Fuck Canadians
and vegans

>> And other heartwarming thoughts
from rebel food celeb Anthony Bourdain

by Juliet Waters

An hour-and-a-half before Anthony Bourdain, the legendary bad boy of The Food Network, was scheduled to appear at the Corona Theatre, people were already lined up. It was pouring rain. By the time my pre-event chat with Bourdain was over, rue Notre Dame was lined with umbrellas farther than the eye could see.

The respect is mutual. Here’s what Bourdain had to say in the companion book to his show, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach (officially released this week). “Our Mysterious Brothers to the North, the Canadians, provided a great time and, I think, a great show. Actually, fuck the Canadians: The Québécois provided a great time and a great show.” Featured in his chapter, “Quebec,” are Montreal chef Martin Picard (who told his cooks to “keep feeding him…and stop when he dies”) and the Inuit of Inukjuak, who “brought us one of those life-changing Golden Moments.”

In person, Bourdain is warm, friendly and even a little misty-eyed about subjects ranging from his love of Julia Child to his ambivalence about hunting. And then I asked him about vegans…

Mirror: You once compared vegans to Hezbollah. [Included in No Reservations is Bourdain’s essay about trying to film a show in Beirut in July 2006, as cars waving Hezbollah flags overtook the city followed by planes dropping Israeli bombs.] Now that you’ve actually had some experiences with Hezbollah, does the comparison still stand?

Anthony Bourdain (after some thought): Um…I like Hezbollah more.

M: Elaborate, please.

AB: Okay. Here’s the thing. I don’t believe in fundamentalism of any kind. I believe that curiosity is my greatest and maybe my only virtue. I think a willingness to try other things in travelling is compulsory. So on that basis vegetarianism really offends me. If you’re Hindu, fine. I get it. If you’re in India and you grew up with a vegetarian regime, this is your life. But if you’re privileged, or from a privileged Western society and you’re able to travel, I’m offended by that. Just as I’m offended by fundamentalist Christians, and anybody who is absolutely certain about anything.

M: I noticed a bowl of poutine in your chapter, “Food Porn.” How does it rate for you, X...XXX?

AB (with a smile best described as dopey and pained): Ahhhh…Man [guilty giggle]. It’s like an unsuitable date. It’s like going home with somebody—if you weren’t under the influence of alcohol—you probably wouldn’t have.

M: I came across this quote online, attributed to you, moments after you tasted Martin Picard’s poutine with foie gras [in an online forum for eGullet, a poster identified as “Lesley C.” wrote that this quote didn’t “quite make it past the editors at The Montreal Gazette”: “It’s like driving down Hollywood Boulevard, naked, wearing a cowboy hat and holding a White Castle hamburger in one hand, having sex with two hookers while listening to ZZ Top. Total trash.”

AB: YES! That’s a good quote! Not that I’ve ever done that…to the best of my recollection.

M: In the context of all your travelling, how would you rate your visit to Inukjuak?

AB: Heartwarming. Considering the physical difficulty it was a great, great, great, great experience. They were lovely to me, the family that took me in. We went seal hunting. It was a humbling, beautiful experience. It was one of those things where all of the definitions for words that you’ve come to understand are suddenly reversed. You know, sitting on a plastic tarp and seeing that much blood...to find that beautiful. Truly beautiful. And one of the things that struck me is that I don’t know anyone who lives in a home with the grandmother, the aunt, the uncle, the kids, the grandkids, where they were all so physically close. I think to pass any moral judgment on anything they do would be ridiculous and offensive. They seem to have things figured out in a lot of ways that I don’t.

No Reservations: Around The World on an
Empty Stomach by Anthony Bourdain
Bloomsbury, hc, 288pp, $39.95