A really good friend of mine suggested that I might like “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” on The Travel Channel. Since this is the same person who still gets my personality throughout whatever changes either of us went through in the years we’ve known each other, I finally took his advice.
I haven’t set up cable or satellite since I’ve relocated, therefore all of my small-screen entertainment has consisted of DVDs. I checked out the No Reservations collections from the university library. Unsurprisingly, my friend was right. The idea of travelling by going outside the bounds of a guide book or riding tour buses is how I’d like to do it. Anthony Bourdain’s a self-described snarky misanthrope that still manages to find people he admires and respects, and I can most certainly relate. Bourdain will go to remote locations and eat the entrails and other organs of animals; I’ll gladly leave that to him and Andrew Zimmern.
Within watching a few shows — or if you catch the right episode, one — you will encounter quite a few of Bourdain’s numerous axioms about food: Asian cultures make the best food, poor people and cultures make better foods because they had to make the most out of the least, outdoor markets are the best place to get a sense of the native population, pork is the king of meats (he may have gone through withdrawal during his trip to Saudi Arabia, I’m not sure), the aforementioned “wiggly” parts most people won’t touch make for some of the best meals, chain restaurants are evil and so on. Beyond that, he also has some very strong opinions on vegetarianism.
Bourdain will admit when a vegetarian meal is good, but for the most part he holds that there isn’t a meatless dish that could be improved with animal protein. More than vegetarian dishes, Bourdain seems to have a particular disdain for vegetarians themselves; implying they’re wusses is par for the course.
Thanks to dietary restrictions, I have had to request vegetarian meals more than most carnivores and have had a number of times where I have gone at least a day without eating meat… sometimes deliberately. I also have friends who are vegetarians and even dated a couple (if you can believe that, given my last post). So while I am not cutting meat out of my diet any time soon, I don’t despise vegetarianism. But the militant vegetarians and vegans? The ones who protest outside of fast food restaurants and try to gross out meat-eaters by showing graphic pictures and videos, the ones who treat their dietary choice as nothing short of a secular religion (whether they admit it or not) on the other hand? Those people I hate. That’s why what I am about to write pains me so much; objectivity compels me to actually defend them.
Bourdain’s travels frequently take him to places where animals are killed in front of him or, in one particularly memorable case in Argentina, castrated. To his credit, Bourdain almost always accompanies those scenes (which are off-camera, but not far off) by connecting the act he witnessed to what those of us who do eat meat, including him, are more or less condoning. Interesting, though, are Bourdain’s reactions.
For Bourdain, seeing a whole roasted pig on a spit is appetizing, to say the very least. That contrasts sharply with his evident discomfort with having to kill a live pig as part of a guest-of-honor ritual. Bourdain doesn’t particularly care for hunting either, at least as an active participant or observer; in fact, in the narration of his thoughts during those segments, he quite often roots for the animal to escape. And frankly some of the scenes — that calf castration in Argentina and the Inuit seal hunt in Quebec are easily recalled examples — could double as more sanguine versions of PETA videos. In other words, as much as Bourdain loves meat, he obviously still has sympathy for animals.
Many vegetarians, sane consumer and jackass activist alike, give compassion for animals as a major reason they choose not to eat meat. If watching and participating in the admittedly brutal actions that go into meat production make an unabashed carnivore like Bourdain wince, then is it surprising that some people choose to personally distance themselves from what they understandably see as animal slaughter?
I’m not terribly thrilled with the prospect that animals are killed for food or how it’s done in many cases, but if you think that’s going to stop me from enjoying a chicken or fish dinner this weekend, you don’t know me too well. Yet I understand the emotional conflict someone could have due to the idea of processing animals for food. So as whiny and irksome as the more activist vegetarians — which encompasses seemingly just about every vegan — are, I won’t call them wimps for their choice to abstain from meat. Given Bourdain’s clear empathy for the animals that are killed in front of him and the fact that he is clearly an intelligent person, the gaping disconnect between that and his thoughts on vegetarians is… well, perhaps unexpected is the word I’m looking for.
That’s not going to stop me from watching the show, however. If his “they’re disgusting” rant on obesity with Ted Nugent (from the Collection 4 extras) hasn’t dissuaded me, the vegetarian thing certainly won’t. It’s easily one of the best ways to spend an hour watching television, especially if you are like me and hate most other reality-based television. The Travel Channel is better than most networks at that.
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In defense of the annoying…
March 1st, 2010 | No Comments »A really good friend of mine suggested that I might like “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” on The Travel Channel. Since this is the same person who still gets my personality throughout whatever changes either of us went through in the years we’ve known each other, I finally took his advice.
I haven’t set up cable or satellite since I’ve relocated, therefore all of my small-screen entertainment has consisted of DVDs. I checked out the No Reservations collections from the university library. Unsurprisingly, my friend was right. The idea of travelling by going outside the bounds of a guide book or riding tour buses is how I’d like to do it. Anthony Bourdain’s a self-described snarky misanthrope that still manages to find people he admires and respects, and I can most certainly relate. Bourdain will go to remote locations and eat the entrails and other organs of animals; I’ll gladly leave that to him and Andrew Zimmern.
Within watching a few shows — or if you catch the right episode, one — you will encounter quite a few of Bourdain’s numerous axioms about food: Asian cultures make the best food, poor people and cultures make better foods because they had to make the most out of the least, outdoor markets are the best place to get a sense of the native population, pork is the king of meats (he may have gone through withdrawal during his trip to Saudi Arabia, I’m not sure), the aforementioned “wiggly” parts most people won’t touch make for some of the best meals, chain restaurants are evil and so on. Beyond that, he also has some very strong opinions on vegetarianism.
Bourdain will admit when a vegetarian meal is good, but for the most part he holds that there isn’t a meatless dish that could be improved with animal protein. More than vegetarian dishes, Bourdain seems to have a particular disdain for vegetarians themselves; implying they’re wusses is par for the course.
Thanks to dietary restrictions, I have had to request vegetarian meals more than most carnivores and have had a number of times where I have gone at least a day without eating meat… sometimes deliberately. I also have friends who are vegetarians and even dated a couple (if you can believe that, given my last post). So while I am not cutting meat out of my diet any time soon, I don’t despise vegetarianism. But the militant vegetarians and vegans? The ones who protest outside of fast food restaurants and try to gross out meat-eaters by showing graphic pictures and videos, the ones who treat their dietary choice as nothing short of a secular religion (whether they admit it or not) on the other hand? Those people I hate. That’s why what I am about to write pains me so much; objectivity compels me to actually defend them.
Bourdain’s travels frequently take him to places where animals are killed in front of him or, in one particularly memorable case in Argentina, castrated. To his credit, Bourdain almost always accompanies those scenes (which are off-camera, but not far off) by connecting the act he witnessed to what those of us who do eat meat, including him, are more or less condoning. Interesting, though, are Bourdain’s reactions.
For Bourdain, seeing a whole roasted pig on a spit is appetizing, to say the very least. That contrasts sharply with his evident discomfort with having to kill a live pig as part of a guest-of-honor ritual. Bourdain doesn’t particularly care for hunting either, at least as an active participant or observer; in fact, in the narration of his thoughts during those segments, he quite often roots for the animal to escape. And frankly some of the scenes — that calf castration in Argentina and the Inuit seal hunt in Quebec are easily recalled examples — could double as more sanguine versions of PETA videos. In other words, as much as Bourdain loves meat, he obviously still has sympathy for animals.
Many vegetarians, sane consumer and jackass activist alike, give compassion for animals as a major reason they choose not to eat meat. If watching and participating in the admittedly brutal actions that go into meat production make an unabashed carnivore like Bourdain wince, then is it surprising that some people choose to personally distance themselves from what they understandably see as animal slaughter?
I’m not terribly thrilled with the prospect that animals are killed for food or how it’s done in many cases, but if you think that’s going to stop me from enjoying a chicken or fish dinner this weekend, you don’t know me too well. Yet I understand the emotional conflict someone could have due to the idea of processing animals for food. So as whiny and irksome as the more activist vegetarians — which encompasses seemingly just about every vegan — are, I won’t call them wimps for their choice to abstain from meat. Given Bourdain’s clear empathy for the animals that are killed in front of him and the fact that he is clearly an intelligent person, the gaping disconnect between that and his thoughts on vegetarians is… well, perhaps unexpected is the word I’m looking for.
That’s not going to stop me from watching the show, however. If his “they’re disgusting” rant on obesity with Ted Nugent (from the Collection 4 extras) hasn’t dissuaded me, the vegetarian thing certainly won’t. It’s easily one of the best ways to spend an hour watching television, especially if you are like me and hate most other reality-based television. The Travel Channel is better than most networks at that.
Commentary foodThis entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.