A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal. de Bourdain, Anthony - 2001

New York: Bloomsbury, 2001. First edition of this written record of Bourdain's travels around the world in his search for the perfect meal. Octavo, original boards. Boldly inscribed by Anthony Bourdain on the title page who has added a drawing of a skull in a chef hat with a large butcher knife in its mouth, "Cook Rule! To Erica, Anthony Bourdain." Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by High Design. Anthony Bourdain, life-long line cook and bestselling author of "Kitchen Confidential", sets off to eat his way around the world. But being Anthony Bourdain, this was never going to be a conventional culinary tour. Bourdain heads out to Saigon where he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra, and travels deep into landmined Khmer Rouge territory to find the rumoured Wild West of Cambodia (Pailin). Other stops include dining with gangsters in Russia, a medieval pig slaughter and feast in northern Portugal, the Basque All Male Gastronomique Society in Saint Sebastian, rural Mexico with his Mexican sous-chef, a pilgrimage to the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and a return to his roots in the tiny fishing village of La Teste, where he first ate an oyster as a child. Written with the inimitable machismo and humour that has made Tony Bourdain such a sensation, "A Cook's Tour" is an adventure story sure to give you indigestion.