The war of words continues between East Coast and West Coast chefs and bloggers, with Anthony Bourdain calling the Asia Society’s cancellation of its David Chang event next month “shameful.” In a comment on Grub Street, Bourdain wrote, “It does not speak well of either the Asia Society or the unnamed ‘chefs’ that they’d shut Mr. Chang down over hurt feelings — based on a conversation for which they weren’t even present.” But Asia Society program director Robert Bullock stuck to his guns, telling Grub Street on the phone today, “when somebody is making stupid, ignorant remarks about what others do for their livelihoods, that’s not encouraging dialogue — that’s shutting it down. Let’s say we wanted to proceed with the event; we wouldn’t have had any chefs or a venue. What could we do?”
Meanwhile, among the rest of the chattering classes it’s getting hard to tell what’s actually vitriol about this whole thing and what’s not. Last week, Chez Pim blogger Pim Techamuanvivit tweeted that “somebody should f*ing give David Chang a f*ing thesaurus so he could learn to be f*ing offensive in more f*ingly expressive terms” But that was just ribbing, she told Grub Street on the phone today. “He said it for effect, I said it for effect. He gives as good as he gets. I would say it to his face. I e-mailed him this morning and said, ‘by the way, if you still want that thesaurus I’ll send it to you.’” Perhaps then he could help us find a suitable synonym for “over it.”
Earlier: Ten Things Anthony Bourdain and David Chang Hate [Grub Street NY]
San Francisco Responds to Chang’s Diss [Grub Street SF]
David Chang Insults San Franciscans; San Franciscans Cancel Cookbook Signing [Grub Street NY]
