Deferred Gratification
Mar 28th, 2007 by Eats Wombats
Writing about food yesterday inspired me to make sure Anthony Bourdain’s The Nasty Bits survived the recent book purge; 5 large boxes went to the nearest Oxfam shop after my shipment arrived. I read and hugely enjoyed Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour, and I’m keeping The Nasty Bits for a holiday.
Gilbert says envisioning the future is something that people do and animals don’t. The squirrel who buries nuts hasn’t a clue why he is doing it and is not looking forward to digging them up later. (Was he a squirrel who has come back as a Harvard professor?) Deferring and anticipating gratification is a uniquely human behaviour he claims. Sometimes such rehearsal of future pleasure is considered even better than the real thing. Indeed, I read yesterday that a “French author” said that the best thing about sex was “climbing the stairs”? Which author? Dammit!
Damn again, we have no stairs in our apartment. This must be why the man upstairs who owns four apartments (one for each wife) cut through the concrete floors and put in stairs. Surely not because taking the elevator would have been inconvenient!
Bourdain is to gastronomy what S.Hunter Thomson is to journalism. A heroic anti-hero with talent to burn, someone whose outrages and eccentricities are an inextricable part of a precocious, irrepressible talent. Tyrannical, profane and even violent chefs are a bit of a cliché but I have yet to read any who can write like Bourdain.
It’s irritating when television celebrities turn out to be wonderful writers. Bourdain is one of those rarities who has taken life by the scruff of the neck, plucked it, stuffed it, cooked it and wolfed it down, made sauce with the bones, and then written about it in such luscious, pornographic detail that he defines the term vicarious pleasure. Surely it is a cosmic injustice that this insatiable omnivore is as thin as a rake, an internationally known TV presenter, a world class chef and a truly funny writer with exquisite sensibilities. The cosmos likes balance. If we put Bourdain in the scales we need only stand in the supermarket to see what’s on the other side, and it’s not a pretty sight.
The tragedy is that much of the food he is passionate about is not at all something so refined and rare as to be beyond the reach of ordinary people. In France gastronomy is simply a part of life, like the car in America. I defy anyone to read the first few pages of Kitchen Confidential, in particular Bourdain’s account of eating his first oyster, and not want to slurp down the whole book and revel in the lingering aftertaste. I bought all three of his books on the spot. Two parts instant gratifcation, one part deferred.
