Select delivery location
See All Buying Options
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Anthony Bourdain
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Cooks Tour : Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines" Paperback – January 1, 2001

by Anthony Bourdain (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,292 ratings
See all formats and editions
Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.
View Kindle Edition
The only thing "gonzo gastronome" and internationally bestselling author Anthony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling. Inspired by the question, "What would be the perfect meal?," Tony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail, and in the process turns the notion of "perfection" inside out. From California to Cambodia, A Cooks' Tour chronicles the unpredictable adventures of America's boldest and bravest chef.
Previous page
  1. Publisher
    Bloomsbury
  2. Publication date
    January 1, 2001
  3. See all details
Next page
Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000QYIGWY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury (January 1, 2001)
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,292 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Anthony Bourdain was the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, the memoir A Cook’s Tour, and the New York Times bestsellers Kitchen Confidential, Medium Raw, Appetites and World Travel. His work appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker. He was the host of the popular television shows No Reservations and Parts Unknown. Bourdain died in June 2018.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
3,292 global ratings
Lovely Read
5 Stars
Lovely Read
I love Bourdain. He's this quirky, self-effacing charmer who recognizes he's a flawed person and keeps going. He's blunt, and funny, and his writing is so direct and so... I don't know? Human. He's a regular guy who admits he got lucky. And he's respectful of food and travel and culture. He will be missed. But if you read this, you can reminisce with him.
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

Bec
5.0 out of 5 stars Mimics the show
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2024
Verified Purchase
I had already watched all the episodes so unfortunately there weren’t many surprises in the book but it’s nice “hearing his voice” again. Miss him terribly. Such a cool, laid back, not pretentious traveler.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Celeda Rein
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024
Verified Purchase
Bought for a friend for Christmas they loved it
Helpful
 Report
Regina
4.0 out of 5 stars A Cook’s Tour brings back sweet memories of Tony
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2023
Verified Purchase
I know I’m about 20 years or so late to this read, but it came ar a perfect time for me. Since Bourdain’s untimely death, I miss his voice, his insight, and the enlightened way his words make me want to eat and travel! This book beautifully disperses the idea of “the perfect meal” and instead gives us a tale of food, places, people and Tony. From the worse thing he’s ever eaten to the simple food memories of his childhood, “A Cook’s Tour” reminded me why I fell in love with Anthony Bourdain in the first place - he was an incredible human with a unique twist on eating, traveling, and living.
8 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Robert I. Hedges
5.0 out of 5 stars Ethnoculinary Traditions Exposed
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2009
Verified Purchase
"A Cook's Tour" by the wonderfully worldly and well-traveled Anthony Bourdain, is a book about food like no other, and it is simultaneously entertaining, exciting, and revolting. Tony travels the world in search of the perfect meal; it's an exciting quest for any chef to ponder, but along the way he comes across numerous local delicacies that can be best described as only for the strong of heart.

Although he encounters several problems with dishes from around the world (the Mexican sautéed ant eggs and Scottish deep-fried haggis with curry sauce and deep fried egg stand out), the most stunning for my money are the things he eats in Asia, and especially Vietnam. I for one would not be able to eat the traditional Vietnamese breakfast of soft-boiled duck embryo complete with feathers, followed by a steaming bowl of "chao muk", a hearty soup made from ginger, sprouts, cilantro, shrimp, squid, chives, pork-blood cake, and croutons; later Tony enjoyed some braised bat ("imagine braised inner tube, sauced with engine coolant"). Even worse than that, though, is the concept of eating a still-beating cobra heart, after a very special snake disemboweling ceremony.

While Vietnam takes the proverbial cake, the book features other gastronomic nightmares from around the globe, with Japan coming in second in the contest for unusual and disturbing foodstuffs. The foodie tour of Japan started out benignly enough, with an appetizer of "amuse-gueule of hoshigaka goma-an" (dried persimmon and fried soy curd with sesame paste), but quickly progressed to things like "suppon-dofu" (a soft-shell turtle in egg pudding with green onion and turtle broth), and culminated in the classic and beloved Japanese delicacy, "natto", which Bourdain describes as "an unbelievably foul, rank, slimy, glutinous, and stringy goop of fermented soybeans". After the natto, Bourdain finished with a dish described as "mountain potato": of this he said, "I could only handle a single taste. To this day, I have no idea what it really was.... The small, dark, chewy nugget can only be described as tasting like salt-cured, sun-dried goat rectum".

Throughout the book, Bourdain maintains his wry, sarcastic sense of humor, possibly as a survival tool to get him through his next meal. He mocks a vegan potluck dinner as the "real heart of darkness", discusses fabled and exotic foods such as the unbelievably rank durian fruit, and always manages to do it while being respectful of local traditions and cultures very different from his existence in New York City. This is a great book for anyone interested in foods and cultures of the world, and I recommend it highly!
11 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Took over a month to receive this book.
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
Must be a popular book. As stated, took awhile to get it. A gift to my son, he hasn’t finished reading it yet, so far he says he is enjoying reading it.
Helpful
 Report
R. Wakefield
5.0 out of 5 stars great read
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2023
Verified Purchase
If you have watched the series it’s a must read for any Anthony Bourdain fan. The book is well written and full of interesting details
Helpful
 Report
chad elliott
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect!
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2023
Verified Purchase
I have been looking for this audio for years since a car accident when my last copy was destroyed! Thank you!
Helpful
 Report
G. Stelzenmuller
4.0 out of 5 stars Chef Bourdain strikes again!
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2006
Verified Purchase
The book if fun to read. Buy it. All right, borrow it from your library. This travel-food-olog mixes wild & interesting places and wild & interesting foods in about equal amounts. Yes, Mr. Bourdain does write like a chef, but what the heck? In his words, that's "pretty neat."

At all these wild places he goes -- Russia, North Africa, Vietnam, Japan -- one wonders how he survives both the places and the meals. The answer is, he threw himself into both with a gusto and with good expectations. This unintended lesson on life would be hard to improve on. Readers will be pleased to note how Mr. Bourdain leaves all his hosts delighted with his visit. This makes him the perfect guest. Very likely the aged Vietnamese army veteran was especially so, ever after being able to boast that he drank an American under the table.

His hosts liked him because he liked them, without prejudice. What a wonderfully entertaining book this is. If this man can find the value, and the fun, in all that he ran into, you can't help but put the book down a bit more inspired.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Rufino C
5.0 out of 5 stars excelente producto
Reviewed in Mexico on August 11, 2023
Verified Purchase
un libro recomendable vale la pena
Report
Karen Carrier
5.0 out of 5 stars Arrived faster than planned!
Reviewed in Canada on June 30, 2021
Verified Purchase
I've been waiting for this one so bad! Super happy it came in sooner! What a great add to the tv series Anthony Bourdain did! I recommend it to every fan, or not, if Tony!
Report
Mario86
5.0 out of 5 stars Really good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2023
Verified Purchase
Admittedly I am a fan of travelogues but loved this. Wonderful writing about food and travel and culture. There are chapters on France, Cambodia, Vietnam (multiple), San Francisco, Mexico, Morocco, Japan, Scotland, London, Portugal, San Sebastian, Russia. Some of the food described is mouth-watering so make sure you've already eaten when you pick it up otherwise you'll want to raid the fridge where you'll find nothing close to good as what's being described. But there are also other 'meals' which might make you want to retch.

This is based from the TV series of the same name and whilst I watched it a couple of years ago and was reminded of certain passages of the book, it didn't lessen my enjoyment of it. There are also some interesting segments called 'Reasons Why You Don't Want To Be On Television' about situations he went through whilst travelling that may have not come across on TV.

Preferred this to Kitchen Confidential.
One person found this helpful
 Report
Gökçe
5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Read, Much Recommended
Reviewed in Germany on October 26, 2022
Verified Purchase
It is the first book I've ever read by Anthony Bourdain and now I know it won't be the last. I enjoyed every single page of this book, it is a great choice to overcome your reading slump!

Only complaint would be the Amazon deliverer putting my package in my mailbox in such an awful way, anyone in the building without keys could easily get it. I hope Amazon deliverers decide to stop putting small packages in mailbox with 70% of the package hanging out.
Report
katie bhathena
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Readable
Reviewed in India on August 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
I have read just 3 chapters of the book and have decided to read more as I travel thru Europe this September.
Found the book difficult to put down....so have packed it with my clothes for travel.
Report