Anthony Bourdain’s Love Letter to Vietnam
You may know him from his TV series, Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain is a celebrity chef who documented his dining experiences all over the world. After working years in kitchens mastering his craft, he was granted the opportunity to travel. He sat for an interview with EF Outbound and reflected back to first trip out of the country for his book and TV show, A Cook’s Tour. This was the one place he wanted to travel to the most, the one that ended up exceeding his expectations and left him a changed man. In Anthony Bourdain's Love Letter to Vietnam, he tells us how this trip paved the way for his desire to travel to parts unknown to him.
“In the case of Vietnam, it was a first love in a lot of ways. I grew up during the Vietnam War era. I’ve read deeply into the fiction and non-fiction about the place. It was a place in which I had very high and, maybe foolishly, romantic notions and it ended up being even better than what I thought it would be, that experience”.
“I do not believe in love at first sight, I think you could make a case for love at first smell and the smells of Vietnam, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever smelt before. Fish sauce, sort of a fermented, funky sauce which I happen to love. Durian, which is a slightly rotten smell. Diesel fuel from the scooters. Joss sticks, burning incense from the temples. Jasmine. It’s quite beautiful. Graham Greene writes about it how the smell grabs you; and it does”.
“You see, you know, kids playing in the water, rice farmers squatting as they can do for hours at a time, looking at you with incredible curiosity. You know, livestock, laundry, homes of the very poor. Especially in the morning, the sounds of a farming community in Southeast Asia. First, a rooster crows, then you hear people start to cough and clear their lungs. You can hear people washing themselves, gathering water, going through this morning routine, starting up cooking, fires… It’s very different”.
Having some preconceived notions about how the Vietnamese view Americans as a result of the war, Bourdain says “I thought they’d be angry. I thought there would be some lingering resentment - some hesitations, and I asked about this. One old guy seemed to take particular pleasure in making me keep up with him shot-for-shot. He must have been pushing 90 in black pajamas sitting across from me missing most of his teeth. And I asked my translator I said ‘please ask the older gentleman does he feel any lingering resentment at all for all the years of conflict between our countries’. The guy laughed and he said ‘look don’t flatter yourselves. We’ve been fighting a long time - before you it was the French, before them it was the Japanese. Before them it was the Chinese many times. After you it was the Cambodians, the Chinese. We’re nothing special. During that time you were our enemy - now eat, drink, have fun! Nothing personal’. And he meant it! This is an attitude I’m unfamiliar with. You know, in the West, we tend to linger over memories like that” .. “They took great pride in being good hosts which is very important to them. They were kind and did everything they could to show me a good time and make sure I was happy”.
Vegetarians would be pleased to know that, as a result from his trip to Vietnam, this celebrity chef is much less likely to waste food now. He saw how animals struggled and died only to be served on a plate making him more cognizant of cooking with animal products. Another aspect of the Vietnamese culture that changed his normal habits were the breakfast options. He said once he ate noodles for breakfast it ruined the traditional American breakfast for him forever - no more eggs, toast & homefries for him.. “It just ain’t right. If I do eat an American breakfast, I need a nap afterwards! It’s just so much.. That was life changing for me, still. Perfect happiness in a meal is sitting down on one of those low, plastic stools and ordering a bowl of noodles”.
Bourdain was deeply moved by Vietnam and it’s magic. “I felt both enriched and distanced from my former life. I had a very hard time relating to people, some people, that I had been very close to before. I had a hard time figuring out, not how I was going to tell these stories in a book or on TV, that’s relatively easy. But, how I would tell these stories to my friends and to my, then, wife was difficult. It still is. When you’ve been treated generously by strangers. When you’ve smelled things and tasted things and seen things that none of your friends have seen. That few from where you come from have seen. That are unlike anything you’ve seen before. Look, that changes you. Mostly, in really good ways. But I think you also have to be prepared for the possibility that it will alienate you, somewhat, from the life you once lived”.
I think it says a lot about a place if a celebrity chef, who has had many cultural experiences in other countries, can speak so highly of it after all he has seen. This country rapidly shifted Anthony Boudain’s perspectives. “Vietnam, it was a first love in a lot of ways”.
