In an interview about his food-based journeys in war-torn and unstable parts of the world, Anthony Bourdain shares what dining in a foreign land can reveal about people and places:
I came to realize that everything, particularly something as intimate as a meal, is a reflection of both a place’s history and its present political and military circumstances. In fact, the meal is where you can least escape the realities of a nation’s situation. People tend to be less guarded and more frank (particularly when alcohol is involved). What you are eating is always the end of a very long story–and often an ingenious but delicious answer to some very complicated problems…
When you travel with no agenda other than asking the simple questions, sharing a moment with people around the table, people tell you extraordinary things. You tend to notice things that can’t be avoided. The guy cooking dinner for me near The Plain of Jars in Laos was missing a few limbs. It was worth asking how that happened. The answer–though simple–tends, in such circumstances–to lead to very complicated back stories. In this case, a simple, question with a very long and frankly fascinating answer (our enormous secret war in Laos). …
We realized that when you ask people “What do you like to eat? What do you like to cook? What makes you happy?” and are willing to spend the time necessary to hear the answers, that you are often let “in” in ways that a hard news reporter working a story might not be. So I’ve been able to look at places like post Benghazi Libya, the DRC, Liberia, Haiti, Cuba, Gaza, the West Bank, Kurdistan and recently Iran from a very intimate angle. Those are all very long stories–and if you don’t take that time to listen, to take in the everyday things–the things that happened before the news story, there’s not much hope in understanding them.
The Dish 