The Perfect Meal

Libby Dulski
9/25/16
Reading Response #4

Anthony Bourdain: A Cook’s Tour

            Throughout A Cook’s Tour Anthony Bourdain is searching for the seemingly “perfect meal.” In his conquest to find the perfect meal, Bourdain and his brother Chris head to southwest France where he and Christ had spent much of their childhood. After eating “a baguette, a croissant, and a brioche, eager to try it all, to see if it tasted the same” (35) as it did in their youth, Bourdain does not feel the excitement that he thought he would experience. He describes that there was “something holding [him] back. The baked goods, after all this time, were identical in taste and appearance. The shop smelled just as it had twenty-eight years ago. But something was missing” (35). Later in the chapter Bourdain realizes that he hadn’t returned to France for the “fish soup, or the saucisson, or the pain raisin. It wasn’t to see a house in which strangers now lived, or to climb a dune, or to find a perfect meal I’d come to find my father. And he wasn’t there” (46). Bourdain had claimed that he was in pursuit of the perfect meal throughout the trip to France, but he was unable to enjoy himself because in the back of his mind he knew that the trip was for his father. Bourdain wanted to capture the presence of this father. He repeatedly mentions that his father would have loved the trip. Behind his conquest for the perfect meal, Bourdain really just wanted his father to be with him experiencing the different foods, and experiencing the things that thrilled him in his childhood.

            For me, Bourdain’s pursuit of the perfect meal in Russia was the most intriguing. Bourdain suggests taking Zamir out for a nice meal. They go to a restaurant where their waitress is constantly watching them to make sure they are drinking enough. The difference between waiters in America and Russia was surprisingly unalike. Zamir at one point tells Bourdain that the waitress is concerned with their table because she said they were not drinking enough vodka. Bourdain contrasts this by adding: “Try to imagine this happening in an American restaurant or bar. Your waiter comes to your table and says he doesn’t think you are consuming enough booze, and you need more alcohol, and you need to consume it quickly” (96). Russia’s culture around food is that one would consume large amounts of alcohol with food. On the opposite end of the spectrum, people out for dinner at a nice restaurant in America probably would not want to get “smashed.” One line from this scene that particularly stood out to me was when the waitress arrived at Bourdain and Zamir’s table to admonish them. She said, “You will both be considered traitors to your countries and your people if you do not drink more!” (97). Once again, trying to imagine a waiter saying this to someone at a fancy dinner in America is unthinkable, but drinking is an ingrained part of culture in Russia and is part of dinner culture.