Floating down the river of Xcaret, Riviera Maya, Mexico pic.twitter.com/VurK8gka3Q
— Planet Earth (@planetepics) April 5, 2014
Monday, May 5, 2014
Anthony Bourdain: Under the Volcano (Feliz 5 de Mayo)
"Mexico. Our brother from another mother. A country, with whom, like it or not, we are inexorably, deeply involved, in a close but often uncomfortable embrace. Look at it. It’s beautiful. It has some of the most ravishingly beautiful beaches on earth. Mountains, desert, jungle. Beautiful colonial architecture, a tragic, elegant, violent, ludicrous, heroic, lamentable, heartbreaking history. Mexican wine country rivals Tuscany for gorgeousness. Its archeological sites—the remnants of great empires, unrivaled anywhere. And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over a tortilla chip. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply ‘bro food’ halftime. It is in fact, old— older even than the great cuisines of Europe and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated. A true mole sauce, for instance, can take DAYS to make, a balance of freshly (always fresh) ingredients, painstakingly prepared by hand. It could be, should be, one of the most exciting cuisines on the planet. If we paid attention. The old school cooks of Oaxaca make some of the more difficult to make and nuanced sauces in gastronomy. And some of the new generation, many of whom have trained in the kitchens of America and Europe have returned home to take Mexican food to new and thrilling new heights."
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38 comments:
A true mole sauce...can take DAYS to make....
Right, like I'm trusting anything that takes days to make, in my belly.
Similar BS to the tall story about a great tomato based pasta sauce taking days. Two hours, three hours I'll buy. Beyond that...poppycock.
It's a great place and nice people, but it suffers from the heritage of the encomienda system.
Hate to say it, but we should have kept every square inch of Mexico we occupied in '48 (18, of course) and stuck by our original intent in the Gadsden Purchase to buy the entire tier of northern states in Mexico.
Would have been the best thing in the world for Mexico.
Of course, the same could be said of Canada if Richard Montgomery, Benedict Arnold, and Daniel Morgan had gotten their way.
Is the 4th of July celebrated in Mejico?
Poor Mexico. So far from God. So close to the United States.
Mexico is an example of a very wealthy country, rich in resources and humanity, which is being run into the ground by kleptocrats and crony criminals (or criminals and crony kleptocrats, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference). Our future if we continue on this course. Typical of socialist paradises, most people have a scarcity mindset and don't tend to be open to other cultures, even if they're right next door.
Bourdain tends to hyperventilate over every place he visits; he wants to always be introducing the unique unknown culinary experience. Sometimes he even manages to politicize FOOD. Usually a good informative show, but his aging hipster huffing and puffing does get on my nerves. Also, freely abuses his assistant.
Bourdain is a particular type of New York foodie douche. You had to see him acting out on "The Taste." A preening moron French chef called Ludo beat him senseless in almost every challenge.
His travel show is unwatchable.
I am very interested in food shows as I love to cook and I would over try to replicate dishes that I would see on TV.
It was impossible to recreate most of the dishes create out of whole cloth on "The Taste." You are much better off watching "The Chew" everyday. They almost have something during the week that is easy to put together and delicious to eat.
On a side note I heard that Governor Walker has declared
May 5th as "Feliz de Mayo" or Happy Mayo day which celebrates mayonnaise which is the highest culinary accomplishment of the state of Wisconsin.
Congratulations. Have some mayo on white bread to celebrate.
I love a good mole sauce, but Bourdain irritates the hell out of me.
And I've been to Xcaret!
Bourdain's recent show was advertised to be about food in Israel, but instead turned out to be about all the bad guys who want Israel dead living right next door and what good food the killers make and aren't Israelis pricks for not being killed already?
Fucker.
I like Bourdain. He has long been fiercely loyal to the Mexicans and Dominicans who worked w/ him in NYC kitchens. He did a show w/ his longtime sous chef, going to his family home in Mexico. There are NO harder working people than Mexicans.
Bourdain is liberal which I'm sure bugs folks here. He's also smug. But, he has a self deprecating sense of humor. He skewers liberal vegans, non gluten assholes every chance he gets. He has done shows w/ Ted Nugent and admits he likes the guy. He is a good writer.
Too many fucking curmudgeons here. The list of people Trooper DOES like could fit on a Post-it note.
I did like several of his other travel pieces, but the one on Israel made me wonder if his other work was also full of shit.
It's like when 60 minutes did a bullshit show on Catholics in the early 80s. I knew what they were saying was false, and suddenly i realized that everything they had ever done on prior shows might be similarly false.
So I quit watching.
And now I have my doubts about Bourdain.
I dunno what to think.
Too many fucking curmudgeons here.
You can never have enough fucking curmudgeons.
"You can never have enough fucking curmudgeons."
Well, I can usually only eat one.
They bind me up sumpin' terrible.
Don't know what to think?
Go ahead and imagine he's a functional drunk. Lordy, that guy puts it away. Everywhere he goes, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, talk about drinking, drink, drink drink drink, talk about being hungover, drink drink drink drink drink. I get woozy just watching the guy drink drink drink drink drink.
But that is how you get on with people in the world.
And sometimes food.
I did see him yesterday being regaled by a famous old classical French chef. The super-duper pissy kind. Very interesting show. It took dozens of French chefs working under the tutelage of the master for decades to produce an extremely fancy banquet. One course after another. Protein for weeks. A mont's-worth of food in one setting. The poisson en croute is in the shape of a fish, and they showed how it is done. Expertly. Each scale jabbed in the dough with a circular cutter poked at an angle, dink dink dink X 200. The fins, head, eyes, everything. Rapidly. (I've been doing the same thing 50 years, said the head chef) Much prettier than any of these. That was just one protein course.
He is French as you know, and his pride shinned through. Genuine pride in his own heritage. He knows it's the best of all cuisines, no matter what he says otherwise about simplicity and purity of unadorned ingredients. His pride beamed. They took selfies, group selfies, the whole crew, "This is historic!" He declaimed, and he meant every word.
I like him for the swears.
Country-style bread takes two days. Poolish, Old English word for "Polish" , the term used mostly by the French. Go figure. Their own word for Polish is polonais. It's one of those things. In Italian the same thing is called Biga. It is half the dough started the day before using scant yeast. That's one form. Another is straight up sourdough. So-called for the Alaskan gold rush miners who kept a dough wad in a pouch worn around their neck to keep it from freezing. Infrequent baths up there. Eeesh. They could be smelled a mile away. Perhaps a few feet away. At any rate they smelled of fermenting dough. Wandering vectors of swirling bacteria. Sourdoughs were people not bread.
"There are NO harder working people than Mexicans."
Aw, bullshit. Not because Mexicans aren't hardworking but because plenty of other people groups are. Like, Americans. (The ones that still have nongovernmental jobs, that is.)
Why would you make a per se unrealistic blanket presumption about an entire nation? Do you feel like they need some praise? Like, buck up little Mexican?
Actually, this sounds kind of Bourdainesque. Like, I shall briefly experience and provide a favorable review of these serfs and their foodstuffs and then return to my home planet to educate the in-house serfs on how to live more authentically. Foreign fuckers are probably microwaving Kraft cheeseslices on Wonder Bread the second he leaves.
This show is frequently parked at the intersection of class snobbery and class anxiety which is funny as hell, and, bonus, you get to learn something about foreign cuisines and locales and Bourdain has a charming personality, genuine curiosity about the world, and food knowledge. He's usually pretty honest (the Saudi Arabia show) but he's got this huge partisan blind spot. The Lebanon show back during the Bush years irritated. Bourdain goes to Lebanon and there's fighting (Syria) so he is compelled to shelter in an uncool hotel where he whinges on about Bush because, I'm serious, CNN kept showing the same tape of Bush at a dinner. Like that was Bush's fault. Then he complains about the amount of time it took to evac even though he visited over a State Dept warning.
@armatel/
Dead on. Mexico is possibly the sleaziest, most mal/mis administered nation in all of history. Were a nation to be judged solely by its native cusine and if I were forced to live in it forever based on just that, I would rank say China first, Mexico second and Great Britain third. But "man does not live by bread alone" and as such, I would reverse the order and in terms of liberty and freedom pick GB (alas the PRE Muslim infested GB) in which to be exiled and fated to eat naught but their native cusine.
@edutcher/
Hell, the entire northern tier of Mexican states would join the US in a HEARTBEAT even today--especially the city and region around Monterey... they believe--and have always believed--that Mexico City is nothing but a tax-devouring black hole that gives nothing back in the way of services.
Seriously Spinelli? You don't know what the fuck you are talking about!
This list of people I like will not fit on a Post-it note.
It would fit on a postage stamp.
Filipino food is great, and Filipinas are my favorite women.
But, the government of the Philippines sucks big time. Nothing but a kleptocracy. The only reason a
Filipino goes into politics is to steal.
Hard working Filipinos leave and head to America or Dubai. The remainder call their hard working relatives and ask them to send them a hand out. The stay at homes party and drink and screw on their hard working relatives' dime.
Does this qualify as racist?
Amartel, Americans, white and black, don't want to work in kitchens, "It's tooo hard and tooo hot."
Funny, What I remember about the Lebanon show was Bourdain's heartfelt appreciation and praise for the Marines who helped. That's what I took from the show. Do you remember that part??
Trooper, From reading you foe several years I think everyone you like is dead.
The Dead Get By with Everything
by Bill Holm
Who do the dead think they are!
Up and dying in the middle of the night,
leaving themselves all over the house,
all over my books, all over my face?
How dare they sit in the front seat of my car,
invisible, not wearing their seat belts,
not holding up their end of the conversation,
as I drive down the highway
shaking my fist at the air all the way
to the office where they're not in.
The dead get by with everything.
Yass. That was nice. Finally. after an hour of kvetching.
XCaret is exactly the type of place that would make Bourdain break out in hives. Yaarrgh.
Shouting Thomas said...
Filipino food is great, and Filipinas are my favorite women.
no, really?
I never would have guessed.
But, the government of the Philippines sucks big time. Nothing but a kleptocracy. The only reason a
Filipino goes into politics is to steal.
Another reason FDR was a jerk.
Trooper York said...
On a side note I heard that Governor Walker has declared
May 5th as "Feliz de Mayo" or Happy Mayo day which celebrates mayonnaise which is the highest culinary accomplishment of the state of Wisconsin.
A good Mayo is a joy forever.
edutcher said...
Hate to say it, but we should have kept every square inch of Mexico we occupied in '48 (18, of course) and stuck by our original intent in the Gadsden Purchase to buy the entire tier of northern states in Mexico.
Hate to say it but that would have made Mr. Lincoln's job a hell of a lot harder. Those who wanted Mexico then also wanted Cuba and Nicaragua for the same reason.
I would rather have Mexico as a neighbor than California. But I get both anyway.
Wrong.
The wheeze, "They want more slave states", was a dodge by the Abolitionists - who were the tin hat crowd in them thar days. William Walker was the necessary straw man they needed.
Annexing Texas and Manifest Destiny was as popular in Jersey as it was in Alabama. And, of course, there was 54' 40" Or Fight. Did they want slave states, too?
Also, if we had Cuba, there wouldn't be any Commies 90 miles off our doorstep
Wrong.
You didn't answer how we were going to remove slavery from the annexed states, especially given the save haven all that land would have provided ca April 1865.
We pretty much owned Cuba anyway until 1959. That worked out well.
Their are commies on our doorstep, in our schools, and in our government now, and they didn't need to go through Cuba.
Trooper said...
It would fit on a postage stamp.
... left unsaid, and still leave room for the Gettysburg Address.
john said...
Wrong.
You didn't answer how we were going to remove slavery from the annexed states, especially given the save haven all that land would have provided ca April 1865.
Um, I don't recall it happening in the first place. CA, NM, UT and the states that eventually evolved never had slavery, last I looked.
Slavery was outlawed in Tampico as much as Tucson.
If you mean Nuevo Leon, etc, they were no different, perhaps even less so as they had been decimated by Indian raids, so they were sparsely populated.
As for TX, we know how that ended.
We pretty much owned Cuba anyway until 1959. That worked out well.
Wasn't a part of the US, though, was it?
ricpic said...
A true mole sauce...can take DAYS to make....
Right, like I'm trusting anything that takes days to make, in my belly.
Similar BS to the tall story about a great tomato based pasta sauce taking days. Two hours, three hours I'll buy. Beyond that...poppycock.
Tabasco takes three years I think and it's great.
I'm a big fan of Bourdain. Yes, he's a pretentious chef douche, but so what. I liked his show No Reservations, first for the double meaning of the name, but second because I got to see some stuff I'd never seen before. So there.
john said...
Their are commies on our doorstep, in our schools, and in our government now, and they didn't need to go through Cuba.
They've been there since 1914 if you really want to get technical about it. Probably longer. At least since Engels/Marx put out there babbling gibberish that has cost so many of their hard earned labor and their lives.
Frankly, I've re-read Bourdains article and frankly it misses the mark by a wide margin. The fact of the matter is, is that Mexico is a fucking dump. The entire country. There is nothing redeeming about it. I don't give a shit that Mexicans contribute whatever to the American economy. Meaningless when they come form a country that is utterly devoid of ethics. It is one of the most corrupt and mismanaged countries to ever exist. It's dirty, it's sub-standard, the culture isn't all that great. It is colorful, but so fucking what? Considering the amount of corruption and 8th worldness of the whole place, why the hell do we even care about this country when ti doesn't give two shits about the US or anyone else.
Ever seen what happens to people who try to sneak into mexico? They get gunned down. The whole place is a land of repression.
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