“After twelve months of travelling, through seven different countries, I’ve encountered vastly different attitudes toward prohibition, ranging from welfare-state tolerance to nanny-state fury, from urbane indifference to xenophobic hysteria; not to mention the perplexed patience of those in the developing world whose livelihoods are threatened by foreign prohibitions”.

Grescoe is not on a party quest, a kind of ‘travel writers gone wild on…’, but rather indulging an insatiable curiosity about things like absinthe, coca leaves and criadillas (bulls’ testicles). He is also looking for answers to questions such as why the American government forbids the import of certain French cheeses, Epoisses, or Cuban cigars. Or why, in Singapore, it’s illegal to bring in poppy seed crackers, pornography or chewing gum. In tandem with descriptions of the search for some of these things and the actual ingestion of them, he writes of the ethnic, cultural and historical background as well – extensively citing statistics, technical information and a well balanced cross section of opinion, gained in the course of interview with officials, manufacturers and locals.

A small warning here: if the reader is looking for debauched, drug soaked prose, then he might be better served picking up William Burroughs or Thomas De Quincy. Grescoe’s experiences are much more subtle and to me, far more interesting. The reader accompanies him into various neighbourhoods of a particular city, searching bars, clubs restaurants and back alleys for what he’s looking for at that particular moment. Like real life, it sometimes doesn’t pan out and he’s not afraid to talk about that, or the times when he does ‘score’ but doesn’t feel an expected or anticipated reaction.

The book begins its journey in Norway, looking for hjemmebrent, a type of potent moonshine, indigenous to Norway. While hunting around for it, he befriends local people and finds out about the brew in great detail, discussing the mythology behind it, the variations of it and the attitudes and approach to it by the authorities.

He moves on to Singapore, doing a sort of reverse move – he brings in poppy seed crackers, pornography (Fanny Hill, but porno by their standards) and chewing gum. He does not get caught at this but does it more to make a statement, which seems to be to illustrate the extreme inanity of the rigid control imposed by the ‘nanny-state’ mentality. Singapore is a clean modern state-of-the-art city with very little trouble or crime but below the surface, the repression bubbles.

Say what you want about the current crop of forbidden substances…at least they are symbolic of an impulse toward independent thinking and subversion…the most chilling thing about Singapore was the absence of the possibility of any misbehaviour whatsoever.

From there, he moves into forbidden foods, such as Epoisses, a French cheese made from raw milk, not pasteurized, which the American government considers dangerous to the health of its good citizens, forgetting that more deaths are caused from salmonella in eggs and poultry and E. coli in ground beef, for example.

Cheese, which is among the safest foods in existence, is also among the most ludicrously overregulated. Between 1990 and 2003, seafood caused 720 disease outbreaks in the United States, and poultry led to 355 outbreaks. Cheese, in contrast, was responsible for only 35 outbreaks, and the majority of these were provoked by cheese made with pasteurized milk.

Clearly, the beaurocracy is worried about the wrong thing here, as selling steak tartare and raw oysters is legal in the U.S.

Grescoe travels on, looking for his criadillas in Spain and then slips back into the country with Cohibas, one of the finest of the Cuban cigars (also illegal in the U.S., for political reasons) – working that into a clandestine tour of a series of San Francisco smoke-easies; bars that unofficially allow their patrons to smoke, oddly enough in one of the first cities to enact a smoking ban. Then it’s on to Bolivia to partake of coca leaves and the local coca tea, mate de coca.

Perhaps the one of the most personally entertaining chapters was the one entitled, ‘Absinthe Suisse’, in which he explores all the myth and folklore surrounding that most exotic of drinks – muse to a motley crew of artists and writers, a demon concoction that drove men crazy – with a mystique unto itself. Without divulging the contents of this chapter (thus robbing the reader of the enjoyment of discovery), he attempts to determine what true absinthe is, what it should feel like and whether Switzerland or France should have the bragging rights to the best and truest absinthe.

But finally, the journey turns sober and all too real, as he investigates the concept of legal and assisted suicide in Switzerland, through the drug, pentobarbital sodium. As in every other chapter, he examines this topic thoroughly by talking to both sides, pro and con, and carefully weighing his findings, sometimes surprising himself.

This is a well thought out, well written and extremely enjoyable and sane book – probably very hard to write when considering the serious nature of the issue of prohibition and illegality. It’s an understanding and compassionate look at something that’s been part of the human psyche forever. Although there were several, there was one particular passage during his absinthe jaunt that stayed with me – that really articulated the feeling of comraderie of the sometimes marginalized.

“That night, in Boveresse, I felt as if I’d gotten to the heart of clandestinity: a wink on the main street beneath a full moon, a wholehearted invitation, the shared flouting of authority, and the bonding ritual of cold water clouding a sacred liquid. It reminded me of buying hjemmebrent in Oslo, sharing pungent French cheese in a New York bar, trading the addresses of smoke-easies in San Francisco – in their purest form, the rituals of clandestinity, born of resistance to oppressive prohibitions, can foster connection and comraderie.”

Grescoe’s writing is totally engaging – I found that in his earlier book, ‘The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists’ in which he examines the tourist industry with the same deep and entertaining approach as in this book. And Taras, if you find yourself looking for a travelling companion, I don’t require much and my passport is current.

Marc Goldin currently lives in Chicago, with three cats, each one more long-haired than the last. Interests have ranged from medieval monasticism to discontinued stations on the London Underground – literary likes too diverse (some would say schizo) to list here although the last several years have been witness to an intimacy with Scottish and Irish literature. American Southern and Beat era lit also account for some of the ‘missing years’. Music tastes run the gamut from Cuban Danzon to Ska (all three waves but having a specific attachment to the second, two-tone period) to the Tuvan throat singers. Has written book reviews for a now defunct Irish literature site and has several short stories in various stages of development. Mad for black and white photography and aspires to someday have a complete collection of photos documenting every close in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Works in the IT dept. of a French company in the current political climate. In football, supports Chelsea, Hibs, and for the sake of employment security, Marseille.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.