Anthony Bourdain's Reservation

Anthony Bourdain wears many hats but is known to the world of television as the ruggedly handsome, New York based chef travels all over the world showing viewers how other cultures eat to live and live to eat. He hit show, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, takes us off the beaten path and for the most part takes us to places that aren't the typical 5 star restaurants. It is an awesome show where he has no reservations about trying exotic foods and critters that us westerners would most likely never see on a menu.

It is fascinating to see how other cultures live and how they prepare their food and what they consider delicacy in their native lands. It's just as fascinating to see how much Tony can take when it comes to the strange and unappetizing of meals. I love how he narrates his shows and the realism of each episode. His sarcastic humor is refreshing to me. They show the good, the bad and the ugly. And I do mean ugly.

I admire Tony for his guts. I have seen Andrew Zimmerman from the television show Bizarre Foods eat some pretty nasty looking things. It's one of those shows that I can't really watch. I don't know if I have even seen a whole episode because something always grosses me out so badly that I have to change the channel. It's like watching fear factor and only being able to stomach the first act. I've never had that problem with No Reservations until today.

Tony was in Namibia. He was following around a native tribe. He went out with the tribe and gathering food and hunting wild animals. The tribe caught a wild hog of some sort. And the delicacy of the animal was the anus. I've never seen an anus extracted from an animal. Let alone watch someone squeeze the remaining fecal matter out of the anal cavity in a sad attempt to clean it. It was cooked on a fire containing what appeared to be ash, soot, burnt embers, dirt, and that was the most appetizing part about it. As Tony says, "this Hershey highway is served al dente." It was not washed and it was no were close to being cleaned before it was put on the fire and its not even cooked to well-done. He admits that he had reached his limit of what he can bear and I have seen this guy bear a lot. I'm agreeing whole heartedly and screaming at my television "No, No! Don't do it. No, No!" Yet he is gracious and tries it. Even though he clearly had reservations about eating it.

There were viewer warnings before each segment with the natives about nudity. I was totally prepared to see the native women without their tops being covered, loin clothes and maybe the occasional back sides exposed. I was totally unprepared for the extraction and consumption of pig anus. I supposed not as unprepared as Tony!