“It’s a fantastic book, but reading it again, fortified by local beverage, I thought, What would this book be like as a movie?” This was Anthony Bourdain in the French Alps with his good friend Eric Ripert, for a moment of joie de vivre.
“Worst episode ever!”
Relax, he’s joking. This was Tony Bourdain slogging through a snow field high up in the French Alps avec son bon ami Eric Ripert, in one of Parts Unknown’s more memorable episodes from the program’s milestone 10th season on CNN. Here’s Bourdain, out of breath, struggling against the effort of fighting wind, snow and Ripert’s incessant chatter, feeling the effects of eating too much cheese — merde, les Français aiment les fromage! — whining about, well, just about everything. Here’s some cheese to go with your whine. Stop global whining. How much whine would a wine drinker whine if a wine drinker couldn’t drink wine?
It’s a beautiful day. Sunny blue skies. Cold, but not bitterly so. A bracing cold, the kind of cold that makes one feel alive. Some of the most stunning mountain scenery on the planet. Bourdain: “I have a block of cheese in my colon the size of my grapefruit.”
Ripert, bowled over by the sheer beauty of the scenery — “It’s amazing…” and revelling in the moment. “Tony, come on, don’t be grumpy.”
Bourdain: “Seriously, no, I hate this. Are we there yet?”
“No. The chalet is maybe — like, I don’t know, maybe be half an hour away.”
Ripert conveniently leaves out the part about most of that half-hour being uphill.
C’est l’enfer.
Cue Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan. (Fun fact, or if not fun exactly, certainly telling: Homme and Lanegan’s title tune for Parts Unknown is virtually unplayed outside the show; a so-called “full version" doesn’t exist, not even in the Queens of the Stone Age recording repertoire. That lends it a certain cachet, in keeping with the Bourdain ethos — and Homme and Lanegan’s ethos for that matter — of not cashing in simply for the sake of cashing in. You’ll never hear this ditty over an advert for McDonald’s, or for a lame, tepid American beer for that matter.)
Here’s the thing.
Some say the French Alps episode, which first aired on Oct. 8, 2017, is hard to watch today, because of how Bourdain’s life ended and the way fate decided that Ripert, Bourdain’s good friend and arguably closest confidant during his world travels, would be the first to find out.
I prefer to think of this episode as a playful romp, a sequel to the Sichuan with Eric Ripert, which first aired a year earlier almost to the day, in October 2016, in which Bourdain tortured his friend with one hot spice after another, knowing well that Ripert’s constitution was not made to handle hot spices, spicy food being to Ripert what kryptonite is to Superman. It was all part of the playful banter between them, and French Alps was Ripert’s chance to get his own back, knowing Bourdain’s issues with curdled milk, curds, and whey.
Revenge is a dish best served with cheese.
I sat through French Alps the other night, and it was — for me, anyway — the perfect balm for the wretched world we find ourselves in today. Though some find the episode morbid, with its constant veiled — and in some case, not so veiled — references to death and our inevitable appointment with destiny, I found it cheerful and joyous, a reminder of Bourdain and Ripert at their best together, when everything seemed possible, even happy endings.
Besides, it’s gorgeous to look at. The French/Swiss Alps are simply stunning to take in, and their geographic location gave Bourdain the chance to weigh in, in his caustic — and funny! — way on world affairs and the nature of national personality traits. It’s often said that Europe is divided into two kinds of countries, beer countries and wine countries. France is a wine country and Switzerland (it’s a German thing!) is a beer country. Italy is a wine country, and there’s a telling moment in French Alps when Bourdain channels his inner George S. Patton and admits that he’s standing at the crossroads of one the world’s most beautiful places (that sudden, knowing smile from Ripert is genuine), with the wacky but lovely Italians on one side and the dour, stern Swiss on the other. (Gen. Patton, when asked by a reporter during the waning days of the Second World War what he would do if he found himself between the Germans and the Russians, famously replied that he’d attack in both direction at the same time. That was in the movie, anyway.)
“Bourdain braves the slopes, works up a sweat, and declares this ‘the worst episode ever,’” CNN’s bumf read at the time. “Then, in a fit of gastronomic frenzy on CNN’s dime, he ‘blows up the budget,’ ordering some of the finest foods the region has to offer. We’re talking killer cuts of meat, fine wines, and — obviously — cheeses of all genres and temperatures.”
The part about deliberately blowing up the budget was a thing with Bourdain in later seasons; there’s a funny, lively passage in Tom Vitale’s book, In the Weeds, about how Bourdain and his production cohorts chafed openly at cost-cutting and “austerity measures” in those later years, and how they determined to bring a bossy, dictatorial — newly installed — production supervisor down to size. (Things came to a head in the James Bond-themed Jamaica episode, in Ian Fleming’s original estate, when the crew went into full-on party mode; what you see on the screen, which is plenty, was nothing compared to what happened behind the scenes, as articulated in Vitale’s account. If you’ve not read In the Weeds, do so — it’s one hell of a ride … not unlike Bourdain’s life itself.)
The French Alps are gorgeous, no doubt about it. Not for Bourdain, though — at least, not all the time.
“Warm feet are important,” he offers at one point. “Nothing’s more demoralizing than cold, wet feet.”
Enough with the whine. Garçon, encore du fromage!
As with most things in life, there’s a silver lining.
“God bless the French,” Bourdain says, moments later. “They can’t go too long — not even down a mountain — without eating well.”
He’s not about to let Ripert off easily, though.
“Wow, look at that knife work,” he tells Ripert, poking the renowned restaurateur with a proverbial stick as Ripert dices up some food du jour. “You should be a chef.”
The French, post-revolution, embraced the mantra Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité and place language, culture, music, and the arts — not to good food and fine wines — on a high pedestal, and national pride is almost a calling, possibly — though not solely — because of being invaded and occupied, not once but twice, by those dour, oppressive Germans with their giant kegs of beer. Wine countries and beer countries. …
That sense of nationalism, as opposed to populism and fascism, is a very French trait.
Yes, Bourdain is visibly grumpy at times, especially on the mountain — worst episode ever, remember — but it’s not hard to picture Ripert smiling broadly, to himself if not for the cameras, when Bourdain finally admits, “These mountains are majestic. And beautiful. You can walk them, take pictures of them, you can ski down them.
“They can also kill you.”
Zing!
"Those of you who’ve been following the show over the years know there are few things I love more than torturing my good friend Eric Ripert — or at least putting him in awkward situations,” Bourdain wrote in his Field Notes at the time. “As a distinguished three-Michelin-starred chef and a chevalier in France’s Legion of Honour, he has a reputation to protect.
“I, thankfully, do not.”
A good note as any to end on. If not entirely true.
Supplementary reading:
https://explorepartsunknown.com/french-alps/bourdains-field-notes-the-french-alps/
https://eatlikebourdain.com/anthony-bourdain-in-the-french-alps/
Supplementary viewing:
CNN