Medium Raw

A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

By: Anthony Bourdain

Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain

Bloomsbury presents Medium Raw written and read by Anthony Bourdain.

'As ferociously rude as anything Bourdain has done before' Guardian
'Terrific ... His love for his subjects - both the food and the cook - sings' Telegraph
'Bourdain has insight, access and good taste, and he's a naturally engaging writer' New York Times

A lot has changed since Kitchen Confidential - for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business - and for Anthony Bourdain.

Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-travelling professional eater and drinker, Bourdain compares and contrasts what he's seen and what he's seeing, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food.

And always he returns to the question: 'Why cook?' Or the harder one to answer: 'Why cook well?' Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs he compares to a Mafia summit, Bourdain, in his distinctive, no-holds-barred style, cuts to the bone on every subject he tackles.

©2010 Anthony Bourdain (P)2010 HarperCollins

A masterpiece

The way he tells stories is so seamless and amazing. He’s was a natural with words. Rip.

Listening to this again in 2021

And I will listen to this again soon, the next time I come across any Anthony Bourdain reference unexpectedly. This, along with Kitchen Confidential, is how I will remember him.

The eternally entertaining Bourdain

I love Bourdain’s kitchen confidential and all his TV shows. Medium Raw has many moments of absolutely fantastic writing, way better than Kitchen Confidential. But a few chapters were so industry specific, praising or denigrating various other chefs, critics, etc that I lost interest in those bits. Overall however, the good bits made it worth it. And his fantastic performance, as ever, keeps the whole thing flowing anyway.