The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones

by Anthony Bourdain

The best cooks are ex-dishwashers. Hell, the best people are ex-dishwashers.

For their own good, vegetarians should never be allowed near fine beers and ales. It will only make them loud and belligerent, and they lack the physical strength and aggressive nature to back up any drunken assertions.

Cooking professionally is a dominant act, at all times about control. Eating well, on the other hand, is about submission. It's about giving up all vestiges of control, about entrusting your fate entirely to someone else. It's about turning off the mean, manipulative, calculating, and shrewd person inside you, and slipping heedlessly into a new experience as if it were a warm bath. It's about shutting down the radar and letting good things happen. When that happens to a professional chef, it's a rare and beautiful thing.

Writing incessantly about food is like writing porn. How many adjectives can there be before you repeat yourself? How many times can you write variations on the tale of the lonely housewife, temporarily short of funds, and the horny but hunky delivery boy who's not averse to negotiating for that pizza? How many times can you describe a fucking salad without using the word "crisp"?