Customer Reviews

The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes

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Tom Parker-Bowles tried hard, but his book leaves one less than satisfied. He's a likeable guy, but not enthralling, a satisfactory writer, but not outstanding. The book often plods along with too many irrelevant references to his childhood, and the details of his time spent traveling are often pedantic overkill.

Ultimately, the book turns on its own premise. He promises you that he'll be "eating dangerously". He starts off with eels in his native England, an interesting insight to a world few will ever see. But what's dangerous about it? What's even so exotic? It's like writing about going to Louisiana to eat boudin. Not many of us do it, but it's nothing outlandish either. The idea of traveling the globe eating outrageously is hardly original, and is often hardly complimentary toward his destinations.

The exotic stuff comes in only as (1) bugs in Asia, and (2) dog in Korea. The only truly life-threatening food to eat is fugu, pufferfish, in Japan, a fish that can be fatally poisonous if not prepared correctly. But fugu is hardly a new and novel find; people have been writing about it for decades. Fugu is the only topic of the Japan chapter. Is there nothing else interesting in Japan? Other chapters deal with things such as chili sauce and American BBQ, hardly dangerous or exotic.

The worst chapter is about Korea, and it's another one-note song, about eating dog. Here he's done some research, telling us all about the horrific conditions in which the dogs are raised, and the even more horrific and cruel way they are slaughtered. He freely admits that he hates the whole idea, that it's wrong, wrong, wrong. And yet, he's going to eat it. He's not in denial; he recognizes the cognitive dissidence. But he's going to eat it. Appartantly he didn't do his research in-country, for he can't find any place to see dogs being raised and can only find one clandestine restaurant there in which to eat it. He has a bowl of dog soup, which he at first finds good, then finds disgusting, and then he flees. That's it. It's inconceivable that he flew all the way to Korea for this and could not find any more first-hand experiences to report to us.

Other chapter's foundations can be even weaker. He goes to Spain to try to join the people gathering barnacles, a practice that is horribly dangerous and requires years of skill. He announces his intention in a café, and the locals there think him imbecilic to do this just for thrill-seeking reasons. You will too. He goes to Sicily to try to have diner with a member of the Mafia. He doesn't know any Mafia people, mind you, he want to find some, with the idea that doing this stunt would be a neat thing. It's such a sophomoric scheme that you can't take him seriously at all afterwards.

Another irritant is his string of factual errors. He states that Osaka was destroyed by an atom bomb in WWII. He calls himself a gai-jin in Hong Kong (gai-jin does mean foreigner, but in Japanese, not Cantonese). And so forth. All these mistakes are small, and all could be understood and forgiven. It's just that they keep coming.

It's not all bad. His descriptions of Laos come from someone who truly appreciates the place, even if his preconceptions come off as naïve. He leaves few details out of any chapter, which is sometimes sophistic, but is often illuminating. This is a book from someone who's off to a decent start, and who should keep writing and who will probably improve, but who still has a way to go.

'The Year of Eating Dangerously' is a really good read with nine chapters based in specific locations:

Gloucestershire (hunting for elvers)
New Mexico (chillies)
China (all sorts of strange things!)
Nashville (barbecue championships)
Tokyo (puffer fish)
Korea (dog stew)
Laos (various bits and pieces)
Spain (extreme fishing with percebeiros trying to find the ultimate barnacle) and
Sicily (dinner with the mob)

Parker Bowles comes across as charming and self-aware (he knows that he's no Bourdain!) Occasionally he comes across like an overly-exuberant puppy on his quest for new tastes and flavours. But, this has to be balanced against all the times he gets horribly hung-over and is unable to taste anything. There are times when the locations seem to take over and he seems more like a frustrated travel writer rather than a gourmand!

This is a really enjoyable read, but I did prefer some chapters to others. The Nashville Barbecue and the quest for the ultimate chilli experience in New Mexico were highlights for me.

Recommended, but next time can we have a little less 'place' and a bit more 'plate'. Thanks!

The problem with this book, and with the idea behind it, is that the author seems to have no self control. He gets himself appointed a judge at a barbeque contest, then gorges himself so that he can't do justice to the second half of the event. He continually gets himself so drunk on the evening before an appointment that he can't appreciate what he's doing or eating the next day because of his raging hangover. If he's going to report on the experiences for his readers, he should be a little bit responsible about it. I guess he thinks we'll feel sorry for him, and forgive him his youthful indiscretions, but not when we're paying this much for his book.

The subject has been treated better by other authors. Try Bourdain's book, and skip this one.

At first, eating elvers seems a little exotic. Eating adult eels seems unpalatable here in the US, and eating their babies seems even more so, but what's dangerous about it? Well, fishing for them can get you killed by other fishermen.

By the time I had finished reading that first chapter, I was hooked. Writing about food is impossible. You can't convey the smell, the taste, the texture, and although Tom does his best, that's not really why this book is so compelling. It's really an adventure book, about not drowning while trying to harvest pink penis barnacles in the wild waters off celtic Spain, about dining with the Mafia in Sicily without doing something that will get you killed, about a disappointing fugu, followed by an exquisite fugu, about trying - and failing - to choke down dog stew that reeks of wet dog, of dining on a version of pho that is even tastier than the Vietnamese version.

This is the kind of book you'll want to have five extra copies of to give away, so you can talk about it with your friends.

Just finished reading "The Year of Eating Dangerously".

To say that this is a major declaration on food and humanity is an understatement!
It should be a college course on how to live fully and very well.

While reading the book I wasn't really aware of Bowles famous pedigree.
Even with it he writes with the common man's touch in his thinking.

Bowles is much more than his mother's son - he can flat out write.
Reminds me of very much of Bill Bryson with hints of Pete Hamill and Calvin Trillin.

For a year he gives up his body in sometimes-hilarious circumstances for our education and entertainment by overstuffing it and imbibing more calories, liquor and heat than one really should. But what the hell, he's young and will recover from his gluttony, hangovers and ghosts. Besides some of us are very curious about non-bland foods.

Not simply a food and travel writer he has surprising insights into who we are and what we put in our mouths with an astounding feel for history, people and the unusual. His quest is about a love for good food and a fascination with other cultures.

In my travels I have been on the lookout for unusual foods and have not be swayed too much from the dangerous. The only thing that Bowles missed on my special foods list was horse, considered a mid-European delicacy.

While reading this marvelous work I was reminded of several wonderful things:

The best place to see inside a local culture is the neighborhood food markets.

Eastern foods must be the most delicate blending of exotic flavors in history.

The Chinese will eat anything if the correct sauce is found.

Laotians live for today only and their foods reflect it.

The fiercest, most courageous and best fishermen are still in Spain and Japan.

Sicily has had more conquerors bringing food additions than any other small island.

Eating dog makes me horny and macho afterwards. It smells and tastes like wet dog.

Just because something smells horrific doesn't mean that it doesn't taste sensational.

Just because something smells sensational doesn't mean that it doesn't taste horrific.

Please do not compare this to `A Cook's Tour'. Anthony Bourdain was looking for the perfect meal and the book is a splendid read. Bowles was looking for foods that can literally kill a person. "The Year of Eating Dangerously" is a standout achievement on its own.

This is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to understand people through what they eat. It will be placed in the food sections of bookstores but it should also be placed in the anthropological section as well.

Read this book - you will relish the experience as much as I did!

I got this book from the library, but unfortunately I only made it into the first few pages of "Nashville" before I had to throw in the towel and quit reading it (I *never* do that). I found it totally perplexing that as the book went on, the author grew to hate/fear eating strange foods more and more. If you're going to write a book about dangerous foods, and you travel all over the world SPECIFICALLY to eat them, then you should probably be okay with stepping out of your comfort zone! It got so irritating to listen to him complain about how dull Santa Fe was, how overly busy Shanghai was, how he really didn't care to do the sightseeing in each country, etc. Each city "left him cold," as he frequently repeated. I would LOVE to go visit those places, and don't want to read about someone wasting their time there - and anyway, when I read a food book, I would like to read about food, which seemed an afterthought in most sections. The final straw for me was when he started pining away for a Big Mac (several times). This man professes a love for food and cooking and different cultures, but this book reads with an overwhelming voice of someone who would happily live on Sheppard's Pie for every dinner, forever.

One more thing further - I found it distasteful that in his quest to embrace unusual eating habits, he seemed to put aside all ethical considerations. As shocking as it is for us to imagine eating dog, it is still something more to support shark fin soup. He failed to address the environmental/moral implications of food cultures where it would've been natural and interesting (ie. with the elvers), and only talked about animal suffering when it made him squeamish (the snake bile) - an immature approach. Just because you are doing a research project doesn't mean you get to completely cast aside all ethical standards. Sometimes it's not just "cultural misundertanding" - some practices are just not acceptable, period.

I think this was a good idea for a book but was unfortunately wasted on an author that seemed completely ill-prepared to pull it off.

I love food memoirs. This one was ok, up until the chapter about the moral and ethical dilemma of eating dog. Wasn't comfortable with it, didn't enjoy reading about it, didn't enjoy the author's dithering about whether he was comfortable with it. Didn't enjoy the descriptions of the conditions and methods used to get "dog" as a food item to the appropriate state of yang for consumption.
Also didn't enjoy reading about the many endangered species illegally for sale at the local markets in many Asian countries. The rationale of, they're poor and have to eat whatever they can to survive, doesn't help me feel ok about it. There are many arguments to be made for and against the previous statements, but it boiled down to: i was a disturbed by it, the book would have been better, for me, without it, and i wish i could go back and not read it. When I want food voyeur escapism, I don't read Food, Inc. (great book, but you know you're getting into heavy subject matter when you open it. This book is supposed to be lighthearted beach fare.)
that being said, most of the chapters are well written and entertaining. Read and enjoy the book, just skip all chapters that take place in 3rd world countries and the animal lovers out there should be ok.

Author, Parker Bowles offers an entertaining global tour of extreme cuisine. Personally, I liken him to a British version of Anthony Bourdaine, without the chain-smoking and drug rehab history. His irreverent sardonic wit and wry observations sprinkle this tasty recipe as Parker Bowles travels the globe in search of weird and bizarre foods. Some of these are fairly middle-of-the-road, such as his search for the perfect barbecue in middle America.

Parker Bowles has some devastating observations about Santa Fe, New Mexico and Korea. One of the interesting chapters is his visit to Korea, where he is in search of eating the perfect plate of dog. He found the experience to pressing and distasteful and you may as well.

Occasionally Parker Bowles hammers back a few more drinks than he should, and he treats us to his account of rip roaring morning-after hangovers, during which time he is still expected to play tourist and visit various local market stalls, all the while attempting to suppress his gag reflex. He makes it sound hilarious, though I'm sure he was in extreme pain at the time.

Parker Bowles was depressed by Korea but he fell in love and became enraptured by Laos. Essentially, he is a one man movement decrying the McDonald-ization and homogenization of food. Whether you are an epicure or gourmand or a fast-food foodie, you may enjoy this global gastronomic tour.

I have gotten to page 120 before in disgust I felt the urge to write the publisher about the non-factual errors in the book. First, Parker Bowles blows up Osaka with an A-bomb when he is talking about Los Alamos in New Mexico. Then he calls himself a foreign in Japanese while in China and finally he has Bush Senior puking in a president's lap in Beijing where he actually disgraced himself in Tokyo, Japan with the Japanese Prime Minister. The question here is did he really go to China? How can we trust he even visited the places with these obvious errors cropping up. What has he written that is just pure fiction of the places I don't know much about?

He prattles on and winges about like a public school brat--wait that IS what he is. His editor responded quickly saying that errors crept in because she was out on materity leave and any further editions would be parsed of these errors. Are we to assume that the accuracy of all other books from Ebury publishing is subject to the vagaries of one person's health. To get back to the further editions bit, the UK edition was published in 2006 and the Random House US edition in 2007. So isn't the edition that I am reading a further edition?

Actually, Mr Parker-Bowles' book goes far deeper than my trite title. He really provides a cultural backdrop during each trip and the reasons behind his culinary explorations for that country. I found his perceptions and experiences funny, educational, and drool-worthy.