I’m sorry, I couldn’t not make that pun. I hope I got at least a brief exhale of air out of your nose from a few of you. Being trapped inside for two months is doing nothing good for my sense of humor. A few more weeks and I’ll be giggling at a picture of an ice cube that just says “suspicious” on it.
Anyways. We read the last half of Anthony Bourdain’s book this week and it grossed me out significantly less than the foreword did last week.
The first page or two of chapter 9 reminded me of when the whole Mad Cow thing was happening and my mother was convinced that we were all going to catch it from McDonalds or Taco Bell and thusly did not let me, my older sister, or my dad, eat beef for nearly two years. I still don’t eat beef (not for religious reasons or anything I just don’t really like it, I think it’s a texture thing), and I think that absence of it during my formative years is almost definitely why.
But now I have another reason not to eat beef! Hamburger meat is treated with ammonium and other cleaning products, which despite certain authorities might lead us to believe, aren’t supposed to go inside your body. So now once again I am horrified by the meat industry. I can’t really throw stones, though, because frankly I will eat hot dogs and occasionally fried spam if we’re out of other foods.
Bourdain did totally predict the rise of the bougie burger, somehow, and that’s wild. The adding of random fancy toppings to burgers never made sense to me. Bacon? Sure, its fried, that tracks. Fried egg? Little wilder but I’m still with you. Slices of avocado? You’ve lost me. Bourdain is so angry about hamburgers in chapter 9 I almost had to laugh.
I will admit, I didn’t get as far into this final half as I would have liked to, so I may just have to keep this book and not sell it back for the quarter Mizzou Bookstore will undoubtedly give me.
Will Write for Food 