Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain
(Ecco, June 2010)
Erin Lewenauer
It’s been a busy ten years since Anthony Bourdain first let readers into the dark corners of his kitchen and his mind with the mega-bestseller Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. The sometimes ornery chef has gone on to publish a hefty handful of books and articles while moving from country to country with his Emmy Award-winning show No Reservations.
Now retired from the restaurant kitchen, Bourdain proves that he has indeed learned a lot in his 28 years behind the stove. Like him or hate him, Bourdain does not pull punches. He speaks with clarity about chefdom in his Confidential sequel, Medium Raw, revealing “the searing heat, the mad pace, the never-ending stress and melodrama, the low pay, probable lack of benefits, inequity and futility, the cuts and burns and damage to body and brain—the lack of anything resembling normal hours or a normal personal life.”
The book opens with a scene a la film noir in which a group of heavy-hitter chefs gather in secret to partake in illegal cuisine. The chapters that follow touch on Bourdain’s reckless days on St. Barts, the conundrum of selling out, and the chef-author’s updated feelings on fellow gastronomic celebrities. “Rachael Ray sent me a fruit basket. So I stopped saying mean things about her. It’s that easy with me now,” a sanguine Bourdain admits.
Once a rogue and a provocateur, the Bourdain of Medium Raw is a sage authority. “I am frequently asked by aspiring chefs, dreamers young and old, attracted by the lure of slowly melting shallots and caramelizing pork belly, or delusions of Food Network stardom, if they should go to culinary school,” says Bourdain. “I usually give a long, thoughtful, and qualified answer. But the short answer is ‘no’.”
After his own graduation from the Culinary Institute of America in his early 20s, Bourdain published two “unsuccessful novels” and kept his day job, which spanned an impressive number of Manhattan kitchens. But the facts of Bourdain’s life are different now; he is older, he is a father, he is no longer a chef, and he deems himself happily uncool. He has traded the fast-paced, sweaty, profanity-ridden days in the kitchen for the time and the pleasure to dream up new ways to vilify Ronald McDonald for his daughter’s benefit. The bombastic and angry tone has mellowed considerably.
Medium Raw’s camera pans out slowly on the present, the scene spliced together with vivid shots of bygone years. Bourdain manages to avoid sentimentality in favor of a studious take on today’s food culture, where the Food Network thrives yet Gourmet magazine is out of business. Bourdain intelligently and humorously explores the effects of the economic crisis on the restaurant business, the ups and downs of Top Chef, a day in the life at New York’s Le Bernardin, the benefits of dozen-course tasting menus versus lure hamburgers, and his latest heroes and villains.
All of the skills that served Bourdain well as a chef—“creativity, technical skill, leadership abilities, flexibility, grace under pressure, sense of humor, and sheer strength and endurance”—have translated into his writing. In one of the best and most candid moments of the book, he allows readers to peer in on his coveted “food porn,” describing himself devouring a pain raisin at a small, Parisian boulangerie: “The reaction is violent. It hurts. Butter floods your head and you think for a second you’re going to black out.”
The tamed, more circumspect Bourdain of Medium Raw remains detail-oriented, hilarious, and sharp as ever despite the constant references to his age. As impressive as his hyper-awareness of foodies and the food industry is his generosity in sharing an honest view of a world that blends food and travel with an intimacy that so few people ever experience first-hand.
Erin Lewenauer, a poet and freelance writer from Milwaukee, is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a graduate of Vassar College and has lived in Paris, Boulder, and New York City.