hold the presses - a. bourdain hates "romanian experience"... after first making sure it'd suck

oh, great. one of my favorite celebrities ever decided to go to romania for an episode of his food show and is now wondering "romania: what the hell happened?." jeezus. i don't really have time to look into the whole story, but i was forwarded this article [in romanian] - and i have a couple of reactions (though even without knowing too many details about this particular controversy i could write several entire essays on 1. the problems with anthony bourdain and his "no reservations" show in general, 2. what bourdain should've avoided when going to film the show in romania - he should've totally asked me in advance! - 3. the romanian context: the huge chasm between the front put on by officials and actual reality in all respects, what people there think about foreigners and about how they should be best dealt with and "impressed," etc. and 4. romanian food - the real deal vs. what foreigners get to experience most of the time). my first comment is: wait a second, isn't this show called "no reservations?!?" then, what the hell were they doing getting involved with the romanian government and thus making much more than... "reservations?" i think they basically defeated the whole purpose of the show from the get-go, in this case. so that's part of "what happened." then, i remember how disdainfully bourdain talked about romanians a while ago, for no apparent reason: i mentioned that oh-so-nonchalantly semi-anti-romanian comment of his here, and i would venture to guess that bourdain was both uninformed about romania and at least a little bit prejudiced against romanians before he even set foot in the country. i'm sure this is another part of the problem. and, of course, stuff like attempting to experience the romania of regular/working class people (which the show producers say was their goal) by relying on authorities and going to a dracula-themed restaurant sounds off all kinds of alarms for me. or, rather, it makes me laugh. way to be clueless and let yourselves be manipulated, anthony bourdain & co.! it's like if people from the u.s.d.a. took me on a bizarre tour of graceland and then - after eating some fried peanut butter and banana sandwhiches - i decided i was quite informed and started making generalizations about regular american cuisine, culture and society. (actually, in a country where, unlike in the u.s., there's such a separation between anything approaching "pop culture" and what life is like for most people, it's really much more preposterous than that.)

i do understand how a foreigner would be greatly underwhelmed by romanian food/culture if all he or she tried were kitschy "theme" restaurants while being shown around by people from the department of tourism. the thing is: regular people in romania never go out to eat if they can help it (definitely not to restaurants that serve "romanian" food) - simply because people make good romanian food at home. if you're a guest in a family's home in romania, 98.5% of the time the "gospodina" (the woman of the household - whether or not she's a "homemaker" per se) would never think of sending you to a restaurant; in fact, she'd be insulted if you did go. but even if you're not visiting friends and/or you don't have a local to show you around, you can figure things out on your own. to see the most common ingredients that farmers produce and everybody eats, just check out a market ("piata"). or go straight to the countryside and look around. in my opinion, bourdain should have contacted real people, without using any intermediaries (let alone officials-as-intermediaries) and filmed in real households. he could've just shown up on people's doorsteps and that would've been the extent of the "planning" that he needed to do. i guarantee that he and his crew would've been invited in, and then fed. and perhaps he could have tried to learn about the differences in the cuisines specific to different regions of romania, about the different ethnic influences and socio-cultural significance of various foods. he could've done a segment on dishes that people came up with during the communist period, when they had to make do with limited ingredients. because they're very cool. he could've tried the huge variety of dishes that have been created in romania for those times when people keep the orthodox lent/gone to a monastery to see what delicious romanian vegetarian cuisine is like (yeah, yeah, i know bourdain despises anything vegetarian - but that's his problem). he could've gone to a wedding to see a real elaborate romanian feast. he could've asked about what people think of as super-traditional food, about the "weirder" romanian dishes like salata de boeuf (usually made with chicken in spite of its name) and its lenten version (with "mayo" made out of corn puffs), the hungarian-inspired cold fruit soups they have in transylvania, the "dessert soup of the martyrs" and so on... and, no, a russian guy who's an expert on uzbekistan will not know these things, anymore than an american would. it's a different culture altogether (and the difference isn't encompassed in romania being the birthplace of dracula). obviously.

anyway, there was so much goodness to be explored, so many interesting things to learn about people, how they live and eat and think and so on; just like in any other place - and yet in romania bourdain and his producers went about it all in precisely such a way that the reward was bound to be a terrible experience. too bad for them - to me it's just proof that they are clueless and have no business making that show!

ps: HEZBOLLAH TOFU. uh huh.