“You’re that chef guy” I was told – a totally ridiculous conclusion as I’m twice Tony’s mass, have a beard and long hair. In fact the only thing we have in common is our sex (male), birth decade (the roaring fifties) and appetites (large).
Still, after reading Tony’s latest book the Nasty Bits (Boomsbury, 2006) – a collection of his recent “brilliant and acerbic journalism” (according to the dust jacket) – I wouldn’t mind being him.
In fact, if Charlie Kaufman ever pens a sequel to his off-the-wall Being John Malkovich, then Tony B. is his man. For Tony leads the life of Riley – either floating around the world on an oversized luxury yacht called the World or whizzing high above it (business class, at least), eating outrageous culinary creations (thirty courses over four hours), drinking the best wine with brilliant people like Ferrán Aidrà - the best chef on the planet - and then writing about it all.
With regard to the latter activity, Tony comes with a good track record. His Kitchen Confidential (Harper Perennial, 2001) blew the lid off dodgy practices and outrageous short-cuts in restaurant kitchens, while a Cook’s Tour (Harper Perennial, 2002) raised gastro-pornography to exotic new heights.
These new Nasty Bits cover all bases, from a broadside at food writers “a Petri dish of logrolling, cronyism, mendaciousness, greed, envy, collusion, corruption and willful self-deception, in which nearly all of us are hopelessly compromised” to their readers “annoying, nerdy, status-conscious” gourmets, to a revelation of what music cooks listen to in the kitchen: the Clash, New York Dolls, the Ramones and my favourites, the Stooges. Definitely NO Billy Joel.
While vodka remains Tony’s poison (now that he’s given up heroin and cocaine), wine plays a starring role in many of his over-the-top culinary exploits. But when it comes to brands Tony is admirably discrete, unlike so many wine bores who take sadistic delight in listing unaffordable gems from unobtainable vintages.
Many of the issues between food and wine are the same. After all, food and wine are all about transformation, with Tony noting that a glass of Sherry is a whole lot better than the grapes it was made from. Another issue he raises is that “who” is making the food is often more important than “what” she makes, which echoes the popularity of SA celebrity winemakers like Kevin Arnold and Eben Sadie, even if the Shiraz tasting panel for WINE magazine doesn’t agree (zero and one star respectively in the recent controversial Shiraz Challenge).
In foodie circles, the terroir debate is called the battle between “bloods”, rooted in place and time and “crips” who source ingredients from anywhere and rely on their own talent to whip up culinary creations. The intellectual distance between Slow Food and Fusion is similar to that between Single Vineyard and Wine of Origin, Coastal Region.
The gathering backlash against pretentious food and wine is well documented with Tony’s limit reached when offered a selection of bottled waters on a cart at that temple of gastronomy, Alain Ducasse, in New York. Expensive stemware, cutlery and floral arrangements are increasingly being ditched with a focus on ingredients and excellent cooking in an informal environment.
His selective hatred of celebrity chefs is hugely entertaining, like Ainsley Harriot (“I’ve said some very nasty things about this guy in print and meant every damn word too”) and the Naked Chef (“I think I remembered to slag Jamie Oliver before slumping into my rice.”)
Those arrangers of local wine awards functions should take Tony’s essay, No Shoes to heart with its simple message: “food tastes better without shoes.” His ideal dining-out togs would be “shoeless in Hawaiian shirt and cut-off jeans” so he may eat “undistracted by underwear riding up in my crack or the pinch of garters…”
Bourdain is the Hunter S Thompson of the kitchen: bad tempered, foul-mouthed, with issues aplenty. While George Orwell may have done it all before in Down and Out in Paris and London, Tony has a bigger budget and more exotic ingredients. The Nasty Bits gives a warts-and-all view of the US restaurant scene and should be prescribed reading for SA producers wishing to enter the mosh pit of American cuisine. As the old saying goes, “if you can’t stand the heat…”