KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 — Street food, once limited to those seeking remission from poverty, is now dominated by hipsters and fast becoming a cult food especially in America.
Enter Anthony Bourdain, the poster boy for street food. The outspoken author and television personality -- his latest show is CNN’s Parts Unknown -- is not one to shy away from all kinds of exotic eats.
In support of the street food movement, Bourdain and a host of other culinary celebrities like Noma’s co-owner Claus Meyer and Saveur magazine’s editor-in-chief James Oseland spoke at a WSFC forum.
“Street food, I believe, is the salvation of the human race. It is the way forward not so much for health, economics or empowering people but culture,” he said.
Bourdain once described street food in The Huffington Post as an antidote to fast food. “It is the alternative to American fast food culture where thighs and congestive heart disease expand,” he added.
According to Bourdain, unlike a faceless multi-corporation churning out fast food that he abhors, street food carries a voice or person behind it. “When someone cooks for you, they are sharing something, whether it is a reflection of their nationality, ethinicity or what their grandmother taught them,” he said.
That relationship and exchange of communication is not only limited to street food but even extends to sushi chefs when they prepare food for their diners. “The sushi master is forming a piece of food with his experiences and also making decisions such as the size of your mouth, whether you are male or female, or whether you liked the previous course,” he said.
The adventurous eater, who once consumed a whole cobra for his show No Reservations, observed that every plate of food is usually the end of a long story. “It tells of a tale of slavery, oppression, invasion, colonisation, siege or even interruptions to supply lines,” he explained.
Desperation and hunger or what Bourdain calls the “great engine of gastronomy” affects food from every level including fancy French classics such as coq au vin, confit de canard and escargots.
“Do you really think the first person in France to eat a snail was a gourmet? He was just a hungry son of a b****.”
Despite its humble beginnings, street food is now the ticket to culinary success. “Cooking was once the refuge for those with few options,” Bourdain said about the old culinary ways.
Taking a page from his own culinary experience as the former executive chef of Manhattan based Brasserie Les Halles, Bourdain explained that long ago, chefs would work their way through culinary school and train under a French master chef under back breaking conditions.
The chefs only make it big once they score financial backers for their own restaurants. Nowadays it is a different ballgame, said Bourdain who cites Roy Choi from Kogi in Los Angeles as a prime example.
Choi, who set up his own food truck, gained overwhelming popularity for his Korean-Mexican tacos and is now so successful that he has expanded to 4-6 trucks and plans to open a restaurant.
“Street food is a fast track and it is a means for people with options like an engineering degree already, or the new enterpreneur,” he added.
The avid traveller said that there is really not much difference between the best restaurant in New York or Berlin. “It tends to feel like the same in every city but that’s not the case for street food.”
Bourdain points out that once you eat street food in Mexico, you can smell the flavours and you know the difference straightaway. And that, for Bourdain, is why he finds travelling so interesting since each experience is different, whether it is a bowl of pho in the busy streets of Hanoi or enjoying BBQ Texas style with a hunk of beef brisket slow smoked over indirect heat.
“That is really what happens in the world,” he said.
This story was first published in the print edition of The Malay Mail, July 18, 2013.
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