Review: Medium Raw

Medium raw by Anthony Bourdain. Photo / Supplied

Ten years ago, Anthony Bourdain turned the world of food writing upside down with Kitchen Confidential, a cook's-eye view of the world of fine and not-so-fine dining that made food sound like the new rock 'n' roll.

In part this was because of the immoderate quantities of illegal substances that he ingested, but also because it depicted a world full of sweat and blood and fat and flame in which degustation and discernment were replaced by appetite and relish.

It also, not incidentally, served up some pretty tasty epigrams, of which my favourite was "Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food."

A half-dozen books followed, either spin-offs of the excellent television series No Reservations (in which he visited exotic places to eat odd things and drink the locals under the table), or collections of material published elsewhere.

Medium Raw, whose subtitle is "A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook", is billed on the cover as the sequel to Kitchen Confidential and fans of that book will surely enjoy this - though perhaps not quite as much.

Perhaps that's because it's just not as revolutionary as its predecessor. Confidential paved the way for lesser imitators - in 2004 Waiter Rant, an anonymous-blog-turned-book, did for the front of house what the earlier book had done for the kitchen, but the author had none of Bourdain's rhetorical firepower.

Neither, now, does Bourdain, it seems to me. At 54, with a second wife and a 3-year-old daughter, he's quit drugs and smoking. He's still given to profanity if this text is any guide: one chapter ends with his describing the influential food writer for GQ magazine with the most taboo four-letter word.

But otherwise, the sharpest edge has gone from the writing. The style is often repetitive and some points are made with a sledgehammer rather than an ice pick (or should that be a filleting knife?) He romps through 19 chapters of a self-set agenda that, one suspects, was made up as he went along. He rhapsodises about fatherhood; crucifies Alice Waters of Chez Panisse (whose letter to the newly installed Obama administration is, it must be said, cringingly awful); he lists his "Heroes and Villains" - putting Jamie Oliver in the former group for his school-lunch initiatives; and he's got some stern words of advice for aspiring chefs, of which the main item is: don't enrol in a course.

The fact that he didn't know what Michael Pollan (in The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (in Fast Food Nation) told us long ago about the contamination of hamburger meat suggests he hasn't been paying the attention his position demanded since he first burst on to the scene. But in the end, Bourdain tells us much more than he fails to notice and the new book is an entertaining read.

* Peter Calder is Detours' restaurant reviewer.