Lead Review (Carnivore)

• Book: Carnivore
• Location: Dhaka, Manhattan
• Author: K Anis Ahmed

Review Author: tripfiction

Carnivore by K Anis Ahmed, a novel of NEW YORK’s high end restaurant scene.

This is a novel of New York’s very high end restaurant scene, told with humour and gore. Kash has invested in his own restaurant together with Boris and his heavies. Come 2008 and the financial crash, Boris is demanding recompense and Kash will have to be incredibly inventive about how he will stave off the aggressive attentions of his bully-boy investor. Kash needs to make money fast.

A select uber-rich group of diners from around the world spend eye watering amounts to set up exclusive fine dining opportunities, showcasing their wealth and sometimes the culinary culture of their country, whilst having the opportunity to eat dishes that hover on (perhaps) the wrong side of legal. ‘The Miners Club’ is a group of billionaires who need their “deviant epicurean cravings” sated…

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“There wasn’t much point in having f*ck-you money if you couldn’t enjoy what’s out of reach for everyone else”

Kash is determined to somehow infiltrate this exclusive group because he can see this as a way of bringing in dollars and ease him out of his very tricky situation. Whilst in the planning, he has an encounter with Boris’ henchmen which leaves him smarting but he soon alights upon a tremendously crackpot idea, which involves an unprecedented moral hazard. He then researches the detail, consults and lays the ground for his masterplan. On the menu he sees, perhaps, a little of the poisonous Greenlandic shark with no urinary tract which takes six months to clean out…. and a dollop of casu martzu (look it up). And to top it all, the vision of his pièce de résistance. The venue will be a yacht out on the ocean, because “the ocean is the best keeper of secrets..”

This is neither a novel for vegetarians nor for those of an average disposition. Towards the end of the novel I began to feel queasy. We are in the realms of the culinary absurd and distasteful. I learned much from the novel, that, for example, people choose to eat the Ortolan Bunting whole, a tiny bird captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac. The diners feast away on its little body whilst draped with a linen napkin over the head to preserve the aromas of the meat (or to hide from God). Each bird costs upwards of 150€ (the equivalent price of an ounce of coveted white truffle). There are further details of egregious eating habits. And yet the author has a lightness of touch and an engaging writing style that kept me reading, curious at some level to see where the next episode of Kash’s venture took him. But, I think the story steps over the line, how ever much the whole tenet is wrapped in wry humour and observation. It pushes boundaries, for sure, it gets you thinking but, to be honest, I don’t go out of my way to choose books that make me feel sick.

This is also a story of the immigrant experience. Kash hails from Dhaka and some of his thinking around solving his current situation is rooted in his life back in the capital city. There are interesting snippets of his early life  in Bangladesh. This aspect, though, is subsumed by the unfolding dining experience.

If you fancy an amorally adventurous epicurean read, then go for it. But bear in mind I have read it so you don’t have to. The book will garner all kinds of avant-garde praise –  “..the sharpest novel of 2025..” – and will surely be a talking point on Social Media, but then I think it will disappear into oblivion. The author does have a great writing style and story-telling ability, and I am sure there is a great future out there for him if he chooses the subject of his next tale with care. The subject matter here is pretty revolting.

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