In the Danger Zone

by Stefan Gates

Award-winning food writer Stefan Gates has traveled the world to investigate how people cook, eat and survive in extreme conditions for the acclaimed BBC television series "Cooking in the Danger Zone". He drank radioactive wine with babushkas in Chernobyl, ate fat-tailed sheep with Taliban warlords in Afghanistan, yak's penis with Chinese Communists, civet cat with the Karen rebels deep in the Burmese jungle and rotting walrus with the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic. In this book, Stefan takes us on an extraordinary personal journey as he tries to understand a world in crisis, and meets people caught up in war, poverty and environmental disasters. This behind-the-scenes account is hugely entertaining and thought provoking, blending war and food, ethics and emotions, comedy and tragedy.

Genres: Travel

Hardcover

First published January 17, 2008

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book documents Stefan Gates travels and experiences whilst filming a BBC documentary on food and politics in some of the worlds most war torn/improvised/repressive locations (or in a few cases those with the strangest and most controversial choices of food). Some well known, others far less so.

Each country/place gets a section in which he talks about the relevant history and current situation, then heads out to meet the locals, find out what they eat, how they live, and what their thoughts are to the issues at hand. This is the sort of thing which could easily come across as patronising and he himself worries many times about appearing as being a poverty tourist, but I think he handles it well coming across as sincere and doing his best to get involved with and understand the plights of those he talks to (often whilst fighting off the regulations of the BBC and his minders/guides).

As the title suggests, the book is themed about food and he often has a go at making the local food himself and goes out of his way to eat strange and exotic options, but really the book reads more as an account of the troubled areas and the people who live in them.

Overall I found the book to be fascinating, and well (and respectfully) written.

[Nick Sweeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stefan Gates is a TV chef - a category of entertainment I totally despise, really. A simple idea: Gates takes a TV crew with him to various parts of the developing world to see what people living amid war and chaos eat on a day-to-day basis. The answer is, naturally, not much. Gates travels with local guides, often from militias, to remote parts of the countries, talks to people, stays with them, cooks and eats with them. He's a likeable man, manages to be humorous, and plausible, and his constant reiteration of the paradox of his descending among people and talking about food when they have none, to speak of, is not as tiresome as it might sound. The people he speaks to shine out from the book; they are generally gracious in the face of his importuning camera-led presence, even against the backdrop of the heartache and horror in which they live. When a young African girl who has acted as a guide begs him, "You're not going to leave me here, are you?" when it's time for him to pack up and go, you really feel for both of them, oddly enough, and not just the girl - a good example of his honest writing about the position he is in. He gets to Chernobyl, China, Haiti, and various parts of Africa, among other places but, of course, as he points out often too, has his status, his BBC backing and his passport to fall back on. I found the book interesting in parts, though a bit too repetitive to be recommended highly. Nor did it make me want to seek out the TV programme.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that was written to accompany a BBC television show by a British food writer who decided to travel to various hot spots around the world to find out how people eat and survive in truly nasty situations--it really makes for depressing reading as he goes from refuge camps to slums to war zones.