Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

by Anthony Bourdain

Overview

An instant New York Times bestseller and the follow-up to the mega-hit Kitchen Confidential

In the ten years since Anthony Bourdain's classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business–and for Anthony Bourdain.

Medium Raw tracks Bourdain's unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, in a series of takes-no-prisoners confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food.

Beginning with a secret, highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a mafia summit, Bourdain pulls back the curtain–but never pulls his punches–on the modern gastronomical revolution. Cutting right to the bone, Bourdain sets his sights on some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, the young superstar chef; the revered Alice Waters; the Top Chef contestants; and many more. Medium Raw is the deliciously funny, shockingly delectable result, sure to delight philistines and gourmands alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061718953
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/03/2011
Pages:	281
Sales rank:	25,688
Product dimensions:	7.82(w) x 5.24(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Anthony Bourdain is the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, in addition to the megabestseller Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour. His work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and he is a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine. He is the host of the popular television show No Reservations.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

June 25, 1956

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

High school diploma, Dwight Englewood School, 1973; A.O.S. degree, The Culinary Institute of America, 1978

Website:

http://www.anthonybourdain.com/

Table of Contents

The Sit Down xi

1 Selling Out 1

2 The Happy Ending 19

3 The Rich Eat Differently Than You and Me 25

4 I Drink Alone 43

5 So You Wanna Be a Chef 49

6 Virtue 59

7 The Fear 65

8 Lust 77

9 Meat 95

10 Lower Education 111

11 I'm Dancing 117

12 "Go Ask Alice" 127

13 Heroes and Villains 143

14 Alan Richman Is a Douchebag 163

15 "I Lost on Top Chef" 179

16 "It's Not You, It's Me" 191

17 The Fury 209

18 My Aim Is True 233

19 The Fish-on-Monday Thing 253

Still Here 269

Acknowledgments 283

Editorial Reviews

Bourdain is back with more intriguing food fights, moving further from the kitchen into the eating industry. [Bourdain’s] dissections...are still as hilarious, as scatological and as spot-on as ever....his fare—and his prose—is still quite spicy.

BookPage

Compulsively readable.

New York Magazine's Grub Street

The KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL author is a father now, but he hasn’t cleaned up his language, lost his zesty appetite or his critical zing.

Time Magazine

Mr. Bourdain is a vivid, bawdy and often foul-mouthed writer. He thrills in the attack, but he is also an enthusiast who writes well about things he holds dear.

Wall Street Journal

Full of things everybody in the food world thinks but nobody will say...If [Bourdain’s] sharp eye and his wicked tongue have brought him acclaim, what’s kept him in the spotlight is his heart. Like Oscar Wilde, he’s a moralist in the guise of a libertine. Long may he prosper.

Denver Post

Like a stinky fish sauce from his beloved Vietnam, [Bourdain’s] appeal among the food die-hards has only grown stronger and more pungent over time, and this book will only solidify that adoration.

Austin American-Statesman

This is Bourdain at his best. His food-porn vignettes are guaranteed to make your mouth water.

Miami Herald

Bourdain has insight, access and good taste, and he’s a naturally engaging writer...Bourdain is a hopeless romantic when it comes to food and the people who cook. The subtitle’s real valentines are two elegantly written profiles.

New York Times Book Review

…Bourdain's prose at his wildest can sound like Hunter S. Thompson's, yet he can also produce much quieter work, such as "My Aim Is True," a brilliant portrait of Justo Thomas, the man who fillets the fish for Le Bernardin, New York's great seafood restaurant. A.J. Liebling couldn't have done it better. Above all, when you read Bourdain, you never quite know what's going to happen in the next sentence, but you can be sure you're in for a treat, a shock, a surprise…Anyone who starts the book is liable to lose all control and simply gobble it right up. I certainly did.
—The Washington Post

Michael Dirda

PRAISE FOR KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL: “The kind of book you read in one sitting, then rush about annoying your coworkers by declaiming whole passages.

USA Today

"Compulsively readable."

Grub Street - New York Magazine