“But Mexico is like Vietnam. It’s ten or twelve people eating at a twelve-top, the kids and Grandpa tearing into food, having a great time, dropping shells on the floor, drinking and smoking. Both are family-based social structures with matriarchies. In our culture, the whole point is to get away from Mom as soon as possible. We come at food counterclockwise, which is why we need some chef to show us how to eat a great meatloaf.”
Next come Flintstones-size portions of hacked goat, roasted nopal salad, and blood pudding; towers of fresh tortillas; and a fragrant, sharp avocado and pasilla chile salsa that I’d pay Albina to bottle. The mariachis sing, and a guy in deerskin pants executes some major lariat moves with his rope. This is followed by a singing cowboy in a sombrero the size of a small satellite dish sitting on a shiny fawn palomino that sidesteps, two-steps, and lays on its side at the vaquero’s command. The scene is a magic-realist dream, set in a house that steak frites built. It’s going to make great television.
Everyone’s delirious, especially Tony, who looks almost teary-eyed when he turns to me. “This is the best, man. It’s what I’ve been talking about all along. Food is about love and family and friendship. I can’t believe I can see my dishwasher’s face in that woman dancing.”
By now, it’s clear to me that despite any success he might have as a best-selling writer or outrageous TV personality, Tony Bourdain is still, at heart, a cook. What matters to him is being here with Eddie, just as what matters in New York isn’t eating in four-star restaurants or schmoozing with the world’s leading culinary lights. It’s being able to go to a restaurant at midnight and pull up to the bar with the other guys in whites. To him, cooking is about the camaraderie that goes on behind the kitchen doors and around the table. The food is almost the least of it.
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