Your Interview: Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain responded to a selection of CBC News.ca reader questions. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)

Chef, author and television host Anthony Bourdain will be appearing at Massey Hall in Toronto on Sept. 22, to discuss his culinary adventures and his new book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook.

For those unable to see him in person, CBC News.ca Your Voice collected questions for Bourdain about food and travel. Here are his responses.

Keri D'Angelo asks if there are any Canadian chefs you admire.

Anthony Bourdain: I am a huge fan of Martin Picard. I think his restaurant [Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal] is brilliant, his cookbook groundbreaking, and him ... dangerous.

Chris Peterson wants to know if you've come across any exotic dishes that could someday become as mainstream in North America as Vietnamese pho and pad Thai.

AB: Exotic? I don't even know what that is any more. But maybe Sichuan hot pot, because it's painful but literally addictive. Singaporean chicken rice? Izakaya is coming on strong for sure, with its grilled collars and fins, stuff on skewers, like yakitori. I'd be happy with more of any of those things.

Kin Kwan has two questions. First, how do you select your local guides on your TV shows?

AB: We reach out to food bloggers, writers and chefs from the area, after some research. Chefs have been very helpful, as they are well situated, and much like the mafia in that chefs all seem to know each other. There are also a professional strata of "fixers" worldwide who do this for a living for news organizations and film crews. They specialize in scouting locations, renting vehicles and drivers, finding hotels, getting the proper permits, paying the necessary bribes, etc. We spend a lot of time and thought on choosing who our fixer is. They have to have a sense of humor as you can imagine.

Kin also wants to know how you maintain your slim figure despite travelling the world and eating for a living.

AB: I don't snack. I don't generally eat sweets or drink soda. I never eat between meals or even before big ones. That said, I've put on about 15 pounds since the beginning of the series.

CBC community member The Burning Red asks if food is still as exciting now as when you first began writing your travel books and filming your shows.

AB: Yes. Though I'm most excited by simple things these days: good regional pastas, a fresh taco, a nice bowl of Madrileno tripe stew, good sushi rice, a properly poured fresh pint of Guinness in Dublin, a hunk of ripe, runny cheese, a slice of jamon iberico [Iberian ham].

Jeff Rochwerg says he loves to travel but is usually on a tight budget. He wants to sample local cuisine, but often migrates to cheaper options like pizza and sandwiches.
Do you have tips so he can continue to be money conscious while travelling, but still be able to enjoy local foods?

AB: Eat street food. Eat whatever local people eat when drunk late at night. Get up early and go to the local produce markets. In Latin America and Asia, those are usually great places to find delicious food stalls serving cheap, authentic and fresh specialties.

The CBC Food Bytes blog team also has a few questions.

Food Bytes: During your world travels, have you found any differences in the way different cultures view food and eating, as compared to the North American view?

AB: Yes. Huge differences. We are only now, in the English-speaking world, just beginning to get over our distorted relationship with food -- having either ignored or de-valued it on one hand -- or fetishized or gorged on the other. The Italians and Spanish, the Chinese and Vietnamese see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about -- or as a ritual like filling up a car -- but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon.

FB: You've sampled so many unusual foods. What would your ultimate meal be?

AB: Something simple and rustic and probably Italian. I'm not looking for "weird" or for "kicks." I'm looking to feel good. So my ultimate meal would probably be something very casual -- a picnic table in the mountains of Sardinia near where my wife's uncles and aunts live ... spaghetti a la bottarga or malloreddus with a ragout of wild boar ... some salumi ... local pecorino ... some local red wine. Family, maybe a couple of chef friends, as company.

FB: What are your thoughts on the state of cuisine in North America, where terms like "foodie" and "locavore" are so prominently tossed around and -- with now so many food-related blogs, books and TV shows -- so much attention placed on food and eating well.

AB: Yes, the level of discourse is higher than it was before. And yes, the general public is much more aware of food and where it comes from and how it's made or should be made. But that discourse is also often silly and annoying. A necessary byproduct, I guess, of a generally positive trend. I mean, imagine an Italian wearing a "Foodie"
T-shirt. It's unthinkable.

This last question is from CBC Your Voice. We see stories about factory farming, sky rocketing obesity rates, and fast food corporations penetrating every part of the world. What do you think about the future of the food business? Are there causes for optimism?

AB: I think -- I hope -- that the good guys are winning. In baby steps. The fear is that we are simply marginalizing those who can't afford organic food or good restaurants or who don't have the time or resources to cook by talking down to them. That by fetishizing organic and free range, we are simply driving food prices up for everybody (something that some advocates actually see as a good thing.)

Personally, I don't think the "war" against fast food chains can be won on the facts. I think you win it the way elections are too often won: through appealing to the most base fears and prejudices of the lowest common denominator -- through propaganda, through scaring the hell out of people. It worked for Bush. It might work for food advocates.

If you'd like to win a pair of tickets to see Anthony Bourdain at Massey Hall in Toronto on Sept. 22, email yournews@cbc.ca with the subject line "Anthony Bourdain tickets." Tell us the name of the New York restaurant where Bourdain worked as executive chef when he published his book Kitchen Confidential, and you'll be entered into a random draw. Send in your entry by Sept. 17. The winner will be announced here Sept. 20.

For more information about Bourdain's Toronto visit, click here.