”Every episode is different,” first-time director Steve Rivo said of Anthony Bourdain’s 2018 sojourn to Uruguay, for CNN Parts Unknown’s milestone 11th season. That said, he was looking for a common thread linking previous directors’ episodes. He didn’t have to look far to find it. Bourdain himself, he said simply. “Since the show was his journey and point of view, I wanted to set things up in a way that would allow him to be himself and do what he was great at doing.” Welcome, then, to Uruguay, “Switzerland of the Americas.”
Uruguay está un otro nivel, cuando fui al principio se sentia un poco aburrido, tranquilo, después te sentías en otro planeta, en otro nivel.
“Uruguay is on another level,” Anthony Bourdain said in early 2018, a fateful year as luck would have it. “When I went, it felt a bit boring and quiet at first. But then you felt you were on another planet, on another level.”
Pero por qué? you may well ask.
“Quiet people who enjoy a mate, a fire, and above all, having plenty of time for friends.”
A mate, in this case, being the traditional caffeine-rich herbal drink fond to so many South Americans in the region, chimarrão in Portuguese, cimarrón in Spanish, and lest it be forgotten, ka’ay in Guarani.
The Tony Bourdain who appeared on the screen in the second episode of Parts Unknown’s 11th season in May 2018 looked markedly different from the Tony Bourdain who appeared onscreen in the Southern Italy “Heel of the Boot” episode of Parts Unknown, just six months earlier.
The full episode of Uruguay is readily accessible on YouTube today, assuming it hasn’t been taken down by the time you read this, and the comments are instructive.
“I saw this was aired a month before he died,” one follower posted. “Comparing this episode to ones from previous episodes, there is definitely something different in his aspect, [something] tragically subtle. He’s more bloated and congested, which makes me wonder if he was not taking proper care of himself. Sucks so bad … everyone who loved this guy, check in with your friends and family. That call for help is often subtle. He was so damn kind to everyone. He didn’t (understand) that he could extend that same kindness to himself.”
“Still my favourite episode,” another follower commented. “I want to make a trip to Uruguay.”
“Impressive,” yet another comment reads. “I learned a lot about a country that I knew little about. What a wonderful place.”
And that, right there, is the secret behind Bourdain’s onscreen persona and why so many people from different countries and different cultures took him to heart.
For Uruguay, in its quiet, unassuming way, is indeed an alluring and seductive hour of television. But not trivial and eminently forgettable, like so much TV of the day. Uruguay noma.
There’s less anger, less angst than in so many of Bourdain’s other South American outings — perhaps because, for whatever reason, to his mind, progressive governments work better than authoritarian dictatorships.
There’s less ruminating about how the people there would be happier and more content were it not for their ratty, homicidal leaders of the kind we’re all so familiar with today.
For the Bourdains of the world, Uruguay is, apparently a place to kick back and relax, in Bourdain’s words, finding time for friends in front of a roaring fire, mate in hand.
“Few countries hold democracy and the democratic process so dear,” Bourdain explains. “Uruguayans endured a long and particularly brutal military regime in which an appalling percentage of them were arrested, brutally interrogated, and tortured — the conditions of their imprisonment often designed by psychologists to break their minds and spirits.
“The government that emerged from those terrible years is unusually enlightened. Marijuana is legal. Reproductive rights of women are protected. Gay marriage is the law of the land. More than 90 percent of Uruguayans show up on Election Day and vote. It is rated fIrst among Latin American countries for its adherence to democratic principles and practices and for its relatively low rate of corruption.
“Perhaps the recent memory of the absence of liberty makes a country hold the right to vote ever more dear.”
“God, I miss his cynical melancholy, his poetic genius,” a Bourdainophile has commented on YouTube. “It’s like nothing has been the same since.”
“Miss you Anthony, and hope you are resting in splendid peace,” runs another
“Sure miss this guy.”
“Unique human being, Anthony Bourdain.”
“I still miss him like it was yesterday. I could live here.”
Ah, yes, Uruguay.
Bourdain was accompanied at the time by New York chef Ignacio Mattos, himself a native Uruguayan, has a lot of the why and doesn’t need further explaining here — watch it for yourself, and enjoy — but Bourdain’s Field Notes afforded him the opportunity, week after week, to go a little deeper into his subject and say things he either couldn’t fit into the final edit, or wanted to emphasize in some way.
Uruguay, Bourdain wrote in the episode’s Field Notes, “one of my favourite places to visit and easily one of the top under-appreciated travel destinations on Earth. It has beautiful beaches, breathtaking countryside, and a capital that evokes old Havana or Buenos Aires— but without the crowds. …
“Shockingly, however, many Uruguayans I speak to, when they ask me how I am enjoying my visit, respond to my gushing praise and enthusiasm with expressions of disbelief.
“‘Really?’ they say. ‘Why?’
“Perhaps living so close to the much larger Argentina and Brazil, Uruguayans have something of an inferiority complex. But the country is, in fact, quite wonderful. The people are wonderful. It is laid-back, beautiful, and a helluva lot of fun.
“Go. Tell them.”
There’s more, of course.
An homage to Uruguay’s unofficial national sandwich, the legendary chivito, a towering behemoth of steak, ham, bacon, cheese, hardboiled egg, mayo and garnish. Watch your cholesterol. This is no country for vegetarians, Bourdain understated. His companion of the hour, chef Ignacio “Nacho” Mattos, of Estela (NYC) and Café Altro Paradiso fame of fortune, would concur. He ought to concur: He’s Bourdain’s host and guide to eating a chivito properly, without missing a drop. Stand by with the defibrillator,
Homemade blood sausage, roasted turnip, fermented vegetables — a vegetable! — and don’t forget the beef quiche. Ñoquis de calabaza, home cooked gnocchi with mushrooms and pumpkin, prawn salad with avocado, apple, and wasabi at Jacinto (Montevideo), and just in case that’s a tad too vegan for your taste, beef tartare and quail egg.
And the music, in Uruguay highlighted by the headbanger band Hablan Por La Espalda, a joint here and there, and a side trip to the parrilla (Montevideo’s Parrilla El Alemán, the El Alamein of meat grills), where meat of all sizes and descriptions are slowly heated over glowing coals — morcilla (blood sausage to you), chorizo, and old standards like ribeye. Again, vegans might not approve: vegetables are banned. Or, if not banned exactly, “unavailable.”
Uruguay’s menu list goes on: empanadas stuffed with corn and, lest we forget, shredded beef, slow-cooked, lechón de jabali, roasted suckling wild boar, pescado asado, whole roasted fish — served with or without the heads (my personal aside to the ‘70s film classic Chinatown) — and milanesa napolitana, breaded, fried beef smothered in tomato sauce, ham, and just in case that doesn’t seem injurious enough to the heart, healthy portions of melted mozzarella cheese.
For the converted — and it you’ve read this far, that probably includes you — I’ve enclosed links to a couple of add-ons, including a masterclass by longtime Parts Unknown senior producer and Zero Point Zero Production executive and point-person Helen Cho — many of the accompanying pictures here are hers — on what went into the making of the Uruguay.
Fine reading for fine viewing. Not to mention, fine dining.
Fine all around.
And, yes, he is missed.
Supplementary reading:
https://explorepartsunknown.com/uruguay/uruguay-behind-the-scenes/
https://explorepartsunknown.com/uruguay/the-art-of-the-chivito-sandwich/
https://explorepartsunknown.com/uruguay/your-ultimate-guide-to-preparing-mate/
https://explorepartsunknown.com/uruguay/tango-mystique-on-the-rio-de-la-plata/
Supplementary viewing:
CNN