And Bourdain would have to wrestle the “massive, foaming, barely contained heap”, which was pushing up the weighted-down lid of a 35-gallon plastic drum, and spilling onto the table where it was stored.Bourdain in full flight made the TV show Hell’s Kitchen look like a Montessori classroom and Gordon Ramsay a nebbish. “Feed the bitch!” he would shriek, sobbing.

When he couldn’t get up off the floor and into work he would phone and beg Bourdain to feed his dough starter with fresh yeast or it would die. One of his underlings was “Adam-Real-Last-Name-Unknown”, whom Bourdain called the psychotic bread baker, given to 36-hour coke-and-booze benders. Here’s a sample: “You might get the impression from the specifics of my less-than-stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. The critic AA Gill called it “Elizabeth David written by Quentin Tarantino”. Bourdain had spent two decades as a chef, mostly in New York City, and wrote this exposé of what really goes on behind the swing doors of restaurants. They come from Anthony Bourdain’s first book Kitchen Confidential, now 20 years old and as wildly entertaining as it was when it first appeared. Whenever I hear righteous sourdough makers fretting about their starter - its stiffness or sniffiness or bubbliness or whatever it is that is most desirable - I hear these words in a deranged and drunken voice: “Feed the bitch or she’ll die!”

Anthony bourdain world travel review