waters and say "Tony Bourdain slammed you so badly!" but then they will stay for dinner to find out what the brouhaha is... even bad press is good press....
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laurarvail11 year ago
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gamahuche - it depends on the state. I was on Food Stamps in PA as I was pregnant during the winter and my husband (who's a welder) couldn't work. I was allowed to buy any food i wanted, organic, dried, fresh... and I was given vouchers to go to the Farmer's Market building in my county to get fresh from the hydroponics veggies and fruits... no one ever told me what to buy, only that the stamps would only cover FOOD items, not toilet paper and stuff like that...
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laurarvail11 year ago
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vallontina - you saw that episode?!?!?!?!? OMG I laughed so hard, when he couldn't figure out what a "Squeezle" was, until he found a couple of quills in his plate... both he and Andrew Zimmern (from "Bizarre Foods") must pop Lipitor, nitroglycerin, and Tums like M just to keep their arteries from clogging up... and their stomachs from retreating to their feet....
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