“I have since come to recognize that men and women generally write differently about food and perhaps about everything else. Men tend to express their opinions in a brasher, more confident or even conceited tone, although those opinions rarely prove more reliable than the carefully couched and subtly appeasing assessments made by most women. Men and women usually draw upon different frames of references, thereby coloring the copy.”
~ Mimi Sheraton in Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life
When I read this, I was struck by this astute observation and felt that Sheraton’s description rang true when I compared her writing to that of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. In Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life, Sheraton’s writing is elegant as opposed to Bourdain’s brash and rather “laddish” form in A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines.
Both books are written in the first person, engaging the reader personally in a conversational style. While the core subject of both is food, they are quite different and both make for delectable reads.
Eating is akin to going to a posh restaurant where the interiors are immaculately done up, cultery is nicely laid out, chairs pulled out for you and napkins are folded every time you leave your chair. A Cook’s Tour on the other hand, is like your favourite neighbourhood bistro–casual and where people come round to say hi and pat you on your back, and not just exchange air kisses. Though the two places are on extreme ends of the spectrum, you get the same kind of satisfaction from the food served in each place because both are good and unique in their own way.
In Eating, we learn how Sheraton became the foremost food critic in the United States when she became the food reviewer at The New York Times in the 1980s, staying there for eight years. A strong, spirited and opiniated woman, she is not one to mince words or shy away from controversy. Her words, like the knife of a top sushi chef, are razor sharp when she writes about people she doesn’t like. Her writing is succint, compact, and like wasabi, manages to pack a punch with very little.
Sheraton brings us back to 1960s New York and paints a charming picture of Greenwich village filled with artists, poets and bohemians, a place where she has been residing for the past 40-odd years. She brings the reader into many restaurants around New York and around the world. Once, she even makes mention of the streets stalls, Satay Alley and chicken rice stalls along Middle Road in Singapore back in the 60s–stalls I didn’t even know existed at that time.
I love her description of the durian–“a stinking melon that looked like a giant grenade and when ripe smelled like a mix of rotten cheese and overcooked cauliflower.”
Realising that her reviews could make or break restaurants, affects livelihoods, families and sometimes even lives, Sheraton took her job very seriously and therefore was very intent on keeping her anonymity in order to maintain objectivity and do her job well.
What’s most interesting is how she went about it. She resorted to buying an assortment of wigs and only putting them on in the taxi on her way to the restaurant so as not to be recognised by office personnel and people on the street as she stepped out of her office. The wig was accompanied by tinted glasses so as to allow her eyes to roam about the restaurant freely without being discovered (as she once had been). Other methods, amongst many others, include only paying for meals in cash or with the credit cards of her dining companions. She also turned down invitations to all events, business or social, if anyone connected to a restaurant or a related establishment was expected.
After reading of Sheraton’s efforts to remain anonymous, I’m convinced that food reviewers/critics in Singapore lack the professionalism Sheraton has. In Singapore’s national newspaper, The Straits Times, the food reviewers have photo bylines (this now sounds so sacrilegious compared to Sheraton)–something which Sheraton would never EVER have in her piece!
Like Sheraton, Bourdain regales us with tales as he eats his way around the globe, camera crew in tow, from Portugal, France, Russia, Vietnam, Morocco, Cambodia to Japan. While not a memoir like Eating, A Cook’s Tour is more of a food travelogue interspersed with other interesting facts which highlights facets of the cultures he comes across. While his writing is far less elegant (very bloke-ish), it is still pretty enjoyable. Not one to mince words either, he is as frank with his opinions as Sheraton is of hers.
Bourdain is like the brash American who annoys people with his typical brashness and loud attitude. He however, has a healthy respect for other cultures. For example, the full weight of America’s involvement in the Vietnam war hits him when he sees a man badly disfigured by Napalm in Ho Chih Min City. He becomes reflective and pensive, giving us a glimpse into the sensitivity that lies beneath the man. There are several instances like this in the book which doesn’t make him as annoying as he sometimes comes across. But soon you realise that this is just him–exuberant, loud and laddish, ultimately though just one of the good blokes in your friendly neighbourhood.
In A Cook’s Tour, be treated (or maybe not) to descriptions of drinking cobra bile in Vietnam, the slaughtering of a pig in Portugal, the eating of sheep’s testicles in the Sahara desert , and various other weird cuisines. Bourdain described the durian as “a big green menacingly spiked football–only it exudes an unforgettable, gassy, pungent, decomposing smell”. Though the smell irked him, he surprisingly loved the taste of it.
One reason why I like food is because it’s so entwined with culture, a subject which I love. Food varies from culture to culture, and it is interesting to learn about how various factors like religion, climate, geography and economic status influence the things people eat and the ways in which food is prepared. For example, in Morocco, stews are prepared because the women can afford to leave the food aside for many hours while it is cooking so that they have time to take care of other chores. The desert’s climate also dictates drying and smoking as methods of food preparation because of the lack of refridgeration in the poorer regions. Meat also has to be cooked well-done as it is easier to peel and separate the meat. The lack of cultery like forks and knives otherwise needed to cut meat that’s cooked just rare to medium dictates such a practice.
Anyhow, if you’re interested in knowing more about food, run along and pick up these two books. But if you just want to read one of them, Mimi Sheraton’s Eating My Words is a better read.
FYI readers in Singapore — Kinokuniya doesn’t stock Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life. I haven’t tried Borders, but I got my copy from the library. As for A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines, take note that it also goes by the title of A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal, so don’t be fooled by the different title!