The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal
Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones, By Anthony Bourdain
Reviewed by Publishers
Weekly and American Library Association
From Publishers Weekly
In this typically bold effort, Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential),
like the fine chef he is, pulls together an entertaining
feast from the detritus of his years of cooking and
traveling. Arranged around the basic tastes: salty,
sweet, sour, bitter and umami (a Japanese term for a
taste the defies description), this scattershot collection
of anecdotes puts Bourdain's brave palate, notorious
sense of adventure and fine writing on display. From
the horrifying opening passages, where he joins an Arctic
family in devouring a freshly slaughtered seal, to a
final work of fiction, the text may disappoint those
who've come to expect more honed kitchen insights from
the chef. Surprisingly, though, the less substantive
kitchen material Bourdain has to work from only showcases
his talent for observation. This book isn't for the
effete foodies Bourdain clearly despises (though they'd
do well to read it). He criticizes celebrity chefs,
using Rocco DiSpirito as a "cautionary tale,"
and commends restaurants that still serve stomach-turning
if palate-pleasing dishes, such as New York's Pierre
au Tunnel (now closed), which offered tête de
veau, essentially "calf's face, rolled up and tied
with its tongue and thymus gland." Fans of Bourdain's
hunger for the edge will gleefully consume this never-boring
book.
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From Booklist
Deriving in large part from his popular series of television
travelogues, Bourdain's new collection of essays breezes
along. Bourdain writes as he talks--irreverently, earthily,
and determinedly free of euphemism. The reader can almost
hear him dragging on his cigarette between sentences.
In just a few pages he lays bare the gritty, fill-those-tables
economics that govern a restaurant's success without
respect to the competence of its cooks. He surveys the
current crop of overpublicized chefs in their trendy
Las Vegas digs and finds their eateries flourishing
if soulless. He fears that celebrity (and vast riches)
will undo many potentially great chefs, but exceptions
such as Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse confirm his
faith in the higher side of his profession. Anyone who's
ever dined in one of the thousands of undistinguished
and indistinguishable "family" restaurants
clogging the nation's highways will appreciate Bourdain's
take on "Restaurant Hell." His lusty paean
to the old, freewheeling Times Square of drugs, sex,
and crime offers a contrarian, in-your-face riposte
to New York City's touristy gentrification. Mark
Knoblauch
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American Library Association. All rights reserved.
