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

by Anthony Bourdain

even if it causes the occasional tumor in lab rats, I'll probably serve it. It's how it tastes that counts.

A good chef imports an ingredient from the other side of the globe because it makes sense—not for its novelty value or its rarity.

Food and sin are two words that—in the English-speaking world, anyway—have long been linked. Food is a matter of the senses, a pleasure of the flesh, and when one anticipates eating a good meal, one's body undergoes physiological changes similar to those experienced prior to . . . other functions. The lips engorge, saliva becomes thick, the pulse quickens.

Good food does lead to sex. As it should. And in a perfect world, good music does too.

With dance music, like with food, you go from simplicity to complexity: strong rhythm, one melody, then another.

Few people on earth are as enthusiastic about food and eating as the Chinese. Show up with an open mind and an empty stomach, willing to try anything that comes your way, and enthusiasm is indeed enough. You will find yourself welcomed—and well fed—again and again, a passenger on a deliriously colorful joyride.

Like any great culinary tradition, the driving engine is the need to transform the humble, the tough, the unlovely into the delicate and sublime, or to figure out what was good about an ingredient all along.

China is big. And one lifetime is not enough to fully or authoritatively explore her.

Ironically, considering they are surrounded by water, ships—even luxury ships—are seldom good places to enjoy fresh seafood.

And what the fuck is a "television personality"? Jesus! I hope I'm not that. I'd rather write "habitual masturba-tor" on my visa applications than admit to that.

If the chef is famous enough for you to know his or her name, chances are, he or she is currently Not In.

However annoying or offensive or tone-deaf or silly the PETA folks look at times, I've always been glad they're there, to remind all of us the cost in life and in pain of the luxuries we enjoy.

lemon tempura with licorice,

rhubarb with black pepper,