Around the World in 80 Dinners

I'm a huge fan of travel and food narratives. Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations is one of my favorites, so I was looking forward to something similar with Cheryl and Bill Jamison's Around the World in 80 Dinners: The Ultimate Culinary Adventure. For their anniversary, the Jamison's decided to take a three month trip around the world, stopping in Bali, Australia, New Caledonia, Singapore, Thailand, India, China, South Africa, France and Brazil. The cool part is that they were able to get almost all of their airline tickets using their frequent flier miles. I have got to get signed up for something like that! In each place they visited, they were determined to eat authentically local food. Some of the food they tried came from food stalls and street vendors, some from mom and pop restaurants, and some came from very expensive restaurants, serving elaborate versions of native dishes (and in my opinion, some of it seemed quite pretentious). In some places in Thailand, they had difficulty finding authentically Thai food. It seems that the Thai people thought the Americans would find the food too spicy, and so downplayed the flavors and spices, even though the Jamisons specifically asked them not to. But for the most part, the Jamisons seemed to have great food experiences. Aside from the eating, the Jamisons visited several wineries and sight-seeing spots and even attended a few local cooking classes. All in all, the book is a satisfying read for those who enjoy travel and food narratives. It's not as humorous as Bourdain's writing, but the Jamisons include lots of descriptions of the various foods and flavors, which is obviously important in this kind of narrative. A few annoyances: the narrative is written in third person, which I didn't care for. I think a travel narrative needs a first person perspective to really build an intimacy with the reader, so it was a little off-putting. Also, at the end of each chapter, the Jamisons included contact information of the restaurants they visited as well as a recipe from that particular region. Out of all the recipes, none sounded interesting enough that I would try them at home, which was disappointing. I do recall them mentioning that they ate banana fritters while in Singapore-where was that recipe?? Nonetheless, an interesting read.