My Foodie Idol Anthony Bourdain Gives My Green Foodie Idol Alice Waters the Foie Gras Bird

Update, via New York Magazine:

"I don't have any burning issue with Alice Waters, a restaurateur and visionary whose accomplishments clearly dwarf my own, so I doubt it. In a perfect, candy-colored world, I'd like to eat most of what she'd like to see us eat. I feed my daughter mostly organic food whenever possible--and greatly admire what Dan Barber is doing. My comments were a heartfelt reaction to her wildly hubristic letter to the (then) president-elect, a document whose tone, timing and content I found distasteful--particularly coming from someone who hadn't even bothered to vote in the four previous elections.

True, I am suspicious of wealthy suburbanites who preach "back to the soil" philosophies--as if most--or even many--could start digging subsistence gardens in their back yards or afford expensive organic or locavore lifestyles. But Chez Panisse was inarguably a cradle of the food revolution. I respect Alice Waters' enormous contribution to changing the way we eat and cook today. No one can take that away from her. No one should try.

I intend to treat her with the respect she rightly deserves. She says some stupid shit sometimes--and she is certainly free to call "bullshit" on me when I do the same. I might, in the spirit of good fun, point out that following even my own not particularly distinguished career in kitchens--most of it in view of the "Choking Victim" sign, I DO, at least, know the Heimlich maneuver."

Original post:

I was bummed to see this--but not surprised:

Anthony Bourdain: "Alice Waters annoys the living shxt out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic ... I'm suspicious of orthodoxy, the kind of orthodoxy when it comes to what you put in your mouth." [DCist]

I love Bourdain's show...Bourdain's belly-first strutting machismo makes for an entertaining, great effing show. He--like Dubya--would be a fun guy to get drunk with. But don't denigrate our Alice Waters, Tony--she is the real thing, doing good for school children, the cause of Victory Gardens and local food (what's cheaper!?) and organics (which is, simply, food-minus-chemicals--nothing pretentious about that, rather just old-fashioned as-God-intended-it good for you good tasting food).

Bonus:

Post: elephantjournaldotcom.

Comments

[Lapwing]

Khmer Rouge? This sort of name-calling is unacceptable, like a recent Denver Post column calling opponents of the writer "jihadists." Let's just cut it out and find a way to talk to each other like humans.

[kathynyc]

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2009/01/bourdain-quips-wants-daughter-to-eat.html

I am a vegan who loves Tony. I also think Alice Waters is a legend.

But Tony does have a point if you read his rant....

I wrote a blog all about the AW issue and a few more Bourdain Revelations:

-he wants his kids to eat healthy...in Vietnam?
-He HATES the Batali/Pal­trow/Bittm­an Spain show.
-And of course the Alice Waters rumble.

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2009/01/bourdain-quips-wants-daughter-to-eat.html

[rockyersocksoff]

Who the HELL still thinks it'd be fun to drink with W???????????????

[projectbennett]

i love bourdain. i do understand where he is coming from... the whole green movement basically has wings because of wealthy people. but he's just being like that b/c he's off the cuff... not because he's thought about the issues.

[enveg01]

Anyone who thinks eating foie gras is OK is either ignorant or completely heartless. This man doesn't give a sh*t about the treatment of the animals he shoves down his throat. It shows a complete lack of compassion and empathy. If you want to know more about how foie gras is produced look here: http://www.nofoiegras.org/

[ConstanceReader]

Bourdain makes an excellent point. The type of diet people like Alice Waters promote is prohibitively expensive for most people's budgets and unavailable to many geographic areas. When you add in the newer trend of locally sourcing your food, it is also extremely restrictive. Both ways of eating are admirable in theory but quite impractical in use. Bourdain uses a good word to describe it: unrealistic. Yet these two trends are being promoted as (undeserved, IMO) symbols of high virtue.

I admit that I like to shop at Whole Foods and local farmers markets, but I will be first to admit that I can do so because I am 1) in a relatively privileged financial position and 2) have only myself to shop for. But I also shop at my local supermarket for many items to save money, or just to get certain items that I greatly enjoy and can't get at the uppity places. No consumer should have to feel like a planet-killer or farmer-hater because they shop at the supermarket and like their comfort foods. But that's the attitude Walker and her ilk promote.

[Waylon Lewis - Huffpost Blogger]

Unrealistic is shipping your average American meal 1500 miles, which is extremely energy-intensive, which helps make us dependent on foreign sources of energy, pollutes our skies, and makes our diets heavily processed, unhealthy (which leads to $uper pricey medical bill$).

We've swallowed the myth whole, thanks to 50 years of advertising: that eating conventional food shipped and trucked and flown thousands of miles is normal. Plant a Victory Gardent: nothing's cheaper, more healthy, more fun. It can be small, and though it takes time, comes with its own physical savings and benefits and spiritual rewards.

I give a more detailed answer to a more detailed comment on http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/01/anthony-bourdain-vs-alice-waters/

[rocketman69]

Bananas, Mangoes, Kiwi, Apples don't grow in Chicago. We got tomatoes, corn, soybeans, and maybe wheat relatively close by (in quantity). That doesn't make for good eatin'.

[Waylon Lewis - Huffpost Blogger]

A comment via an eco-responsible chef friend at thekitchencafe.com :
Its just sensationalism, it is sad for somebody to knock the work Alice Waters etc do, sadly many people do think with their wallet first.
I am out there on the foie gras issue I have watched something on a farm in spain where the bird run free through the orchards and at a certain point of the year they do gorge themselves and their livers grow, they are ten killed of their livers. This to me seem like nature being left to run its course.
I watch what Bourdain uses to justify the commercial process and there really is not much on his side, they are messing with the birds cycle and they certainly are not in their natural environment.
it really is complicated world in which we live.
H

[ConstanceReader]

That's right, many people do think with their wallet first Mr. Lewis, because most Americans' incomes give them no choice but to think with their wallets first. As I said below, I'm in a relatively privileged position, but I still balance my checkbook before making my grocery list and deciding where to shop.

Bourdain's word was "unrealistic" but now I will add another one: pretentious. Or, dare I say, elitist.

[heathermerete]

It's easy to associate Waters with expensive foodie elitists when you think of her only in the context of Chez Panisse. But check out one of her greatest projects: The Edible Schoolyard: http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html
I bet none of those kids would say, "Hey, we're in the middle of a recession, of course we don't deserve fresh, pesticide-free food for lunch. We should all be eating jello!"

[Terry Cabeen]

It's Bourdain. Let him say what he will. Sure, he didn't need to call anybody out by name, but I still got mad love for him. And loving him doesn't require agreeing with everything he says.

[Waylon Lewis - Huffpost Blogger]

Amen! I love him too, great guy, fun...even his mean-ness is provocative.