Medium Raw - Another of Anthony Bourdain's Finest

Our last audio book of 2021 was Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook. We did quite good with only doing audio books in the car and got five done throughout the year.

Medium Raw was much like Kitchen Confidential, but also very different. It had all the sass and pizzazz of Anthony's KC debut, but was also deeper. He didn't just write about himself, he wrote about the world of food and the people who work and live in it. It wasn't just about him and his upbringing in the culinary dregs, it was about where he fit in the culinary world as a whole after experiencing and doing the things that he had done.

Bourdain does not hold back when it comes to his opinions about other chefs, particularly famous chefs that he finds annoying. While he understands the push and drive to keep building a food empire, he also writes about how that kind of pressure can go to people's heads or burn them out. He particularly takes quite a few jabs at the Food Network, and I can't do any sort of justice in summing up what he says, its just so perfectly him.

He also takes shots at food journalists as well. One in particular he devotes an entire chapter too. He really just does not like the guy. And after listening to the chapter, I can understand why. Bourdain also praises some journalists and chefs as well, giving credit where credit is due. He's not a complete asshole all the time.

One of the most touching parts about the book was him writing about his wife (at the time) and daughter. You could feel the love and excitement he had about being a dad come across in his writing and the way he read the audio book.

This piece is shorter, but that's because I cannot do the book, and the attitude Bourdain brings to reading his own writing, any justice. His self-narrated audio books are just an experience you have to have on your own. No amount of someone else writing about it is going to live up to that experience of listening to it yourself.

I do have to say though, if it wasn't for Medium Raw, I wouldn't have been able to identify the fancy little bird dish that Child Valda eats in the Wheel of Time adaptation. Bourdain does a whole piece about ortolan in this book and I was pleased as punch to be able to pick that out in another piece of media as a VERY fancy, and very illegal dish to be eating. There is a whole connotation to the character eating that dish that makes it more sinister knowing the history behind it.