Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Anthony Bourdain
Ecco, 2010
U.S. hardcover, first edition
ISBN 978-0-06-171894-6
304 pages; $26.99

Anthony Bourdain is a lucky man, and he knows it. His first book about the world of restaurants, chefs and line cooks, Kitchen Confidential, became a wild bestseller when his biggest hope was that it would be a cult classic in New York and its surrounding states. Based on the success of that book, Bourdain landed a gig with the Food Network traveling around the world and eating – nice work if you can get it! Other doors opened from there, and now Bourdain, rich, married and a new father, has it made. To get to where he is from having been a drug addict working up to 20 hours a day in whatever kitchen would take him is quite a journey.

Medium Raw doesn’t have the power of Kitchen Confidential. Kitchen Confidential was hot, angry, frustrated and still, in sections, lyrical about food and the people who create magnificent dishes for the delectation of others. Medium Raw is mellow, gossipy – still fun to read, but mostly toothless. For example, in Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain warned diners against ever ordering fish in any restaurant on a Monday. It’s left over from the weekend, he said, not fresh, not good, maybe even dangerous. In Medium Raw, on the contrary, he says, “But eat the fucking fish on Monday already. Okay?” Bourdain writes that times have changed and that “The odds are better than ever that the guy slinging fish and chips back there in the kitchen actually gives a shit about what he’s doing.” He claims he’s still angry, but it’s hard to tell from most of Medium Raw.

There are a couple of chapters that stand out as great memories and even great writing. The one that sticks with me the most is Chapter 8, “My Aim Is True,” about Justo Thomas, who skins, bones and cuts fish for Le Bernardin in Manhattan. Seven hundred pounds a day, one fish at a time, coming to him almost straight out of the water, “the way they catch” – on the bone, the way God made them. Justo has everything just so in his work area, and is meticulous about his knives (not as sharp as you’d expect, because if they’re too sharp, they’ll slice right through a fish bone instead of catching on it, thereby allowing him to remove it), his gloves, his plastic wrap – every single detail. He’s something of a miracle; when he goes on vacation, it takes three people to cut the same amount of fish that Justo scales, guts, cleans and portions in four or five hours.

Bourdain discusses how Justo cuts fish in about 15 pages, and there isn’t a wasted word. You can learn more about how the best restaurants operate in these 15 pages than you can by reading whole books by other authors, and you gain a respect for the simple act of cutting fish that you probably never had before. It’s fascinating. And the denouement – Justo eats a meal at the restaurant where he’s worked for years for the first time ever – is utterly satisfying.

Bourdain writes about why we should care about a Wagyu steak and never, ever, eat it in the form of a burger. He talks about how to persuade a child that McDonald’s isn’t something she ever wants to eat – how to make Ronald McDonald into an enemy. In a return to (hilarious) form, he rails against Alice Waters and her many contradictions (firing up a wood stove just to cook a single egg? How is that sustainable? And isn’t Waters supposed to be the queen of sustainability?). He has a whole chapter on heroes and villains among chefs; if you’re a foodie, you’ll have heard of some of these folks (Alain Ducasse, for instance, who famously opened a restaurant in New York that went so far as to offer you a choice of pens with which to sign your check at the end of a meal) and some will be new to you unless you’re really tied into the restaurant scene in New York (such as Terrance Brennan, who is single-handedly spearheading the attempt to bring the notion of a cheese course to American diners). He questions the notion of the tasting menu at even the very best restaurants; does anyone really need to eat that much? Is it really even pleasant, ultimately, to eat such a large meal?

There’s much more, all of it written in Bourdain’s breezy, exceptionally readable style. You can devour this entire book in a single afternoon in a hammock, after which you’ll feel obliged to get to the best restaurant in your city for an elegant meal, followed by a viewing of “Julie and Julia” as you digest after returning home. Bon appetit!