I have an American friend who went on a week's vacation to Scotland some summers ago. As she described it, after a week of wind and rain and bad food, she was disappointed and getting a tad depressed. On arrival in the wind and rain at some small hotel in the Highlands, she ordered a meal. Chicken. When the plate arrived she looked at the mess on it, and began to weep.
On this week's Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (Sunday, CNN, 9 p.m.) Bourdain visits Scotland. He confronts the deep-fryer diet of Glasgow – deep-fried haggis in batter and chips with curry sauce and processed cheese – and the delights of what the Highlands offer. He won't weep. He might cock a skeptical eye, sigh and tease out some pleasure in what he consumes.
Parts Unknown is one of the best shows on TV right now and it keeps getting better. Bourdain and his team have crafted many wonderfully rich, textured programs that are part travel vignette and part food exploration, but manage to transcend any easy label or description. There are countless food shows on TV and numerous travel programs. There are shows that combine both food and travel, but Bourdain brings something entirely different to the genre.
There's a distinct narrative. It is personal, literary, political, socially astute and keen to find the absurd. It's about food and eating but, really, it's about shaping stories that strike a fine balance between complex emotional response and charming idiosyncrasy. The food and visually startling locations are just vehicles for an exercise in human curiosity, with Bourdain casting a personal, empathetic spotlight on the place, the people.
Unlike other travel/food shows, Parts Unknown does not follow a format. There is no blueprint to return to, over and over again. A recent program on Seoul started at the end – Bourdain hungover and weary – and then cycled back through a night of carousing with "salarymen" that came after a day spent with eccentric Korean food enthusiasts who cook and eat daily, online, to a huge audience. The hour was a stellar recreation of a couple of days in the craziness of Seoul. Another recent show, about Jamaica, was both strange and unsettling and included a dinner with the Jamaican-born Chinese-Canadian businessman Michael Lee-Chin.
What Bourdain does is first-rate journalism. And it is not easily done. Me, I find the program admirable for the manner in which Bourdain captures the depths of a culture on a short visit. Over the years I've visited many counties for a few days or a few weeks to cover soccer. Four days in Buenos Aires. Three weeks in Germany. Three days in the Puglia region of Italy. The brevity and speed of the visit lends a piquant quality to it. Bourdain savours the piquancy in the both the local food and the people he meets. Sometimes, the look on his face says, "Get me out of here." I know the feeling.
Not that every episode of Parts Unknown is perfect. I saw the episode on Brazil after spending a month there and, frankly, the program chose a small slice of the country – the wrong slice – and failed to illuminate much at all.
In general though, Parts Unknown rarely frustrates or disappoints. (CNN repeats the series endlessly and you can find great episodes airing at night on a slow news day for CNN.) Some of the episodes, especially one on Iran, are haunting in the precision of the vignettes that combine both political and social insight. And all of it about food, really. The series deserves its Emmy Awards and the Peabody Award it won. There is nothing else like it.
As for Scotland, Bourdain's drollery about the deep-fryer diet is amusing and wise, and no tears are shed.
Also airing this weekend
It's mostly a matter of finales. The Good Wife (Sunday, CBS, Global, 9 p.m.) ends the season with, inevitably, "Alicia makes a decision about her professional future." And Revenge (Sunday, ABC, City, 10 p.m.) ends forever. Which is good, since the gnarly, occasionally brilliant soaper was running out of gas. The gist is this: "Emily finds herself in a position where she must admit her guilt, but first she must decide how far she'll go before admitting defeat." Right. Emily will never be defeated. Ever. My two cents.