The 'Grandma Rule' for Traveling

Once, when I covered food and drink in Philadephia, I dined as a guest at a restaurant with a friend. The meal was chef’s choice. The first dish that arrived at the table was a sharable seafood soup. Maybe it was a stew. I’m fuzzy on that detail, but I am not fuzzy on this one: Atop the bowl was a little octopus in full, tiny octopus form, including its eyes. 

My friend looked at me and said, “It’s all yours.” I had to eat it—and I did. It wasn’t the first or the last dish I’ve been handed as a guest that I really did not want to chow down on, but chow down, I did. Why?

It’s not because I’m a particularly adventurous eater. It’s because when I’m the recipient of someone’s hospitality, I choose to be grateful for that hospitality, and I do what I can to not insult my host.

It’s how the late Anthony Bourdain, chef, author, world traveler, and champion of food cultures, chose to be also, and he was vocal about it.

Anthony Bourdain’s 'Grandma Rule'

In a conversation at the 2011 Sydney Writer’s Festival with Australian food writer Jill Dupleix, Bourdain spoke about some of the extreme foods he’s been served while traveling the world. He explained why he chose to eat foods like beating cobra hearts, sheep testicles, and a very unsavory part of a warthog that he accepted to “take one for the team.” (If you want to know how unsavory, it’s at marker 3:54 in the video.) 

His explanation has become what’s now known as Bourdain’s Grandma Rule. 

“You know,” he said, “I do something called the Grandma Rule. If I am at Grandma’s house, I will eat what Grandma offers, and I will say ‘Yes, Grandma, it’s delicious.’ And I will have seconds.” 

That interview coincided with the release of Bordain’s book, "Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook." In the book, he writes about the Grandma Rule, this time in a situation that is more relatable to the rest of us. 

“You may not like Grandma's Thanksgiving turkey. It may be overcooked and dry — and her stuffing salty and studded with rubbery pellets of giblets you find unpalatable in the extreme,” Bourdain wrote. “You may not even like turkey at all. But it is 'Grandma's Turkey.' And you are in Grandma's house. So shut...up and eat it. And afterwards say, 'Thank you Grandma, why yes, yes of course I'd love seconds.'"

The Grandma Rule, Home and Abroad

The extreme foods Bourdain spoke of in his Australian interview are foods that thankfully most of us will not encounter when dining as someone’s guest. He chose to put himself in situations where he would need to eat foods foreign to our culinary norms. That’s one of the reasons he was so beloved. He put himself in those situations, and he always wrote and spoke about them with respect. We could all live vicariously through his TV shows and books.

But often as guests, we are in situations where we’re served foods that may not be our favorites, like dry turkey. When that happens, it’s good to remember our manners and Bourdain’s Grandma Rule, and say, “Thank you, yes, I will have some of that.” 

And then be truly grateful, because whatever you’ve been offered is most likely not a beating cobra heart.