Bite me!

You've said that the U.S. should open the borders to let more workers from countries to the south of us get work and populate the kitchens.

[Laughs.]

Am I getting that right?

Ooh, I got a lot of mail over that. Listen, in 25 years, I don't remember ever seeing an American-born kid of any income level walk into my restaurant, or any restaurant owned by any of my friends, and ask, Do you have a dishwasher job, or a prep job, or a job for a kitchen porter? We're not willing to do it. If somebody else wants to come over here and do it, that's fine with me.

And yeah, I think we should open our borders, for a variety of reasons. First of all, we've got plenty of work for people, apparently. People say "they're taking our jobs" -- well, no one's asking for those jobs.

I also like the idea of people from other places coming to our country and multiplying. It makes for better food, higher expectations, more diversity and cuter people. Foreigners should come to our country and have sex with our womenfolk.

Hey, why can't they come have sex with our menfolk?

That, too!

Fair enough. But you've observed that professional kitchen culture is often unfriendly to women. Do you think it will always be that way?

Probably. Understand, people who work in restaurants, it's a mix. It's not just a bunch of stupid guys standing around talking shit like they're in a locker room, though there is that. It's people who are coming from the rural, piss-poor areas of Europe, Latin America, Central Asia, the Middle East -- people with different ideas about things than you or I might have. It was traditionally not only a male profession but one that was actively hostile to women.

The first women chefs in New York, they were absolute warriors. I can't imagine what women like Anne Rosenzweig had to go through. Women of that era had to work twice as hard. Now, when a woman graduates culinary school and goes into a restaurant, chances are, the pastry chef is no longer the only woman.

But [even as more women join kitchens], I'd like to think that the level of discourse will stay the same, and just as offensive, and just as crude. I think it's great that kitchens are maybe the last meritocracy, the last workplace where men and women can speak to each other honestly, however offensively that might be, where your value is only in how well you do your job and how well you can talk shit back at somebody. I see that as an admirable quality. I don't like the idea of tiptoeing around each other. I think that if you say something stupid and offensive, somebody should get right up in your face and say, "That was incredibly stupid and offensive, and fuck you too!" Once you enforce it, bring in the human resources department, everybody goes home to their own neighborhoods, and we never really talk.

You write that viewers can tell how poorly one of your shows is going by how many penis jokes you make. Are there clues that signal to viewers that you're politely choking down food you're not enjoying?

If I have to be polite on camera to someone poor who's offering me food, I will temper my remarks in voice-over. If it's the worst meal ever, I will find a way to say it.

You'll see me eating the wart hog in the Namibia show, and the chief is offering it to me, and when he has turned away, I'm looking at my shooters, like, "Do you have the shot, are we done, can you get me out of here, please?"

What was your worst meal ever?

Certainly the vegan meal I had in Berkeley was soul-destroying, and just frightening. I've had some pretty bad food with some really great people, in some really amazing places. I'll remember those as great meals. The duck in the Mekong Delta with former Viet Cong was a great, pinch-me meal that I'll always, always remember, and the duck wasn't really that good. Didn't matter.

Same thing: If you're eating not very good food with just abominable people in a terrible situation, that's the worst meal ever. A little piece of your heart gets chipped away by people who frighten or dismay you.

Your bio always says, "He lives, and always will live, in New York City." Is that still true?

[Long pause.] I don't know anymore. I don't know if I can even stay still anymore; I start to fidget and freak after a couple of weeks in one place.

I was always reasonably comfortable in New York because I was always busy, always driven. I didn't have the luxury of time to contemplate the big issues. Now I have plenty of time to think about things, and it's not as comfortable.

Asia really ruined me. I went up to Indonesia for the first time a few weeks ago, and what absolutely devastated me was the call to prayer, the sound of bamboo wind chimes, people chanting in the fields, that kind of [singing] "bing bong bong bong." What do you do after you've heard that?

I don't know if there's a place I can stay and be content and calm and happy. But I think, like love, it's probably something that hits you upside the head. Like the perfect meal, it's not something you go after or advertising for. It just sandbags you when you're least prepared.

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