Universiteit van Amsterdam
Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Comparative Literature (Literary Studies)
2019-2020
Master Thesis
Dr. H. H. Stuit
Dr. D. V. Wesselman
Cross-Cultural Encounters at the Table
An Analysis of Culinary Tourism and Hospitality in the Television Series
‘No Reservations’
Iris Kok
Studentnummer: 10879714
Godfried Bomansstraat 77
1321 GP Almere
Tel: 06 30852239
Email: iris.kok@student.uva.nl
2
Content
Introduction……….3
Chapter 1: Travelling for the Culinary or Being a Tourist for Authentic Food………...…..8
Chapter 2: Food as an Indicator of Distinction and History………25
Chapter 3: Encounter of Hospitality and-/or Hostility; Between Self and Other,
Guest and Host……….………...36
Conclusion………....48
Works Cited………...51
3
Introduction
In this research I analyse the television series ‘No Reservations’. I think it is important to keep an eye out for programme that claim to be solely about food, while at the same time it claims to be about ‘more’ than just food. ‘No Reservations’ was a much favoured series and the lack of criticism towards it, makes clear that what lies beneath the surface of just food has not received enough attention. I mean by ‘more’ than just food that by broadcasting this television series not only food but also people and places were part of a generalizing story in each episode. This generalizing was reached by the way of how this series framed the narrative of an episode. The responsibility for this way of framing lied with Bourdain and the entire crew of ‘No Reservations’.
With the rise of technological developments our world became smaller and more known to people. Two examples that are relevant for this research into ‘No Reservations’ are the expansion of the ways of travelling and the spreading of representations via television. On the one hand, more people are able to travel the world for a period of time. And on the other hand, more people are able to learn about what happens in the world by watching television. The combination of these two examples made the rise of the culinary television genre possible and broadcasting culinary tourism could become a feature of this genre. The object of this paper, ‘No Reservations’ is an example of a new form of television as a result of this combination. And to sum it up, ‘No Reservations’ is a programme with as main motive the travel-for-food attitude that has emerged since the beginning of the twentieth century.
‘No Reservations’ was broadcasted on television from 2005 until 2012 on the Travel Channel. The host of this series was Anthony Bourdain after he transitioned from the world of the kitchen into being a celebrity-chef. The figure of the celebrity-chef is a phenomenon where the person who used to cook professionally in a restaurant had become known to the public. He or she could be known for being a professional chef but mostly this person has switched to other activities for a living.
Anthony Bourdain used to be a chef whom already wrote two books before his big break, namely Bone in the Throat: A Novel of Death and Ingestion and Gone Bamboo. After writing the short article: ‘Don’t Eat before Reading this’, which appeared in the New York Times in April 1999, Bourdain was offered a book deal. This led to Kitchen Confidential: Adventurers in the Culinary Underbelly in 2000. What followed was the offer to make television for the Food Network, which was just developing into one of the biggest channels with food as sole
4 topic. After leaving over a debate concerning the content of the series ‘A Cook’s Tour’1,
Bourdain and his colleagues from production went to work for the Travel Channel and started to produce ‘No Reservations’.
In ‘No Reservations’ Bourdain is presented to the audience while he consumed his way around the world in order to learn about the food on his plate. However just as Lisa Heldke describes ‘underneath, or alongside, or over and above’ there was always also the encounter with the ‘Other’, which made the encounter change into a meeting with another human and culture. Heldke writes:
‘‘[…], my eating was not simply colonizing; it was also an effort to play, and to learn about other cultures in ways I intended to be respectful. But underneath, or alongside, or over and above all these other reasons, I could not deny that I was motivated by a deep desire to have contact with, and to somehow own an experience of, an Exotic Other, as a way of making myself more interesting.’’ (Heldke, xvi)
Nowadays people are able to consume different kinds of food. However by doing so this also always involves an encounter with another human or as she writes with an ‘Exotic Other’. I also expand on the notion of cultural food colonialism or put differently: ‘No Reservations’ seems on the surface a television series only or just about food. In addition to food, this show frames the representation of people, the history and the visited place in a certain way. And it is this way of framing that was the responsibility of Bourdain and the production crew which is exactly the reason why ‘No Reservations’ needs a closer analysis even if there was an intention to be respectful.
The way in how a television series such as ‘No Reservations’ struggled with (re)presenting not solely food but also the visited people in their everyday life and/-or rituals who have a history at a specific place, is what makes ‘No Reservations’ vulnerable to repeat what happened during times of colonialism. The series is at risk to spread the same generalizing stories about the ‘Exotic Other’ as were provided to the rest of the West from other parts of the world. These narratives were mostly framed by someone with a Western perspective and after the moment of having been in contact with this ‘Other’. In ‘No Reservations’ this moment takes place between Bourdain and a local native, or fixer, and is what frames this moment of the cross-cultural encounter. I employ the notion of cross-cultural encounters in the way as described by Mary Louise Pratt when she writes about contact zones as: ‘‘[…], social spaces
5 where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination – like colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived across the globe today.’’(Pratt, 4).
In ‘No Reservations’ the contact zone is there where Bourdain with the production crew is present in the space that they intervene for filming this series and where the cross-cultural encounter takes place at the table while a meal is shared. I specifically also add the production crew in this research since I analyse also their presence next to that of Bourdain plus the fact that Bourdain is not the sole person who was responsible for the choices made in creating ‘No Reservations’.
Georg Simmel writes about the activity of sharing a meal: ‘‘Of everything that people have in common, the most common is that they must eat and drink. […] That we must eat is such a primitive and lowly fact in the development of our life values that each individual unquestionably has it in common with every other individual.’’(Simmel, 346 and 350). In this way, ‘No Reservations’ uses the angle of food as something which has been universal to mankind in order to survive, but at the same time ‘No Reservations’ uses this universality to demonstrate the difference between people by starting to look at what is eaten (or not) and how. Elaine Martin writes about the combination between travel and food that:
‘‘Simultaneously the shrinking of the world through enhanced modes of communication and accessible travel has occasioned more cultural confrontations of the self/other kind. Food, as a necessarily universal practice and the only way of literally ingesting the other, becomes a logical site for challenging dualistic thinking and projecting new inclusive identities.’’ (Martin, 43).
Food has also been theorised as containing a language of its own and thereby representing not only the meal on a plate as a result of being transformed and put together on a plate. It is thereby important to take also in consideration the following: ‘‘Food is a language in itself, with its own symbolic codes, which determines social behaviour.’’ (Briand, 231). And where food serves as language, ‘No Reservations’ is then not only looking at food but also at what is meant or referred to with food. Or as Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin have stated about language that it ‘‘[…] becomes the medium through which a hierarchical structure of power is perpetuated, and the medium through which conceptions of ‘truth’ and ‘order’, become established.’’ (Ashcroft et al., 7). More than just food is at stake in ‘No Reservations’ and in the way of how the content of the episodes are framed in a narrative by the producers of this television programme is what
6 shows to what is referred to by food and there is indeed a hierarchical structure present in the series.
I will analyse ‘No Reservations’ by close-reading several stills that were taken from almost every season. And even when the series developed from what I call sensationalist discovery to a more diplomatic or conscious learning about food and the ‘Other’, it still remained to struggle with the responsibility of framing the episodes. It is also important to look at the affected watching audience as well as to what or whom were being filmed. It should not be taken granted for how any audience is presented with images of the world and its peoples nor should it only be criticised. So, next to the issues of culinary tourism and hospitality there is a focus in the series on difference and sameness. This is important since it automatically puts not only the Western, or American perspective rom Bourdain and the production crew as the norm but thereby sets away the perspective of the visited ‘Other’ as different, so not the same. This discrepancy between perspectives is what comes to the front of each story that makes up an episode on ‘No Reservations’ as presented through the screens of the watching audience.
Therefore attention needs to be given to the contemporary ways in which (food-) media are part of our daily life, identity and culture. I am in agreement with Jacqui Kong on the issue of responsibility not taken in ‘No Reservations’ as she writes:
‘‘Such programs might inspire the sharing of histories through food, a universal need and cultural symbol which is appreciated and shared by all. Most importantly, these programs demonstrate that it is not an easy process to do so, and it is certainly not a comfortable and painless experience. However, if one can be ‘multicultural’ enough to eat foods from another culture or ethnicity, one should do so responsibly and with a respect and readiness to learn about the culture and the people behind the cuisine.’’(Kong, 52).
More specifically in ‘No Reservations’ the audience is shown a white male traveller performs this act of ‘discover and learn’ in spaces and encounters just by asking about the food on the table. I envision traveller here as described by James Clifford: ‘‘The traveller, by definition, is someone who has the security and privilege to move about in relatively unconstrained ways.’’ (Clifford: 1997, 34). And asking about food in a dialogue, I envision this in the same fashion as Elspeth Probyn writes: ‘‘I have found that asking people to talk about their eating habits leads into the most intimate of subjects.’’ (Probyn, 19).
7 In this paper, I have used the following structure of three chapters. In the first chapter, I analyse the combination of travelling and food in the form of culinary tourism in ‘No Reservations’. Here, culinary tourism functions as the drive to travel and be a tourist somewhere else with as main drive to discover new kinds of food or as Lucy Long points out that culinary tourism: ‘‘focuses attention on the food’s otherness, making that otherness one of its central attractions’’(Long, 316). I also focus on the tourist’s quest for authenticity and the use of ‘fixers,’ or middle (wo)men in the series. The use of fixers is a way to assert authenticity and as how Jean Baudrillard describes about the demand for the authenticity that: ‘‘It is reflected in an obsession with certainty […]’’ (Baudrillard, 81). Where authenticity is asserted there is no need to feel ‘touristic shame’ the notion from Dean MacCannell that I will use further.
The second chapter is about how in ‘No Reservations’ also history and cultural heritage are embedded after having first discussed the topic of food. This is a step deeper into culinary tourism and enables me to look into how food is part of not only a national heritage but also of personal histories and traditions. But food too has a history and this is part of the knowledge that was acquired in ‘No Reservations’. The distinction between people and the food they could or could not consume is key to understanding that historical dimension to food. Since not everyone can eat the same thing at the same time as Simmel here writes about eating: ‘‘It is precisely this which is, oddly enough, the most egoistic, and the most unconditionally and most immediately limited to each individual: what I think, I can let others know; what I see, I can let them see; what I say, hundreds can hear – but what the individual eats, no one else can eat under any circumstances.’’ (Simmel qtd. in Symons, 344).
Finally, the last chapter goes back to the other essential feature of tourism and therefore also in ‘No Reservations’, namely the attitude of hospitality. I explore this relation between guest and the host as the analysed paradox by Jacques Derrida. But I also took into consideration that which Catherine Briand writes about food as: ‘‘[…] a metonymy of the voyage, which moves from the foreign to the familiar, from resistance to acceptance, from cultural distance to cultural interaction through hospitality.’’ (Briand, 220). But in ‘No Reservations’ hospitality can also be seen as between the Western Self and the ‘Exotic’ Other when looking at Bourdain and the fixer(s) in the stills. But Bourdain is not only a visiting guest but also host, in the sense of a TV host for the series. When the roles are reversed this way, then the fixer is a guest too since this person is welcomed on ‘No Reservations’. This role reversal complicates the already complex relation which hospitality entails or it can even lead to an attitude of hostility or a form of commoditized hospitality.
8
Chapter 1: Travelling for the Culinary or Being a Tourist for Authentic
Food.
In this chapter, I want to start with analysing the notion of culinary tourism that comes to the forefront in ‘No Reservations’. There are three episodes that I analyse in the following order: Uzbekistan, India and Beirut. I argue that these three episodes form the order of a regular episode, the making-off episode and then the unexpected exception to the rule when filming was disrupted by war. The concept I will be using for combining both the theoretical studies of food and tourism is what Lucy Long calls ‘culinary tourism’ and it: ‘‘[…] features food as the primary attraction or motivation for travel’’ (Long, 316). So, food is featured as main motive in both this kind of tourism and as to why ‘No Reservations’ was created in the first place as Bourdain also states in the intro of the series, he wanted to travel and make television in order to have the opportunity to try out new kinds of food.
I agree with the criticism that television series such as ‘No Reservations’ also feature the need to create ‘a well-told story’ of which food is only a part of. Or as Fürsich and Kavoori write about the people working for series such as ‘No Reservations’ that it: ‘‘[…] seems that travel journalists […] are trying to fix the ‘Other’. Their professional purpose is to come up with a narrative, a well-told story about other cultures, the past or distant places – in short to package culture.’’ (Fürsich and Kavoori, 163). This criticism is part of my argument that in ‘No Reservations’ there is not only more presented to an audience than just food, here described as ‘a narrative …to package culture’. How this ‘well-told story’ is formed and framed by this specific television programme is what I will closer analyse.
What ‘No Reservations’ also offers is the possibility for the audience to stay at home and learn from this television series about different kinds of food but also about people, places and history without ever feeling the need to leave themselves, or if they cannot afford to leave. Or as Dean MacCannell writes: ‘‘If the individual does not bring home images of reality elsewhere, modern television programming will supply a bland, generalized stream of such imagery.’’ (MacCannell: 1976, 152). If someone cannot leave their home, they can leave it through the screen by watching a series such as ‘No Reservations’. The series provides in this way an opportunity for other people to follow Bourdain around each episode and also learn and discover through his perspective.
9 Bourdain wrote in his book that made a big break possible: ‘‘Food, it appeared, could be important. It could be an event. It had secrets.’’ (Bourdain: 2013, 13).2 Having this written
down in his memoir ‘Kitchen Confidential’ expressing once more what the underlying assumptions are about food according to him. If the motivation that food is never just about food then this assumption leads to conclude that there is always something more to it. There is more than the study what a dish of combined ingredients means. And going deeper into what is ‘more’ is what complicates the study of food. As Anna Meigs writes: ‘‘In the act of eating one is connecting one-self with the world, opening one’s body and one’s self to the dynamic influence of properties, vital essences, and emotions of other organisms.’’(Meigs, 104). In ‘No Reservations’ food is thus presented as a reason to travel. This is the intersection of food and tourism that comes together in ‘No Reservations’, where the desire for new kinds of food is a force that drives people to visit other places and to ‘opening one’s body’ as Meigs states.
At first sight, it seems that ‘No Reservations’ is a television programme primarily about Bourdain and the production crew that travel around the world and let an audience see how other people eat and drink. This seems an innocent and entertaining television series which can repeat the same formula of each episode over and over again. But there is an alternative motive to this innocent culinary tourism where food functions as the main motive to travel. This alternative motive or deeper layer is the educational element which is presented in ‘No Reservations’. After ‘discovering’ the new kinds of food during the interview with a person who is called a ‘fixer’, the more informative element guides the audience to follow the perspective of Bourdain in learning from the fixer or local people. I argue that this deeper layer of education that is presented in ‘No Reservations’ is what slips through the cracks into the surface of food. ‘No Reservations’ uses food as a gateway to discuss also other topics such as history, cultural heritage about the visited people and places that appear in the series. Through watching ‘No Reservations’ the audience can learn and discover with Bourdain in the frame and the production crew behind the screen while staying in the safe and familiar space of usually their homes.
And where the series seems just about food, there is also information to be learned about the portrayed people, their identities and cultures present in the show alongside the history of the visited places. In the next chapter I will go further with analysing the part of history here
2 This is the updated version from 2013 that contains throughout the book and also in the Afterword section
personal remarks, self-criticism and small updates from Bourdain himself about what he wrote and experienced since 2000.
10 mentioned and how food can be perceived as heritage since I believe that deserves much more attention separately. It is another part of being a destination for tourism and how distinctions can create a way of dealing with food in the history of a place. Or as described here in the following: ‘‘Food can define bot people and places; food offers a direct insight into the nature and state if a culture at any particular moment in time. Food continues to be a significant factor in defining and shaping the tourism experience.’’ (Tresidder, 346). So, it is again made clear that food indeed is more than just combined ingredients, which are transformed into something edible on a plate and as part of the experience of the tourist abroad.
Culinary tourism is about travelling to another place, so stepping into the role of a tourist, and discover the food over there which is new to the tourist. When abroad the tourist needs to have a desire to experience this food, so it cannot appear as too strange or inedible but the food should also not look too familiar already in order to be perceived as new. Desire is an essential part of this experience, since it drives the person to go but also to actually want to taste the food. In ‘No Reservations’ the food is only a starting point that functions as a reason to be in the visited place and then food is part of the well-constructed narrative which makes up each episode. This is how Thoma Pamela describes ‘No Reservations’ as: ‘‘[…] part of ‘‘the capitalist version of the popular global landscape’’ that revises older colonial and anthropological narrative enterprises or ‘‘travel reports’’ which were used for the construction and consumption of the Other in the quest for Western self-discovery.’’(Larasati, 91 qtd. in Pamela, 116). It is next to food that the constructed narrative in this series is indeed a construction which is made of ‘the Other’.
In ‘No Reservations’ there is next quest for new kinds of food and to learn about the visited people and places another quest, namely that of finding the authentic experience and information. This quest for authenticity comes from the desire, which is present in both parts that make up ‘culinary tourism’. When looking closer to tourism as a phenomenon of people, who temporarily leave their home in order to learn from other places has been considered to be happening since the times of the Romans.3 And since these times the quest for authenticity was specific ascribed to the activity of sight-seeing and learning how life would be in other places. Part of the life from other people is the food they eat, but tourists can have the fear of not
3 For more information see: Feifer, Maxine. Going Places. The Ways of the Tourist from Imperial Rome to the
Present Day. London: Macmillan, 1985.
11 experience the place with food as authentic. The feeling of shame that is specific to tourists has bene taken up by Dean MacCannell as touristic shame, he writes:
‘‘They [tourists] are reproached for being satisfied with superficial experiences of other peoples and other places. […] In other words, touristic shame is not based on being a tourist but on not being tourist enough, on a failure to see everything the way it ‘‘ought’’ to be seen. The touristic critique of tourism is based on a desire to go beyond the other ‘‘mere’’ tourists to a more profound appreciation of society and culture, and it is by no means limited to intellectual statements. All tourists desire this deeper involvement with society and culture to some degree; it is a basic component of their motivation to travel.’’ (MacCannell: 1976, 10).
Examples of what are more authentic dishes and things to do when being abroad is to look for what are considered to be ‘the classics’ or what is part of the traditions of that specific place. In this way, food needs to be able to represent a place and thereby also a culture and a history for the culinary tourist. To have food representing a space nowadays in a television series such as ‘No Reservations’ requires me to look at how the food is presented and how the narrative of each episode is constructed by starting with food.
But if regular tourists can have the fear of shame hanging over their heads for not having been deeper involved at the destination, I can also argue that Bourdain would fall to this shame. He wrote in his first book reflecting on his big television break with the television series called ‘A Cook’s Tour’ and later with ‘No Reservations’ the following:
‘‘Whatever it is I do these days, whatever you might want to call it, I do get to travel all over the world, going anywhere I want, eating what I want, meeting admired chefs […] And I get paid for it. All I have to do is make television, maybe write about it all once in a while. […], it’s a pretty good gig.’’(Bourdain: 2006, 131).
I will further zoom in on (t)his attitude concerning the contrasts between being a host and a guest at a table or in a television programme in the third chapter. What I want to emphasize here, is that there seems to be a sense of mockery in how Bourdain regards himself being the host of -a television-show, as if this ‘‘gig’’ is not a ‘real’ job. After quitting his chef’s position at Les Halles in New York, Bourdain became as he said ‘someone who travels’. Thinking back to culinary tourism and how the travel-for-food-show ‘No Reservations’ is essentially driven by this kind of tourism, there seems to be a discrepancy regarding what is considered to be a job.
12 So, a tourist is someone who travels for solely a short amount of time and this usually happens when people are able to go on vacation, in other words when people do not have to work for a period of time. But there is also the notion of travelling, so being a traveller and I argue that this is what Bourdain became while he developed into a more fulltime traveller as a job. He was ‘someone who travels’ and not just a tourist, who could do whatever he wants as if he was on vacation fulltime. In front of a camera, with a production crew and a recognizable script Bourdain was indeed performing the activity of working and received money to do so. If Bourdain thought of himself as just another tourist, he could have suffered from touristic shame but ‘No Reservations’ offered a way of avoiding this shame by having extensive preparations before even leaving for filming.
Bourdain already made the point about always wanting to experience more literally when he said during the intro of ‘No Reservations’: ‘‘I am Anthony Bourdain. I write, I travel, I eat and I am hungry for more.’’ There were always more places to visit, more things to discover, more food to eat and it indeed needed to be done in a way that would not let him or the crew experience this ‘touristic shame’. Or put into other words: the show was not supposed to be a travel-show with the standard touristic approach regarding both travelling and food, but what needed to be captured is what MacCannell said the ‘deeper involvement’. This desire for avoiding the feeling of shame and wanting to be deeper involved is what drove the television series ‘No Reservations’ into discussing more than just food. Episodes became about constructing a narrative that had food as a topic and as an opening into the discussions about other things such as history, cultural heritage and traditions from people in their everyday lives.
I argue that it can be said that Bourdain started out as a tourist but he slowly transitioned himself into a traveller, who needed to be more than the ‘tourist with superficial experiences’. Since he changed, therefore also the television programmes he made (and the other work he did) transformed into more considerate or less naïve qua content, but Bourdain never stopped struggling to be respectful or do the right thing. Or put into other words, as his media career progressed Bourdain learned to become more conscious about his role as a tourist, or a traveller that had the role of a temporary guest In ‘No Reservations’. But I will start off here with the episode of Uzbekistan, to demonstrate how a ‘regular’ episode functioned.
(1) A Regular Episode: Searching for Authenticity
In the episode on Uzbekistan, the audience is presented with Bourdain who has agreed to visit the wedding of acquaintances from his fixer. The preparation for this wedding are the main
13 topic of this episode and are the way to introduce Bourdain to Uzbekistan and the customs that are part of everyday life and the exception to everyday life such as the wedding. When the day of the wedding is finally there, the audience is presented with the following scene:
Watching a camera interfering a wedding In: ‘‘Uzbekistan. Season 1, episode 8’’
Here the audience is presented with how a shot of how the episode is made. It is the only time in the episode that presents the way of how the episode is made, since the filming camera-man can be seen here. This is an exception since normally the production crew cameras are usually not in the frame themselves. The man on the left in the purple t-shirt is the fixer and Bourdain is wearing sunglasses and they both look at the bride as she is involved with focusing on entering the house with her left foot, in order to avoid seven years of bad luck. Bourdain and the production crew, with his fixer are witnessing this event but are at the same time not invisible themselves and do have a presence into this space. Basically, for acquiring the needed material for the episode of Uzbekistan the wedding is used in order to film the rituals and customs that are involved with how a wedding takes place in Uzbekistan.
The wedding was already planned to happen as it did on that day but still after having it broadcasted on television it has become consumed by both Bourdain as a tourist but also the
14 audience who watches this episode of ‘No Reservations’ in the way as Fürsich and Kavoori describe:
‘‘Tourist culture in effect is a showcase of postmodernism: a concoction of something ‘native,’ something borrowed, something old and something new […] In such a melange, authenticity is somewhat eclipsed by estrangement: dance and other rituals, organized for tourist consumption, become performances rather than integral parts of the social life of participants. They are something to be watched by others rather than something to be lived by themselves.’’(Leong, 371 qtd. in Fürsich and Kavoori, 157). But in this statement there is also something else which I want to take up, namely the notion of authenticity and estrangement. What is authentically and performed on ‘No Reservations’, as being on display for the purpose of entertainment for the audience back home while in the moment when Bourdain and crew are visiting, is by standard not authentic anymore since it is always replicated as part of what is called ‘staged authenticity’ described here as:
‘‘[…] ‘staged authenticity’ is a kind of repressive de-sublimation of tradition. […] while the gesture behind staged authenticity seems to be a valorization of traditions, its deepest effect is the opposite. Every instance of staged authenticity delivers the message that tradition does not constrain us, but rather we control it. When the re-constructed traditional object is fetishized to the point that the representative of tradition is intended to be better than the original […], the end result is ‘hyperreality’. ’’ (MacCannell: 1992, 298-299).
Only when stumbled upon a situation which shows the rituals and habits surrounding food in either everyday life or in life’s exceptions such as a marriage ceremony in Uzbekistan there is a vague sense of authenticity. But the notion of authenticity is either way compromised since the effect of filming here has made the moment at best to appear as ‘staged authenticity’, which could lead to considering it as ‘hyperreality’. This effect was taken up by Umberto Eco as the following: ‘‘To speak of things that one wants to connote as real, these things must seem real. The ‘‘completely real’’ becomes identified with the ‘‘completely fake’’.’’ (Eco, 7). This leads that ‘staged authenticity’ can also lead to even consider the events filmed as fake. The notion of staging and how this leads to feeling as if the events were fake will become more clear when looking at the making of episode in India.
For now, this leads to the question of who is responsible for losing all doubt that this moment in the wedding ceremony, or the wedding as a whole, was not authentic but rather
15 staged. On the one hand, there is Bourdain and the production crew, with his fixer who are attending this wedding which they need as material to fill up another episode of ‘No Reservations’. But on the other hand, the people who were involved in this wedding could also have not invited the fixer if they did not want this to be filmed. This moment is problematic, for it leads to another question: namely who is responsible for these moments that show how unknown guests, as are Bourdain and crew, are interfering with the ceremony of the wedding. Elfriede Fürsich provides the following answer:
‘‘To what degree do the shows reflect the unequal power situation between film-makers and subjects? Travel programs always deal with Others (not only indigenous communities) and different strategies for integrating these other voices exists. Of course, the power of representing the Others is always on the side of the production team (all western origin); therefore producers should be conscious of the impact of these strategies’’ (Fürsich, 77).
I agree on this question of responsibility with Fürsich, since the doubtful status of authenticity is here caused by the presence of Bourdain and the production crew and the activity of filming the events. By having the wedding filmed as was done in the still, and by having the full control back in the United States it is Bourdain and production crew who could use the material to their needs and edit the episode on Uzbekistan how they wanted, thereby framing the material into the episode as presented to the audience on television.
Another moment that makes clear how the presence of Bourdain as a formal guest disrupts the way in how the wedding-day goes is when the father of the bride asked if Bourdain would honour them with a speech and having the fixer translate it. In the next still, they are becoming a part of this wedding celebration by giving this speech in the centre of the attention during the festivities.
16 Thanking the host by giving a speech as asked In: ‘‘Uzbekistan. Season 1, episode 8’’.
What can be seen here is how the rest of the people are watching Bourdain and his fixer, while they give this speech. Bourdain thanks the bride, the groom and their families for allowing the world to see what family and community mean in Uzbekistan. That he hopes that the bride and groom will accept the gifts, which were acquired during the episode as preparation for the wedding. He ends the speech with a toast to them. The voice-over from Bourdain then states that he had no choice but to fulfil his role as a good guest, since he and the crew were already standing out and needed to do something in return for their interference. This moment is therefore also staged, since it was neither completely free will on the side of Bourdain to give this speech in the first place and-/or expected from him to do so when they entered the festivities. Because the father of the bride only made clear that he wanted Bourdain to give a speech when Bourdain and his fixer were already there. Bourdain acts here not in an authentic way himself, since he needs to follow the rules of the host in order to be a good guest and respect the hospitality which was offered to him but also the production crew.
(2) Showing the Audience How it is Made
The notion of stage authenticity goes even further when I turn to one of the episodes, that is an exception to the ‘No Reservations’. This is the behind-the-scenes-episode called: The Making of India about the Kerala episode. This episode lets the audience have a look into how on the whole the series ‘No Reservations’ is made and more specifically its case-study; the episode of Kerala, India. What is most surprising is how the preparation of ‘No Reservations’ makes use of people that are called ‘fixers’. These people are searched out beforehand as part
17 of research and as seen here the production crew is also already in contact with them beforehand to discuss ideas for the show. This moment only becomes more problematic since the fixers on the other side, where not supposed to be working. During their conversation the woman on the right remembers that it was the religious holiday Holi and adds an apology for that she and the other member of the production crew called on that exact day after it was already too late.
Working as a fixer during Holi in order to prepare the Kerala episode In: ‘‘Making of India.’’ Season 6, episode 22.
‘No Reservations’ is part of a Western perspective, which does not necessarily take up the notion that other religious holidays needs to be respected and that working as a fixer for this television series means that working during the festive holiday of Holi is something which is asked for. This is done because on the one hand, ‘No Reservations’ needs to act out the desire to have ‘more’ as a topic to discuss in each episode otherwise the constructed well narrative cannot be completed. And on the other hand, the use of fixers adds to the dimension of having authentic experience since these people are supposed to provide Bourdain and the production crew with correct information. This is how certainty is created in ‘No Reservations’, as MacCannell elaborates on touristic shame: ‘‘Touristic consciousness is motivated by its desire for authentic experiences, and the tourist may believe that he is moving in this direction, but often it is very difficult to know for sure if the experience is in fact authentic.’’ (MacCannell: 1976, 101).
18 Furthermore, the fixers are also given instructions before shooting a ‘scene’ with Bourdain, since more often than not they are not used to being filmed, as seen in the following still.
Instructing the fixer in his own city In: ‘‘Making of India.’’ Season 6, episode 22’’.
The women and man on the right are from the production crew. The woman is looking at the conversation that the two men have about the upcoming scene. The man on the left added that the fixer should only have a focus on Bourdain and not on them or the rest of the production crew after she already explained to the fixer here what was expected from him and the scene. The following shot is from how this scene is actually made and in the fixer is filmed while executing his assignment, which was to have a conversation about the ordered food.
When a series such as ‘No Reservations’ is produced there is not only the collection of images that from together a story, which receives narration through the voice-over from Bourdain and those two components are what fills any episode. What in the making off episode from Kerala is added to this thought about this series, is the fact that there is a behind the scene and in that space or zone mainly the production crew are working with these fixers. So, ‘No Reservations’ is then not only a collection of images but also about people and how to interact with these people. Guy de Bord writes: ‘‘The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.’’ (Bord, 4). On the screen the audience sees Bourdain having a relation with the fixer over food but before and after the filming of these scenes, there is the production crew with the fixer working together and the one telling ‘the Other’ what to do.
19 And after the instruction is given the scene can be performed. Bourdain and his fixer walk while discussing the destination to be headed to and two camera men are surrounding them in order to get the needed material. A normal frame would be without the camera men but for the Making-of episode the audience sees how these scenes are made. What in any regular episode comes across as a spontaneous meeting between Bourdain and a local fixer, there is actually the execution of a well discussed and planned or scripted scene taking place.
The filming of walking and talking together In: ‘‘Making of India.’’ Season 6, episode 22’’.
There are ways in which the locals or fixers can have a say or form of power since they decide for themselves what they show or tell in ‘No Reservation’. But this power is limited since in the Making of India episode there is a behind the scenes feel and it is explained by Bourdain, but mostly production crew themselves, executive producer Chris Colling and segment-producer Diane Schutz how each episode is prepared beforehand, executed on the spot and is finished back in the United States by them. It is made very clear that the show is not spontaneous and thus staged, when the audience is shown how even the slightest details are checked while filming. There is only the risk of the unplanned on the spot itself and the measures taken to prepare this are done by using the fixers. These people are arranged to help Bourdain and the entire crew during their stay and help with the other preparations to be made over there. In this way these ‘fixers’ stand in between the visiting travellers and the local inhabitants.
20 This is why I argue that the television series ‘No Reservations’, by using fixers, is a kind of renewed version of the travel-reports or travel-writing. Since this series makes use of these fixer and the series is thereby at the same time repeating the older capitalistic and anthropological frameworks of colonialism. Again there are Westerners travelling and describing the process of authentic discovery with the aid of the native helper or in other debates the person called the ‘Squanto’4. Today’s fixer fits precisely this mold of a: ‘‘disconcertingly
hybrid ‘‘native’’ […]: strangely, familiar, and different precisely in that unprocessed familiarity. […] Insider-outsiders, good translators and explicators, they’ve been around.’’ (Clifford: 1997, 97). ‘No Reservations’ is in that sense an updated version and is not written but broadcasting the story all over the world via television.
There is an internal incongruity to be sensed after learning about the use of these ‘fixers’. On the one hand, Bourdain, whom is all about emphasizing that all people are basically the same in his later added voice-overs of ‘No Reservations’ is on the other hand, also making the fixers and the visited people perceived as strange and whom can be discovered or learned about by starting out with talking about food. It is then in food that people can come together but can also be separated since all people do not eat or have access to the same kinds of food. This explains why the quest for authenticity in culinary tourism is considered to be important since the show cannot feature the same dishes from the same restaurant in every episode. If globalization is the cause for example each McDonalds, which is the same everywhere, then the trend to look or search for the authentic kinds of food in a place is what makes the culinary tourist drive in modern times. The fact that other people would also follow Bourdain and replicate his travels was an unforeseen effect, which also had its own effects for the visited area’s and businesses. But here are also other responsibilities concerning the watching audience.
If I replace in this quote the word film with television, and then entering the home space instead of the cinema, the following statement from Amy Corbin would be a description for travel-for-food-shows such as ‘No Reservations’ as she writes: ‘‘Watching films invites viewers to imagine an alternate existence in an other world – though depending on film, viewers may perceive that world as an accurate recreation of a real place or they may label it fantasy.’’ (Corbin, 315). It is not set in stone how the audience will respond to watching the series and
4 ‘‘Squanto was the Indian who greeted the pilgrims in 1620 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, who helped them through
21 the responsibility that Bourdain and production crew have towards the visited places and people is of importance.
Using fixers is one way to help create not only authenticity in ‘No Reservations’ since they carry the responsibility to know all about their own food, history and home. That is also why it is a weird moment if the fixers do not originally come from the visited place, and does this then implicitly make clear that once you been living somewhere long enough you can speak for a place, its inhabitant and their customs? And it is important to note that in the general episodes the fixers are almost never mentioned or acknowledged as sources of knowledge except for in the making off episode. Kong writes about Bourdain who wonders about the thoughts that the fixers van have in a voice-over: ‘‘ ‘‘Is this what you expected? Can we re-enact our lives for you?’’ […] He [Bourdain] is possible a ‘‘post-tourist’’, because he acknowledges the Other and how his own privilege and positionality affects his relations with the Other’’. (Kong, 49).
The ‘Other’, or the visited fixer and local people are encountered by Bourdain and the production crew but if Bourdain is indeed a ‘possible post-tourist’ as Kong describes then the quest for authenticity was never as important as to acknowledging the ‘Other’. Contradicting Kong is here MacCannell who quotes Erik Cohen writing: ‘‘[…] ‘post-tourists’ … tend to engage readily in the playful enjoyment of explicitly contrived attractions rather than a serious quest for authenticity.’’ (Cohen qtd. MacCannell: 2011, 36-37). The ambivalent position that Bourdain takes and therefore the entire series of ‘No Reservations’ is problematic since it leaves questions about its position. Because at the start of ‘No Reservations’ the series was mostly about sensation foods and travels which featured Bourdain trying out food which would typically not be considered edible from the Western perspective, and later went to present that ‘normal’ food was also found in the visited places. But as I will discuss in the third chapter further, Bourdain is still trying and eating these kinds of ‘inedible’ of sensation food as shown by the example of the seal-eye. I think the following sums up how nowadays tourism, caught on camera is acting on the lives of the portrayed people and their food-habits.
‘‘The event has become mystified by the curious process that tourism brings into play: set up by the travel writer and framed by the camera, other people’s ordinary lives are transformed into exotic entertainment, history into myth. There was also something singularly modern about it: who but ‘‘alienated’’ twentieth-century urbanites would be mystified by somebody whisking eggs (a kind of reversal of the savage astounded by a cigarette lighter)?’’ (Feifer, 1).
22 The event, whisking eggs, to which is referred to by Maxine Feifer is here taken from ordinary everyday life that only becomes an event for the visiting tourists. And if a camera is also present there to film it all, then a television programme such as ‘No Reservations’ can be filled with episodes about ‘events’ which are solely off interest since they happen somewhere else in the presence of ‘twentieth-century urbanites’ such as Bourdain and his production crew.
(3) The Exception to the Rule: Beirut
What is then the exception to the rule of ‘No Reservations’ is then the episode from 2006 about Beirut. And apparently Beirut felt as ‘unfinished business’ as Bourdain’s voice-over starts of the episode on Beirut from 2010. That is why ‘No Reservations’ went back to re-create the planned episode about Beirut from 2006. The same two fixers were arranged and the other agreements they had scheduled before were now executed. I argue, however, that the 2010 episode could never replace the one planned before since not only did the people change but also the space of Beirut after the war. Even if we the first two fixers were the same in both episodes, the latter part of the 2010 episode was in fact different since it functioned as any other episode, with the exception of the memories from the 2006 episode.
In the following still, not only Bourdain but the entire production crew is in the frame. They are discussing the episode and time from 2006 and how things have changed. Buildings were bombed and only some were rebuilt, people disappeared and when going to the other missed appointments they add change to an episode that was supposed to be exactly the same as the earlier one. The still shows a relaxed atmosphere, where everyone sits in a relaxed manner and they are celebrating with drinks the opportunity to make another episode about Beirut and to finish what was once planned. In the background there is Beirut and this time there are is no act of violence seen, the buildings look intact and the green adds a serenity to the still which is not to be found in the still from 2006.
23 Bringing up memories together In: ‘‘Back to Beirut. Season 6, episode 21’’
The 2010 episode automatically brings also up the events from the planned episode of 2006. After having experienced the first trauma of witnessing the violence of the war and waiting for them to flee the city of Beirut. In the following still we see how Bourdain and the production crew responded to the braking out of the war in Beirut, after only two days of filming ‘No Reservations’. Being stuck in the hotel forced Bourdain and the production crew to question what they needed to do and next to the plan of setting up a way to go back home, they chose to film the events. A part from filming was by having monologues from Bourdain, whom now not by voice-over but by direct looking to the camera telling the audience what his thoughts were and how it made him feel. Throughout the 2006 episode the focus stays on mostly Bourdain. Only after they all flee, the topic of food is used as a means to refer back home, which is the United States of America. About all other kinds of food, that of Beirut, is not spoken of in the episode.
The episode present the view over Beirut during war as shot from the distance as in the following still which is part of how the audience follows mostly Bourdain around in this episode. The audience is here presented with the same views as Bourdain. When experiencing the war together, Bourdain and the production crew, this still also leads the audience in this shared experience. Here a comparison can be made between the stills, where in the one there are ruins and aircrafts and in the other there is not.
24 Gazing from the hotel over the war In: ‘‘Anthony Bourdain in Beirut. Season 2, episode 24’’.
In this chapter, I have discussed how authenticity is an essential feature of tourism and how by filming the events and people can be considered as staged and even fake. Culinary tourism is a way of how food and tourism are connected but in the following chapter I look to the connection between tourism and food in a different way, namely that of the historical aspect which includes cultural heritage. Food is not only part of the history from people and places but also has a history on its own. But just as trying out new kinds of food can be a motive to travel, so can the interest of history and more specifically the history of food function as a motive to travel.
25
Chapter 2: Food as an Indicator of Distinction and History
What is connected to travelling and food in culinary tourism is the quest for authenticity. But tourism and food also have in common that history and heritage come to the foreground. Bourdain uses the notion of ‘ethnoculinary tradition’ when he writes: ‘‘I envied them [Luis Irizar and Juan Mari Arzak5] that they were so were so good at what they did, that they were so firmly grounded in a culture, a place, an enthnoculinary tradition, […].’’(Bourdain: 2002, 78). I want to go deeper in this ‘ethnoculinary tradition’ and go deeper with the notion of ‘culinary tourism’ in ‘No Reservations’. It is important to note that in ‘No Reservations’ there is not only a focus on travelling to taste new kinds of food but also to learn about this food and its history. This movement into history leads automatically into the topic of history from the visited people and place.
Or put differently: the culinary traditions and the focus on how these traditions have an importance to the identity of people and place can be traced back into food. I am aligned with the following statement from Wood who quotes: ‘‘[…] ‘If it is accepted that food is an indication of culture, then cultural change, as seen by the tourist, can be gauged by the availability of traditional dishes in local restaurants’ ’’(Reynolds qtd. in Wood, 102). Food and history come together in the realm of the traditional and the tourist is looking for ‘new’ experiences in the search for authentic food which means in ‘No Reservations’ to search for traditional food. What I will demonstrate further in this chapter is the way how in ‘No Reservations’ the discovery of new kinds of food, leads also into discovering the history of the visited people and place which means their traditions and cultural heritage.
I follow what Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett describes as: ‘‘[…] the proposition that tourism stages the world as a museum of itself, even as museum try to emulate the experience of travel. Indeed, museums --- and the larger heritage industry of which they are part --- play a vital role in creating the sense of ‘hereness’ necessary to convert a location into a destination.’’ (Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, 7). When people let Bourdain and his crew into their homes, restaurants or other spaces this can also be seen as him and the crew as visiting a museum, or put in other words: ‘No Reservations’ leads the audience through watching television on a tour which Bourdain guides with help of the fixer, whom provides certainty and authenticity when
5 Luis Irizar is a chef and in 1993 opened a cooking school called: the Luis Irizar Eskola. Juan Mari Arzak is chef
26 it comes to food by leading the explanation into the historical aspect of it. And by doing so, the fixer on this series are objects for the series or props to be used by Bourdain and crew since these people are needed for ‘No Reservations’ in order to provide the needed information and as a way for Bourdain to start the dialogue on camera. This information is guaranteed to be authentic since evidence or back-up information is provided by explaining for example the history of a certain type of food, such as spices, or to tell what happened in a place that led to the birth of a certain dish, as in Mozambique.
But when ‘No Reservations’ frames each episode by constructing a contained narrative or story, this is when the series is focusing on not only the difference in perspectives between what is the norm and what differs from this norm. What is different gets the attention and this can be anything from the custom of washing hands in Africa to how other people cook their food because they were less clothes in their everyday life. I also agree with Fürsich who writes:
‘‘The underlying journalistic statement of a travel program cannot be: ‘We show you what this country is really all about’; but instead should be: ‘ We give you a selection of cultural aspects of this multi-faceted country’. By giving up the search for ‘typical’ and the ‘authentic’ one can hold the representation ‘in suspense’ as Clifford (1988: 273) suggests: ‘If all essentializing modes of thought must … be hold in suspense, then we should attempt to think of cultures not as organically unified or traditionally continuous but rather as negotiated, present processes’. ’’ (Fürsich, 78).
As Fürsich writes it is important to keep in mind that a television programme such as ‘No Reservations’ is from the beginning already not able to present its audience with a full picture of a country. But it is not acknowledged by ‘No Reservations’ in any way that their episode are only partial since the series shows what country x is all about. When people share a meal together and get to talk about other things than just food it is possible for ‘No Reservations’ to expand the scope from solely the topic of food but while doing so there remains a responsibility for this development in topic. It is as Joanne Ikeda describes: ‘‘The food served at these gatherings [traditional celebrations] often serves as a reminder of the cultural heritage shared by family members.’’ (Ikeda, 152). But the act of remembering through food as described here by Ikeda is what comes forward in ‘No Reservations’.
27 (1) The explanation of a (food-)history
Bourdain wrote while filming ‘No Reservations’, the book The Nasty Bits. Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones and about what it meant for him to work in the business of professional cooking.
‘‘You are also coming to an understanding –a real understanding –of what the hell it is that we really do in this business, meaning, we transform the raw, the ugly, the tough, and the unlovely into the cooked, the beautiful, the tender, and the tasty. […] This is the real story of haute cuisine, of course: generations of hungry, servile and increasingly capable French and Italian and Chinese and others, transforming what was readily at hand, or leftover from their cruel masters, into something people actually wanted to eat. And as the story of all great cooking is often the story of poverty, hardship, servitude, and cruelty, so is our history.’’ (Bourdain: 2006, 20).
Again the correlation history and food is made clear here in these reflections by Bourdain also when he refers to this history as that of every human. In 2006, he was already travelling the world and making television. He had learned for himself what it means to discover how other people eat, live and what it means to make television. But also that this ‘great cooking’ used to be done since the times of ‘poverty, hardship, servitude, and cruelty’ as he wrote. It is the investigation into these times that were also a feature of ‘No Reservations’ as I argued before.
The following still was taken from the episode on Egypt. It shows Bourdain and the local fixer on a local market looking and discussing the spices on the left. The spice-trade was centred in Egypt and has led to the presence of the West since these spices were considered to be valuable and enjoyable.
28 Spices representing historical events, such as occupations. In: ‘‘Egypt.’’ Season 4, episode 18.
Starting from the discussion about typical Egyptian food the conversation leads to talking about the used spices and then how the spices came in Egypt in the first place. The historical narrative of the spice trade in Egypt leads to Bourdain asking if people from the West came to Egypt for this reason, in order to cut out the middle man so to speak. So, where the audience is presented with how Egypt is in the present day, in 2008, there used to be a time that there were no spices and this history needs to be clarified in order to understand what is typical food in Egypt.
Another example of how the discussion about the used spices in food can lead to an explanation of history is seen in this still from Mozambique, where food is connected to the history of colonialism, slavery, civil war and other forms of oppression. It started off with Bourdain talking with the man on the right. But when he starts to sum up the groups of people who came to Mozambique in the past, the man on the left gets involved.
29 Explaining the history (of food) and silence cause by this trauma. In: ‘‘Mozambique.’’ Season 8, episode 1.
The conversation went from talking about spices in a dish to a summing up of all the people that once invaded Mozambique, since they brought these spices with them. Bourdain mentions the Indians, Arabs and Portuguese but is then corrected by the man on the left who says: first there were the Arabs, the Portuguese, the Swahili, the Hindu and then the Dutch people invading Mozambique. When the Dutch are mentioned, Bourdain reacts with a surprise which remains unanswered since the man goes on by saying what it is seen in the still: all these influences were mixed together while he moves his arm and hand to make the movement of mixing. The man on the right adds then that people do not really want to talk about their history and the experienced traumas. After saying this, the man on the right remains quiet from that moment and stares at the ground.
There is not another shot after this image but only the ending moment of both the meal and the scene when all the women in the village start to sing. This break in dialogue and scene cuts the moment where first sadness was experienced from learning about the invasions and then to present where the future is hoped to be more hopeful. Bourdain’s voice-over adds that he interpreted the singing of the women as cheerfully and juxta positioned it to the negative consequences and traumas that were caused by different forms of invasion and occupation in Mozambique.
Erik Cohen provides a description about another kind of invasion here: ‘‘The tourist-local relationship is, to varying degrees, embedded in and regulated by two sociocultural systems: a native system, which is invaded by tourism, and the emergent tourist system itself.’’ (Cohen, 380). From this still out of the Mozambique episode, it is not only the invasion of the
30 tourist at stake in the present form of Bourdain and the crew of ‘No Reservations’ but also that of the invasions that happened in the past of Mozambique. Here the invaded native system is not presented as having been invaded by tourists, such as Bourdain and his crew for ‘No Reservations’, but rather that this series offered an opportunity to speak about the past. That these people were needed to provide a way to present this history is not acknowledged by the series.
(2) ‘We did not thinks this through when we tried to do the ‘right’ thing but there are no easy solutions in Haiti’
There is also another take on history and food, namely the history of being hungry. While visiting Port-au-Prince in the episode on Haiti, there are two specific moments that I want to discuss here. This scene starts off with the discussing of how the food is made on a local market and the still shows Bourdain and the fixer in the purple shirt having a seat at the table while discussing the food they have ordered. Then the frame is zoomed-out and shows also the gathering crowd looking at Bourdain and the fixer eating their meals. Then Bourdain asks the woman who runs the stall how her business is doing and the fixer translates. Apparently, not so good because have not enough money anymore to buy her food which explains according to the fixer why all these people are standing around their table.
31 What is then reflected upon by Bourdain in the voice-over is how uncomfortable he felt while discussing this moment with his fixer. The people in the crowd say nothing directly to either Bourdain or his fixer but Bourdain states in the voice-over that he certainly knew that these people were all hungry. This is said while at the same moment he and his fixer had ordered three different kinds of dishes in order to get a proper understanding and experience of food in Haiti. Bourdain expressed a feeling of guilt since he was able to do so while other people would remain hungry since they could not afford these meals. Never did he ask if they were really hungry or if they were just surprised to see a camera crew filming the scene. But he said that he just knew that these kids were not just there for the cameras or him, but for the food since that was all they were looking at.
What follows is what can be seen in the following still. Bourdain and his production crew decided to buy the woman out and let her divide the rest of the meals among the other people present. But one of the older men tries to cut the line by pushing others away and is therefore hit with a belt. The atmosphere changes from happy to violent and other people also try to cut the line of younger children in order to also receive some food. There is no showing of any reaction from Bourdain and crew or local fixer apart from them walking away.
32 These two still show how the interference from ‘No Reservations’ led to a decision of trying to do something good which turned out to the opposite. What is unfortunate and certainly not expected by Bourdain, the production crew and the fixer is the way in which the crowd responds. Firstly, there are no issues and everyone stands in a queue to receive their portion that day. But then it turned into this moment as seen in the still. What still further strikes me is the way how Bourdain and that fixer are not to be seen anywhere since they walk away from the place without discussing this moment, or at least this is not presented in the episode. There is also this element of judging present when the voice-over of Bourdain says: What happens is both predictable and a metaphor for what is wrong with so much well intentioned aid effort around the world. Hungry people anywhere behave like hungry people and when you have small kids and big kids, many of whom who had not have a meal in days, the real world outside the commercial we have in our heads, is that people get whacked by a belt.
What also escaped the attention is that the realization that Bourdain and crew with the local fixer were in the first place to blame for this situation. But is remains undiscussed in the rest of the episode and no further reflection is mentioned except that this history of being hungry has become the new normal in Haiti and is now presented in ‘No Reservations’.
(3) Everyday rituals that need explanation.
In the episode of Ghana the history of how people eat there with their right hand is discussed since Bourdain sees his two fixers doing the same. He asks how he needs to do it and the ritual of washing your hands before eating gets special attention with the special bowl of water on each table. As seen here, Bourdain’s arm and hand are washed just as everyone else who is present in this scene.
33 Cleaning your hand is (also) a custom in Africa In: ‘‘Ghana.’’ Season 3, episode 2.
So, it is a completely normal to eat with your hands in other parts of the world and this close up from this small ritual before starting any meal is presented as how Amy Corbin writes about the close up:
‘‘The close-up ‘expands space’, [Walter] Benjamin writes – in a sense it changes the pro-filmic space of whatever was in front of the camera into a new filmic space that is presented to the spectator. […] Even if such an object exists in a given viewer’s own domestic space, the close-up exemplifies one of the ways the cinematic medium renders any locale strange.’’ (Corbin, 321).
The close-up on Bourdain’s hand here represents the thought that the hand which is eaten from should be cleaned and this is done in these small bowls, which are everywhere in Ghana. Thus Bourdain follows the rules as told by his hosts, two local fixers who perform the act of washing their hand first. He then follows their example and imitates the manoeuvre. Although washing one’s hands before eating is also a custom in many other parts of the world, the way how it is done in Ghana receives special attention for an episode of ‘No Reservations’ whereas washing both hands before going to dinner would otherwise be something which is done without thinking about it twice.
In the episode of Namibia, the audience is presented with specific warnings for the nudity in the following scenes. In other episodes this warning was not shown and so there is special attention given to what will be nudity in a form that could offend viewers.
34 A warning sign is apparently needed In: ‘‘Namibia.’’ Season 3, episode 4.
This seemed striking because the warning signals first that there will follow not just nudity but a kind of nudity, namely ‘indigenous’. And that leads into an unacknowledged series of scenes which feature the tribe as how they also have lived with their nudity as their normal, but the intrusion of ‘No Reservations’ made this way of living into something special. In order to film an episode about Namibia and the food that is eaten there, a Western audience needs to be warned for the coming imagery which takes up the notion of what can offend viewers or not. I have chosen explicitly to use this still below as showing how the tribe was filmed during the scenes that included food.
Everyday spectacle for ‘No Reservations’: nudity and cooking In: ‘‘Namibia.’’ Season 3, episode 4.
