(gentle music)
Welcome to my world.
(energetic music)
Two escargots ponte frisee.
Two green salads.
Okay, (mumbles) here.
Lamb chops, steak frites.
Shouldn't you be
doing something?
Two smoked fillet,
and a pepper steak.
Come on, make the dessert.
Chocolate tart, please.
As a cook, tastes and
smells are my memories.
Now I'm in search of new ones
so I'm leaving New York City,
and hope to have a few
epiphanies around the world,
and I'm willing to go to
some lengths to do that.
I am looking for extremes
of emotion in experience.
I'll try anything,
I'll risk everything.
I have nothing to lose.
(ambient music)
Tiny, tiny little menu.
Now a sensible chef
doing a world tour
would probably go
straight to Paris.
Hugely popular
center of great food.
But my center of food
has always been Arcachon.
I'm catching a train to
France's southwest coast,
just outside of Bordeaux.
My father's side of
the family were French,
and generations of
Bourdains are from Arcachon.
I haven't been
there in 20 years.
I'm going back to the
ancestral homeland.
Hopefully there'll
be some reminisces,
and maybe we'll discover
some things along the way.
I'm really looking
forward to it.
Of all of the places
that I'm goin',
of all the places I've been,
I'm really excited
about this one.
Arcachon.
My father loved this town.
It's where he spent
much of his youth.
He imparted the spirit of this
place to my brother and me,
and it's where we spent many
happy summers as a family.
(children playing)
It's where I crept
up on adolescence.
(children laughing)
Where I had my first and most
important food experience.
I have powerful
memories of the taste
of murky brown fish
soup at the local joint.
The taste of Saucisson a I'Ail,
the smell of Gitanes cigarettes.
Those summers played an important
part of who I am today.
(ambient music)
So I want to go back and
try all of those things.
I want to relive those moments.
My father's long
since passed away,
so it's my way of reconnecting
with whatever sense
of family and tradition I have.
Arcachon's located on the
southern tip of Arcachon Bay,
which spills out into
the Atlantic Ocean.
It's sort of the
Jersey Shore of France,
where working families vacation.
The main trade year-round
is oyster harvesting.
Cool.
I know longer have
any relatives here,
but I'm hooking up with
my younger brother Chris.
He was my partner in crime
during those memorable summers.
We're gonna take this trip
down memory lane together,
but I've got some time to
kill before he gets here.
Snack time.
Above and beyond being
the ancestral homeland,
I cook all of this stuff.
This is the food that I first
learned to love and to eat.
You know, French cuisine,
I mean that's in the bone.
I'm a chef of a French
brasserie in New York,
so for my first meal in town,
I'm looking for the
authentic, and the familiar.
Some classic brasserie
chow, steak frites.
Okay, we're here.
I can hear my steak going
on the grill in the kitchen.
(steak sizzling)
This is sort of like a French
version of Joe's Diner.
This is a sort of place
I am very familiar with.
Basically, it's beer, bread,
steak, and french fries.
Merci.
[Server] Bon appetit.
Oh, yes.
This is a bavette, a typical
cut of beef for steak frites
grilled with shallots.
This is my first
culinary experience
back in France in 20 years,
and it's exactly right.
Just what I wanted to tuck into.
I'm very grateful they didn't
ask if I wanted ketchup.
So this is a good halfway house
for someone taking a
sentimental journey
back into the France
of their youth.
I'm not plunging immediately
back into my past,
I'm easing back.
It's a great, comfortable
first meal in town.
Merci monsieur, au revoir.
Au revoir.
Yeah, feelin' good.
I'm home, baby.
I really want waffles.
I should probably do that
with my brother, though.
That was a big thing
when we were kids.
My brother's like me.
He lives in New York,
and has a family there.
I'm supposed to meet him
at the train station,
but I run into
him on the street.
You walkin' around,
what are you doin'?
Yeah. What's up?
When you blow into town?
We just got in.
Oh yeah?
Have you eaten yet?
I had like a little snack.
Maybe a waffle?
I saw there's a
gaufre over there.
Yeah, let's do it.
I think I saw it over there.
Let me ask you this.
Do you get an electric buzz
when you get off the train
and you start seeing
the familiar words
like St. Louis Chambon,
and beignet, croissant.
I think I saw Louis
Chambon over by the station.
My brother and I
haven't been together
in Arcachon in 25 years.
Of course the first thing
we go for is something
we were discouraged
to eat as kids.
Sweets.
What do we got here?
What kind of gaufre?
When we were kids,
only if we've been good
could we get a treat.
If we could score a gaufre,
a waffle, we were golden.
So a gaufre was a sweet,
hot, crusty, wonderful treat.
♪ Memories, da-da-da-da
You know, it's magic.
But you know, that's because
I have happy memories
of long ago, far away,
exotic places in mind
when I bite into
one, but we'll see.
Do they taste different?
When they're warm, and
the confectioners' sugar,
and all that stuff.
Yeah, cool.
This is great.
(laughing)
I think if my mother
could see us now,
tucking into waffles with wild
abandon, she'd be horrified.
Alright.
[Chris] This is great.
We're heading to La Teste, a
short five-minute train ride.
We're gonna check out
our childhood house
and the local food joints.
Look at us, my brother and me.
I'm 44, he's 42.
We've gone far away to France.
Everything's changed,
but I hope to find
that some things
remain the same.
La Teste.
I'll tell you, if
there's a Hard Rock Cafe,
I'm gonna be really pissed off.
[Chris] Oh, God.
I'm nervous.
Whoever thought we'd do
something this goofy?
[Chris] Goofy and fun.
(train speeding)
Our first stop is the house
that our father's aunt owned.
It no longer belongs
to the family,
but there's a picture I look
at often of my brother and I
in our silly little
French short shorts,
and we're wearing berets,
standing in front of
the gate of this house.
I want to see that space.
Can you remember the direction?
It was this way.
Yeah.
(engine roaring)
I remember La Teste as a
quaint little oyster village,
and as soon as we make
our way to our old home
it seems the time has
left this town untouched.
[Chris] The town
has not changed...
Nope.
[Chris] That's (mumbles)
It looks exactly
the same, so far.
No, it's great.
Those two there are like
classic penas oyster boats.
(photo snapping)
I'd say that's exactly like
what we used to go out on.
Yeah.
We go this way.
Yeah, the fire station.
Hey remember we had a
well just like that one?
Yeah, exactly.
(French music)
So we're right on our block?
It's across the
street, and down.
I think it's down,
just across here.
Oh, we're very, very close.
This is so weird.
Gettin' chills, man.
Okay, so it's number five.
[Chris] Number five, exactly.
There was a gate right here.
But it was just a low, wooden...
This was where the...
That's right.
The famous picture was taken.
Yeah, and then they put
in this whole thing here.
That's not changed at all.
Gardens in the
back, really quick.
The little dining area in the
back where we used to eat.
That was your room for awhile,
and I was across the
hall in the back room.
(speech drowned
out by dog barking)
Were in the back.
And their one 25-watt light bulb
they used to light
the entire place.
The current owner,
Monsieur Lestignon
kindly lets us in
to look around.
I just want to see the garden
where I used to drink
Kronenbourg, and eat oysters.
Fantastic.
It's fantastic!
It looks exactly the same.
Right here, buying my
first bag of oysters,
I learned how to crack
oysters right here.
Buy like a six-pack of Kronenbourg
and stash them in there.
Many happy lunches right there.
That's where my (speaking
in foreign language)
made wonderful, fresh tomato
salad with vinaigrette,
shallots, and parsley.
You know, it was the
first vegetables I liked.
I was six.
Oh, it's incredible.
(photo snapping)
Chris, the pump used to be here.
The hand crank pump.
Yeah, that's right.
I wonder if there's still
little plastic Army men
buried in here somewhere.
(laughs) Probably.
Ah, memories.
Oh man, this is too much.
Well, should we check out
the neighborhood joints?
[Chris] Sure...
Before we leave, we
have to do one more thing.
(photo snapping)
So actually, if we
walk this way and up,
we'll hit where
the Boulange Ange,
where the boulangerie was...
Just like a couple blocks past.
Part of that main drag.
Past the school, yeah.
[Anthony] This
very bakery is where
we'd get breakfast
every morning.
[Chris] Bonjour, madame.
I haven't smelled
this in 20 years.
[Chris] Un baguette.
Deux Parisan...
We order baguette,
and raisin bread.
Au revoir.
Au revoir. Merci.
Alright.
Okay, here we go.
Recipe unchanged in 20 years.
Absolutely.
There's a slight like
aftertaste that says right here.
Mm-hmm.
You know?
Absolutely.
I remember I died for
these things every day.
Magic.
It's the best.
This raisin bread is
definitely bringing me back.
But I've got a
special place in mind
that's right around the corner.
Basically, if we're too
lazy to make dinner,
and we couldn't agree on
where we're gonna eat,
and what we're gonna
do, and all the rest,
we'd go around
the corner and eat
at basically the
neighborhood joint.
It's called Le Bistro now.
Exactly the sort of place the
people in this neighborhood
have been eating
forever and ever.
It was very convenient,
it was very cheap.
But what really drew us
back time and time again,
was their fish soup.
Soup du pecheur.
We're there.
(slow music)
The restaurant has
definitely been dressed up.
It was rattier.
It was rattier.
I seem to remember like,
some gaping cracks and holes,
and maybe a peeling
poster perhaps.
It was basic (people
speaking over each other).
I hope the fish soup
hasn't lost its authenticity.
It was the best
kind of soul food.
[Chris] Merci.
Here, they call it
fisherman's soup now.
The soup du pecheur.
I guess I was impressed by
its relative complexity,
and strangeness...
It was kind of exotic, yeah.
It was murky, and it was
brown, and it was scary looking.
I really loved that stuff.
As soon as I started
cooking professionally,
it was one of the first
things I put in my repertoire.
It's basically fresh
fish of the day,
shredded and reduced to
an oily, gritty broth,
with a licorice-y hit of
pernod and anise seed,
garnished with parsley.
Of course, I never got it
to taste like it did here.
It looks great.
Merci.
The soup even
comes with the same
assortment of condiments.
This is exactly right.
Croutons, Gruyere cheese,
and a garlic and
pepper mayonnaise.
These traditional
garnishes give the soup
its rich, hearty flavor.
That's wonderful.
Mm.
That's just great.
So even though this
place is more upscale,
the soup is just
as I remember it.
Okay, this place has not changed
in all the important ways.
Life is beautiful.
This is the best.
Good to be here with you.
Of course.
Chris, I could not
be happier right now.
I could not be happier
than at this moment.
(engine running)
Bonjour.
I'll never forget
my first oyster.
It was the summer of 1965.
It came from a day
trip on a penas,
the little oyster boat of my
neighber, Monsieur Sanjour.
He took the whole family out.
We went out early, early
in the morning, still dark.
We waited for the tides
of the bassin to go out.
This was when Monsieur Sanjour
offered me that first oyster,
and I slurped it down to the
shock and horror of my family.
It was a defining moment for me.
So my brother and I are back.
We joined two oyster
fishermen, Dominique and Jerome
to check out their
typical workday,
and maybe hit 'em
up for an oyster.
But as with so many things
in this trip back to France,
so much is the same,
and much is different.
The oyster parks are
larger, more spread out.
In fact, their property extends
as far as the eye can see.
I have no idea how they
can tell where the limit is,
but they say they know.
Today, these guys are checking
on their two year
old baby oysters.
All of these little platforms
here are baby oysters.
It's sort of like
a permeable sack.
This allows the water
to pass through.
It protects them from predators.
The ones that we're
bringing with us today
are gonna go into shore,
and get sorted over.
They'll be sorted
for size and quality.
Tomorrow they'll be placed
back in deeper water
for the nutrients they need.
It'll be another year
until these oysters
will be hitting
restaurants everywhere.
I don't know how he's doin'
in that thick rolled up shirt.
I'm freezin' my butt
off in this thing.
I'm wrapped up like
the Michelin Tire man.
Did I mention it's
the dead of winter?
This, as you can see,
is a tough business.
Pull in a couple of tons
to make the trip worthwhile.
I mean I remember the
first time we came out here.
It was a fairly
leisurely activity.
Of course we had the advantage
of doing it in the
summer, as well.
Yes.
I also remember the
water was shallower.
We were walking
around on dry land.
We'd sit here for a few hours.
The boat would go down,
rest on the bottom.
Yeah.
We almost had a picnic up,
and walkin' around
raking oysters.
A lot has changed since
my first oyster out here,
and it looks like I
won't get to eat one
fresh out of the water.
But in truth, that was a once
in a lifetime experience.
This was my most triumphant
moment of my childhood.
There was wonderful
moment of silence.
Everybody seemed to
shrink back a little.
I just see this glistening,
sexual-looking object.
I thought, okay I can do this.
Just one bite, one slurp.
Boom, I did it.
And I felt like
king of the world.
I guess it was that moment
that I first started
to think about food as
something with power.
It sure caused a
reaction with you.
You looked like you
were gonna turn green
and pitch over the edge.
Yeah, well yeah.
I like 'em now.
You're eatin' them now.
It was gross.
I thought it was gross.
I've been lookin'
to shock, and horrify,
and impress ever since.
Here's a lascivious fact that
woulda made us giddy, as kids.
Oysters change sex every year.
So Chris, how do they
make oyster babies?
The females spew out millions
of eggs into the water,
and the males just
spew out sperm,
and it all just mixes
around like some big soup.
Sort of like a pool at Club Med.
Absolutely a cess
pool of sexual activity
going on out here.
If you were to tell an
oyster to go (beep) itself,
that would not be an insult.
(laughing)
Some might argue that the
oyster is the perfect food.
It provides its own sauce,
requires no cooking,
requires no shaping
or sculpting,
and it's hard to imagine
improving upon nature.
This is where they come from.
Dominique and Jerome
have offered a tasting
of their oysters
back at their shack.
And after 28 years I wonder
if they're gonna taste the same.
Oysters for breakfast, babe.
Okay, moment of truth.
Fantastic.
Merci.
Alrighty.
Go ahead. Do it.
Mm.
Oh, amazing.
The liquor, and the salt water.
The oyster liquor
is the best part.
It's essential.
Arcachon oysters do
taste just like they did.
Brine, flesh,
seawater, sense memory.
Eating fresh oysters
right out of the water
at an oyster shack.
Yeah, what's better than this?
Cheers.
This is really great.
I realize eating these
oysters is as close as I'll get
to stepping into a time machine.
But Chris and I
have one last stop
before our adventure ends.
First, we need to shop
for some cured meats.
This looks lovely.
We're ordering cuts of
ham, the house pate,
and an assortment of sausages.
What I'm really going
for is Saucisson a I'Ail,
or pork sausage with garlic.
[Chris] Saucisson?
It was my father's favorite.
We're stocked up
on the essentials,
so we're off to Cap-Ferret
on the northern coast
of Bassin Arcachon.
This thing's got juice, man.
Okay, let's ride.
(engines revving) (rock music)
So what were we thinking?
Riding scooters all
the way around the bay
in the dead of winter,
just to reach a desolate,
cold, windy beach?
It's an insane venture.
But hey, cruisin'
around like this,
I'm starting to feel 16 again.
Hey, let's go terrorize
the town folk.
(rock music)
Frostbitten to the bone, we
finally make it to Cap-Ferret.
Let's hit the beach!
Let's go.
Of course I remember
that this is the best
Atlantic beach
I've ever been on.
Oh yeah, me too.
[Anthony] We'd come out
here, the whole family.
We'd sit on the beach, swim,
hang out, lunch sandwiches.
I remember my father's
look of perfect happiness
on the beach at Cap-Ferret.
His digging into his sausage,
maybe some cheap red wine,
and a nice fresh baguette.
He knew exactly how
to enjoy himself.
[Chris] Want to
head up that way?
[Anthony] Yeah.
When Chris and I got
tired of the beach,
we'd head towards one of
the many Nazi blockhouses
where we used to play as kids.
These blockhouses were
part of what was called
the Atlantic Wall
that the Germans built
as a defensive measure
during their occupation
of France in World War II.
Hey, maybe we'll hit a landmine.
[Chris] Oh yeah.
[Anthony] Or some
unexploded shells.
I remember there
was one with the door
on the side like that.
(slow guitar music)
Yes.
This was a wild and great beach,
but this hasn't changed at all.
Just great.
This was a great place
to settle in for a picnic.
We'd lay out our usual
assortment of local red wine,
bottle of Vittel, an
assortment of stinky cheese,
and picnic meats.
The first thing my
brother and I go for
is Saucisson a I'Ail,
or garlic sausage.
I remember this well.
It's the sausage more
than anything else, right?
That's the taste
of summers past.
(ambient music)
When you're a little kid,
and you grow up playing
Army like we did
with little plastic Army men,
you imagine battlefields
in miniature.
So when we came here
for the first time,
this is what battlefields
in the movies looked like,
making those funny accents...
It's not Normandy
here, but you could still
kind of a fun time
imagining D-Day right here.
But why leave it
to the imagination?
We brought along our
stash of ordinance.
We're older and more mature now.
More mature now. (Laughs)
(energetic music)
Oh, very nice!
My eye!
Fire in the hole!
(firecrackers firing)
Damn!
We didn't get those
when we were kids.
[Chris] No.
(laughing)
Get in that hole, corporal.
Come on.
Fire in the hole.
(firecrackers firing)
[Chris] (laughs)
That was a good one.
(energetic music)
Then we're gonna light it,
we're gonna run
right over there,
we're gonna take
cover behind the log.
Run away!
(bottle exploding)
[Chris] Good one.
Outstanding, corporal.
Most excellent.
Got the bastards.
(grunting) Alright.
(peaceful music)
I'm glad we made it, man.
Wouldn't have missed it.
I'm really glad we
got a chance to do this.
Me too.
I know that my brother
and I are old now,
that things can't be the
same, but it's been 30 years.
Things change, things move on.
One can't recapture the past.
So one can go through the
motions, and one can feel it,
but no matter how wonderful,
one cannot revisit the past.
One cannot be nine
years old again.
Later, talking
about it with Chris,
we realized that
perhaps we were looking
for my father the whole time.
We had a very nice
moment of realization.
You know, how badly
we miss my dad,
and how much he would've
loved the idea of us
throwing firecrackers inside
a blockhouse at Cap-Ferret.
Dad would've loved this.
He would've just loved
the idea of it alone.
He would've loved the idea.
He would've loved
knowing about it.
Yeah.
(peaceful music)
(energetic music)
