{"id":1678,"date":"2026-01-03T21:44:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/medium-raw-a-bloody-valentine-to-the-world-of-food-and-the-people-who-cook-cookbook-bourdain-anthony\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:44:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:44:33","slug":"medium-raw-a-bloody-valentine-to-the-world-of-food-and-the-people-who-cook-cookbook-bourdain-anthony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/medium-raw-a-bloody-valentine-to-the-world-of-food-and-the-people-who-cook-cookbook-bourdain-anthony\/","title":{"rendered":"Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook [Cookbook] – Bourdain, Anthony"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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\nTHE SIT DOWN<\/span>
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I<\/span>
\nrecognize the men at the bar<\/span>. And the one woman. They\u2019re some of the most respected chefs in America. Most of them are French but all of them made their bones here. They are, each and every one of them, heroes to me\u2014as they are to up-and-coming line cooks, wannabe chefs, and culinary students everywhere. They\u2019re clearly surprised to see each other here, to recognize their peers strung out along the limited number of barstools. Like me, they were summoned by a trusted friend to this late-night meeting at this celebrated New York restaurant for ambiguous reasons under conditions of utmost secrecy. They have been told, as I was, not to tell anyone of this gathering. It goes without saying that none of us will blab about it later.<\/p>\n

Well\u2026I guess that\u2019s not exactly true.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early in my new non-career as professional traveler, writer, and TV guy, and I still get the vapors being in the same room with these guys. I\u2019m doing my best to conceal the fact that I\u2019m, frankly, star-struck\u2014atwitter with anticipation. My palms are sweaty as I order a drink, and I\u2019m aware that my voice sounds oddly high and squeaky as the words \u201cvodka on the rocks\u201d come out. All I know for sure about this gathering is that a friend called me on Saturday night and, after asking me what I was doing on Monday, instructed me, in his noticeably French accent, that \u201cTuh-nee\u2026you must<\/span> come. It will be very special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since leaving all day-to-day responsibilities at my old restaurant, Les Halles, and having had to learn (or relearn)\u2014after a couple of book tours and many travels\u2014how to deal, once again, with civilian society, I now own a couple of suits. I\u2019m wearing one now, dressed appropriately, I think, for a restaurant of this one\u2019s high reputation. The collar on my shirt is too tight and it\u2019s digging into my neck. The knot on my tie, I am painfully aware, is less than perfect. When I arrived at the appointed hour of eleven p.m., the dining room was thinning of customers and I was discreetly ushered here, to the small, dimly lit bar and waiting area. I was relieved that upon laying eyes on me, the ma\u00eetre d\u2019 did not wrinkle his nose in distaste.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thrilled to see X, a usually unflappable figure whom I generally speak of in the same hushed, respectful tones as the Dalai Lama\u2014a man who ordinarily seems to vibrate on a lower frequency than other, more earthbound chefs. I\u2019m surprised to see that he\u2019s nearly as excited as I am, an unmistakable look of apprehension on his face. Around him are some of the second and third waves of Old Guard French guys, some Young Turks\u2014along with a few American chefs who came up in their kitchens. There\u2019s the Godmother of the French-chef mafia\u2026It\u2019s a fucking Who\u2019s Who<\/span> of the top tier of cooking in America today. If a gas leak blew up this building? Fine dining as we know it would be nearly wiped out in one stroke. Ming Tsai would be the guest judge on every episode of Top Chef<\/span>, and Bobby Flay and Mario Batali would be left to carve up Vegas between themselves.<\/p>\n

A few last, well-fed citizens wander past on their way from the dining room to the street. More than one couple does a double take at the lineup of familiar faces murmuring conspiratorially at the bar. The large double doors to a private banquet room swing open and we are summoned.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long table, set for thirteen people, in the middle of the room. Against the wall is a sideboard, absolutely groaning under the weight of charcuterie\u2014the likes of which few of us (even in this group) have seen in decades: classic Careme-era terrines of wild game, gallantines of various birds, p\u00e2t\u00e9, and rillettes. The centerpiece is a wild boar p\u00e2t\u00e9 en croute, the narrow area between forcemeat and crust filled with clear, amber-tinted aspic. Waiters are pouring wine. We help ourselves.<\/p>\n

One by one, we take our seats. A door at the far end of the room opens and we are joined by our host.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like that scene in The Godfather<\/span>, where Marlon Brando welcomes the representatives of the five families. I almost expect our host to begin with \u201cI\u2019d like to thank our friends the Tattaglias\u2026and our friends from Brooklyn\u2026\u201d It\u2019s a veritable Apalachin Conference. By now, word of what we\u2019re about to eat is getting around the table, ratcheting up the level of excitement.<\/p>\n

There is a welcome\u2014and a thank-you to the person who procured what we are about to eat (and successfully smuggled it into the country). There is a course of ravioli in consomm\u00e9 (quite wonderful) and a civet<\/span> of wild hare. But these go by in a blur.<\/p>\n

Our dirty plates are removed. The uniformed waiters, struggling to conceal their smiles, reset our places. Our host rises and a gueridon is rolled out bearing thirteen cast-iron cocottes. Inside each, a tiny, still-sizzling roasted bird\u2014head, beak, and feet still attached, guts intact inside its plump little belly. All of us lean forward, heads turned in the same direction as our host high pours from a bottle of Armagnac, dousing the birds\u2014then ignites them. This is it. The grand slam of rare and forbidden meals. If this assemblage of notable chefs is not reason enough to pinch myself, then this surely is. This is a once-in-a-fucking-lifetime meal\u2014a never<\/span>-in-a-lifetime meal for most mortals\u2014even in France! What we\u2019re about to eat is illegal there as it\u2019s illegal here. Ortolan.<\/p>\n

The ortolan, or emberiza hortulana<\/span>, is a finch-like bird native to Europe and parts of Asia. In France, where they come from, these little birdies can cost upwards of 250 bucks a pop on the black market. It is a protected species, due to the diminishing number of its nesting places and its shrinking habitat. Which makes it illegal to trap or to sell anywhere. It is also a classic of country French cuisine, a delight enjoyed, in all likelihood, since Roman times. Rather notoriously, French president Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand, on his deathbed, chose to eat ortolan as his putative last meal, and a written account of this event remains one of the most lushly descriptive works of food porn ever committed to paper. To most, I guess, it might seem revolting: a desperately ill old man, struggling to swallow an unctuous mouthful of screamingly hot bird guts and bone bits. But to chefs? It\u2019s wank-worthy, a description of the Holy Grail, the Great Unfinished Business, the Thing That Must Be Eaten in order that one may state without reservation that one is a true gastronome, a citizen of the world, a chef with a truly experienced palate\u2014that one has really been around.<\/p>\n

As the story goes, the birds are trapped in nets, then blinded by having their eyes poked out\u2014to manipulate the feeding cycle. I have no doubt that at various times in history this was true. Labor laws being what they are in Europe these days, it is apparently no longer cost-effective to employ an eye-gouger. A simple blanket or a towel draped over the cage has long since replaced this cruel means of tricking the ortolan into continuingly gorging itself on figs, millet, and oats.<\/p>\n

When the birds are suitably plumped up\u2014with a desirable layer of thick fat\u2014they are killed, plucked, and roasted. It is claimed that the birds are literally drowned in Armagnac\u2014but this, too, is not the case. A simple whiff of the stuff is enough for the now morbidly obese ortolan to keel over stone-dead.<\/p>\n

The flames in the cocottes burn down, and the ortolans are distributed, one to each guest. Everyone at this table knows what to do and how to do it. We wait for the sizzling flesh and fat before us to quiet down a bit. We exchange glances and grins and then, simultaneously, we place our napkins over our heads, hiding our faces from God, and with burning fingertips lift our birds gingerly by their hot skulls, placing them feet-first into our mouths\u2014only their heads and beaks protruding.<\/p>\n

In the darkness under my shroud, I realize that in my eagerness to fully enjoy this experience, I\u2019ve closed my eyes. First comes the skin and the fat. It\u2019s hot. So hot that I\u2019m drawing short, panicky, circular breaths in and out\u2014like a high-speed trumpet player, breathing around the ortolan, shifting it gingerly around my mouth with my tongue so I don\u2019t burn myself. I listen for the sounds of jaws against bone around me but hear only others breathing, the muffled hiss of rapidly moving air through teeth under a dozen linen napkins. There\u2019s a vestigial flavor of Armagnac, low-hanging fumes of airborne fat particles, an intoxicating, delicious miasma. Time goes by. Seconds? Moments? I don\u2019t know. I hear the first snap of tiny bones from somewhere near and decide to brave it. I bring my molars slowly down and through my bird\u2019s rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I\u2019m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue, slowly\u2014ever so slowly\u2014to chew. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, had been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull.<\/p>\n

What is left is the fat. A coating of nearly imperceptible yet unforgettable-tasting abdominal fat. I undrape, and, around me, one after another, the other napkins fall to the table, too, revealing glazed, blissed-out expressions, the beginnings of guilty smiles, an identical just-fucked look on every face.<\/p>\n

No one rushes to take a sip of wine. They want to remember this flavor.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

Flashback, not too<\/span> many years. Close enough in time to still vividly remember the smell of unchanged Fryolator grease, the brackish stank of old steam-table water heating up, the scorched odor of a griddle caked with layers of ancient Mel-Fry.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t smell like ortolan.<\/p>\n

I was working a lunch counter on Columbus Avenue. It was a \u201ctransitional\u201d phase in my career, meaning I was transitioning from heroin to crack, and I was wearing a snap-front, white polyester dishwasher shirt with the name of the linen service over the left breast pocket, and dirty blue jeans. I was cooking pancakes. And eggs fucking Benedict\u2014the English muffins toasted under the salamander on one side only, half-assed, \u2019cause I just didn\u2019t care. I was cooking eggs over easy with pre-cooked bacon rewarmed on the griddle, and sunny-side ups, and some kind of a yogurt thing with nasty fruit salad and granola in it. I could make any kind of omelet with the fillings available, and the people who sat at my counter and placed their orders looked right through me. Which was good, because if they really saw me, really looked into my eyes, they\u2019d see a guy who\u2014every time somebody ordered a waffle\u2014wanted nothing more than to reach forward, grab them by the hair, and drag a dirty and not particularly sharp knife across their throat before pressing their face into the completely fucked-up, always-sticky waffle iron. If the fucking thing worked anywhere near as inefficiently as it did with waffles, their face would later have to be pried off with a butter knife.<\/p>\n

I was, needless to say, not a happy man. I had, after all (as I reminded myself frequently), been a chef. I had run entire kitchens. I had once known the power, the adrenaline rush of having twenty to thirty people working for me, the full-tilt satisfaction of a busy kitchen making food that one could (at least for the time and circumstances) be proud of. When you\u2019ve known the light caress of Egyptian sailcloth against your skin, it\u2019s all the more difficult to go back to poly\u2014particularly when it\u2019s adorned with the linen company\u2019s logo of a fat, smilingly accommodating chef twirling his mustache.<\/p>\n

At what seemed at the time to be the end of a long, absurd, strange, wonderful but lately awful road, there was nothing to be proud of. Except maybe the soup. I made the soup.<\/p>\n

It was goulash.<\/p>\n

So I was scraping home fries off the griddle with a spatula and I turned around to plate them up next to an order of eggs over hard when I saw a familiar face across the room. It was a girl I knew in college, sitting down at a rear table with friends. She had been, back then, much admired for her fabulousness (it being the \u201970s and fabulousness having then been the greatest of virtues). She was beautiful, glamorous\u2014in an arty, slightly decadent, Zelda Fitzgerald kind of a way, outrageous, smart as hell\u2014and fashionably eccentric. I think she let me fondle her tit once. She had, since college, become a downtown \u201cpersonality,\u201d poised on the brink of an apparent success for her various adventures in poetry and the accordion. I read about her frequently in the alternative paper of the day. I saw her and tried, instinctively, to shrink into my polyesters. I\u2019m quite sure I wasn\u2019t actually wearing a peaked paper cap\u2014but it sure felt like I was. I hadn\u2019t seen the girl since school, when I, too, it had appeared to some, had a career trajectory aimed somewhere other than a lunch counter. I was praying she wouldn\u2019t see me back there but it was too late. Her gaze passed over me; there was a brief moment of recognition\u2014and sadness. But in the end she was merciful. She pretended not to have seen.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

I was ashamed<\/span> of that counter then, I\u2019m thinking. But not now.<\/p>\n

From this rather luxurious vantage point, the air still redolent of endangered species and fine wine, sitting in a private dining room, licking ortolan fat off my lips, I realize that one thing led directly to the other. Had I not taken a dead-end dishwashing job while on summer vacation, I would not have become a cook. Had I not become a cook, I would never and could never have become a chef. Had I not become a chef, I never would have been able to fuck up so spectacularly. Had I not known what it was like to fuck up\u2014really<\/span> fuck up\u2014and spend years cooking brunches in bullshit no-star joints around town, that obnoxious but wildly successful memoir I wrote wouldn\u2019t have been half as interesting.<\/p>\n

Because\u2014just so we all understand\u2014I\u2019m not sitting here at this table among the gods of food because of my cooking.<\/p>\n

Dessert arrives and it\u2019s Isle Flotante. A simple meringue, offering up its charms from a puddle of cr\u00e8me anglaise. Everybody roars with delight at this dino-era classic, as old school as it gets. We bask in the warm glow of bonhomie, of our shared appreciation for this remarkable meal. We toast our good fortune with Calvados and Cognac.<\/p>\n

Life does not suck.<\/p>\n

But the obvious question lingers. I know I\u2019m<\/span> asking it quietly of myself.<\/p>\n

What the fuck am I<\/span> doing here?<\/p>\n

I am the peer of no man nor woman at this table. None of them\u2014at any time in my career\u2014would have hired me, even the guy sitting next to me. And he\u2019s my best friend in the world.<\/p>\n

What could my memoir of an undistinguished\u2014even disgraceful\u2014career have said to people of such achievements? And who are<\/span> these people, anyway? Leaning back in their chairs, enjoying their after-dinner cigarettes, they look like princes. Are these the same losers, misfits, and outsiders I wrote about?<\/p>\n

Or did I get it all wrong?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Read the full book by downloading it below.<\/p>\n

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Book Preview THE SIT DOWN I recognize the men at the bar. And the one woman. They\u2019re some of the most respected chefs in America. Most of them are French but all of them made their bones here. They are, each and every one of them, heroes to me\u2014as they are to up-and-coming line cooks, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[81],"class_list":["post-1678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthony-bourdain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}