Bourd Stiff

Anthony Bourdain's been around the globe. But he doesn't know much about Philly.

by Nick Norlen

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Published: Nov 27, 2007

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Anthony Bourdain

Sat., Dec. 1, 2 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, library.phila.gov

On a spotty cell phone connection from San Francisco, Anthony Bourdain puts me on the spot.

"Is there a show to be done there?" he asks, beating me to my own question.

What the renowned chef, writer and traveler is really asking is whether Philadelphia has enough legitimate, off-the-beaten-path culinary and cultural destinations to fill an episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, the gritty gastro-travel show he hosts on the Travel Channel.

The successes and failures in answering that question are chronicled in his latest, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach (Bloomsbury USA), recently released as a sort-of scrapbook companion for the show.

If Bourdain has a credo, it's in a passage he includes late in the book: "There is no lying with food. You either can or can't make an omelet. No amount of skill with words can conceal the truth of the matter."

Bourdain's writing skill notwithstanding, it's his trademark no-bullshit attitude that makes him so adept at cutting through to the choicest parts of any locale he visits. And, like the cliché about the best way to access a man's heart, Bourdain believes the fastest way to a city's core is through its food. "Food is such a pure expression of a culture and a history," he says. "It seems the most direct route in."

The lanky Bourdain is blatantly American, down to his gait and blustery, cocksure style of speech. And it's never more obvious than when he travels overseas, supping with work-hardened indigenous people who regularly offer him forms of what he calls "home-brewed concoctions of near-lethal alcohol content."

Perhaps the book's best illustration of Bourdain's skill for accessing other cultures is on its cover, which depicts him smoking a cigarette while sitting on the stoop of what he tells me is an Indian shop that sells bhang, a cannabis-derived beverage. The look on Bourdain's face — half-smirking and gazing into the distance — speaks to his amusement with the fact that mounting such adventures is his job. "I feel that a lot," he says. "I can't believe they allow me to do this."

Though it may seem like a leisurely pursuit, it's one that Bourdain takes seriously.

"It hurts when I fail a country I really love," he said, citing times when bad guides or tight schedules conspired against capturing the essence of a location. "I have genuine regrets when that happens."

But it's that desire to discover realness that drives Bourdain to seek out places he may have initially dismissed. "I think it's fair to say that I — like any other traveler, any other person — do have fears and prejudices," he says. "[But] I seem to connect with some places more easily and more immediately than others." He notes a preference for Asian and Latin American countries that led him to a challenging question: "Why do I find charming in the Vietnamese the very things I would find unacceptable in a Texan?"

Bourdain says he is sometimes almost rewarded for possessing such self-awareness. "I just think I started meeting nice people in places where I've held deeply New York-style prejudices against," he says. "I grew up watching Easy Rider and Deliverance. I thought when you cross the Mason-Dixon Line, it's all murder and sodomy. It was a pleasant surprise to find things I really loved about the South and the Southwest."

Fortunately, his prejudices don't apply to Philadelphia. But some would argue that the fact that he has little to say about our city bodes worse. "The times I've been there," he says, "I've met some nice cooks and I've had a good cheesesteak.

"My first impression was that W.C. Fields was right — the place was fucking closed," he adds. When pushed for favorite spots, he brings up a "really good, late-night" bar he can't recall the name of.

And though he admits he doesn't "know enough about Philly to say anything one way or another," it's not without precedent for Bourdain to quickly warm up to similarly uncelebrated cities. He says Portland has "the greatest chef culture in the country," and even lists No Reservations' Cleveland episode as one of the best shows he's done.

Which brings us back to his question: Is there a show to be done here?

"I haven't to date seen anything that kind of turned me around and screams to me, 'This is a really undervalued [city],'" he says. "Anything's possible, man. Maybe I just haven't been to Philly enough. I'll be there soon. Maybe things are different."

(runningnumbers@gmail.com)

 

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