El Fandi, flamenco, tapas, Holy Week, the fortress of Granada, the Sierra Nevada mountains and a Triumph TR3: this is Anthony Bourdain’s Spain.
“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honour,” Ernest Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon, in 1932.
Fast-forward to September 2013 and the second episode of Parts Unknown’s second season on CNN, and it will surprise no one to learn that Tony Bourdain had a somewhat different take on the blood sport.
The episode is called Spain, but the focus is on the old city and ancient ramparts of Granada, traditional capital of the province of Andalucía. The Alhambra, site of one of the ancient pillars of Islam, sits at at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of the Darro, Genil, Monarchil and Beiro rivers, and is just one hour’s drive from the Mediterranean coast. In 1492 — yes, that 1492 — a Christian army wrested the Alhambra and its centuries-old ramparts from the grip of Moorish occupiers who’d been there since 1238. Ferdinand II and Isabella I, the Catholic monarchs of Aragon, Castile and Leon at the time, were so chuffed by their lording it over the Muslim infidels that they thought, what the hell, and decided to finance the absurd expedition of a diminutive Italian explorer named Christophorus Columbus in his equally absurd ambition to prove that a shorter, quicker route to the riches of India — shorter and quicker than the Silk Road, anyway — lay to the West, across the ocean. No doubt Ferdinand and Isabella just wanted to get rid of him, but, who knows, perhaps the gentleman from Genoa was onto something.
This is all worth knowing before watching Bourdain’s take on Spain for Parts Unknown because, just before the end of the hour, before the part where Bourdain hot rods down the Mediterranean coast in a spiffy set of wheels — that, my friend, looks like a Triumph TR3 — Bourdain spends some quality time, cameras in tow, poring over the Alhambra with its intricate designs and shadow play of darkness and light. Well, yes, this Alhambra thing is kind of cool after all. To this day, the Alhambra remains one of the most distinctive examples of Islamic architecture in the known world, and a showcase of early Spanish Renaissance art besides.
This part of Spain so captivated Bourdain’s long-time cameraman and confidant Zach Zamboni that Zamboni went native — literally — and set down roots there, becoming engaged and then married to a local resident, Fuen Sánchez, who appears on and off throughout Spain’s early moments.
Zamboni is worth noting, too, because the episode is Bourdain’s homage and tribute to his longtime cameraman and confidant. It is Zamboni, after all, who comes within a couple of inches of being nailed by a frisky young bull in Spain’s opening minutes — this, after El Fandi, one of Spain’s more famous and respected bullfighters at the time (circa 2012), invites Bourdain to La Marquesas Ranch, a privately owned bullring where El Fandi likes to practice, to get a taste of Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon — for realz. Firsthand.
“No one likes to look like a pussy on TV,” Bourdain admits in voiceover, “so when El Fandi jokingly suggests I join him in the ring to wave a pink cape at an aggressive young bull, who just moments ago charged my cameraman, I said what any idiot would say: si.“
The chastening comes quickly. After El Fandi flicks his cape with style and élan — with afición, as Hemingway might say — the bull comes within a hair of nailing Bourdain in the unmentionables, not once but twice in quick succession, then sweeping back again: left-right-left-right.
And yes, while it’s a young bull — just a baby really — those horns still have a wicked curve on them.
Bourdain again: “It all starts well enough. Hey, this is fun. This is easy. Until I get a horn hooked right up next to my nut sack. Then it's not so fun. Thanks, guys. This youngster [the bull] shall live, perhaps to gore a future TV host with his mighty horns.”
Meanwhile, no doubt, Zamboni is having his own private moment of schadenfreude.
Bourdain means his longtime colleague well, though.
“Not too long ago, before Zach basically defected to Spain, he met Fuen,” Bourdain says.
“The next thing you know, he's living here. Part of an extended Andalucían family. Eat in the hand, drink in the wine, living the life of the Spanish dandy. In freaking Granada, no less.”
The next bull in El Fandi’s practice session is a 500 kg behemoth, with a temper to match, and as Parts Unknown is supposedly about culinary pleasures — in part, anyway — the “five hundred freaking kilos of aggressive charging four-legged Killdozer aiming at your meat and two legs,” as Bourdain describes this particular bull, ends up as stew.
What comes next is pure Bourdain:
“Nothing like a roaring fire in a spread of calico ham, homemade chorizo, Spanish cheeses, bread, and good olive oil to take the sting out of a near genital mutilation.”
Bourdain is philosophical about bullfighting itself. “There is no denying the terrible beauty of a very complex tradition,” he says, seeking neither to praise it nor condemn it.
Well, yes.
In 2024, though, bullfighting is a dying tradition. If the present public temperature is anything to go by, few will miss bullfighting’s passing, except those who elevated it to a high art and the stuff of Hemingway novels.
Family lies at the heart of Spanish culture, we learn, and for Zamboni, family ties fit together: Fuen’s brother Alejandro is the one who introduces Bourdain and the crew to El Fandi, and it’s Bourdain’s hanging with Alejandro, Fuen and El Fandi that opens doors to the Alhambra.
Spain aired on CNN the week after Jerusalem, and the shift in tone is palpable, and no doubt deliberate. The old Bourdain edge is there — it’s hard not to watch these episodes of Parts Unknown and not appreciate how Bourdain seemed incapable of creating a tedious hour of television — and Spain, with its Old World charm and Bourdain’s eccentricity, is a delight to watch.
The country ain’t too bad, either, Bourdain allows. “Spain is the sort of place that never really made any sense anyway. But in the very best possible way. This is the country that gave us the Spanish Inquisition. Also, anarchy. This is where devout Catholicism mixes with surrealism, modernist cuisine with traditional tapas. Christianity and Islam traded places, shared space. And the effects and influences of all those things are right here to see.”
Granada, says Bourdain, is “not like Barcelona. It's not like San Sebastian. It ain't Madrid. Any reasonable, sentient person who looks at Spain, comes to Spain, eats in Spain, drinks in Spain — they're going to fall in love. Otherwise, there's something deeply wrong with (them).”
For Zamboni, Spain — this part of Spain, anyway — has become home.
Zamboni on the Alhambra: “It's … a cinematographer's paradise. Everything is about light and man. Obviously, they weren't cinematographers, but everything is framing (to) them.”
Bourdain: “How long did it take them to build this?”
Zamboni: “Hundreds of years.”
Bourdain: “That's why it takes so long for you to get the shot?”
Zamboni: “Oh, snap!”
We opened with Hemingway, why not close with Shakespeare?
If you prick me, do I not bleed?
Zamboni: “Hope we don't suck on television.”
Bourdain: “Dude, I think I'm setting a pretty low bar. I'm going to tell you, this relaxed lifestyle, you know, lounging around eating and drinking. And no nap is long enough for me. Life is good. I envy you, Zach Zamboni. And we're out. Nice end.”
Next up: Copenhagen.
CNN