The Art of Living is an occasional series about people who seemed to know something about living.
What was it about Anthony Bourdain? He was a chef. He wrote a hit book, Kitchen Confidential. Then he wrote more hit books. He had a few successful television shows which were about him traveling the world and trying food and meeting people (A Cook’s Tour then No Reservations then The Layover then Parts Unknown). He did it with humor, with eagerness and reluctance, and with a tremendous appetite. For a certain demographic—perhaps chiefly the last generation who once took a trip carrying a paperback Lonely Planet, with little else to guide them—he was, and is, kind of a patron saint.
Americans have long loved travel. And we love travel television, too. What Bourdain’s shows often did in the early and mid-2000s was take you somewhere less expected with a more distinct host. Other travel hosts were touring Europe and he was falling in love with Vietnam. He got a tattoo in Borneo. Most of the earlier travel shows featured people who always smiled, who were always eager, who always looked fresh. Sometimes he looked hungover. Sometimes he was smoking a cigarette. He did not always seem happy to be doing the show. There were times you could tell he was bored or tired or annoyed. This was part of his charm. He was not afraid to trash talk other chefs he thought were sell outs. He had a little edge. He went to real places and he seemed real.
Anthony Bourdain had a deep appreciation for food, which was obvious on all the shows. He suggested that we should eat almost everything—the high end and the low end, embrace the hot dog and the foie gras. He hated chicken nuggets but he appreciated Popeye’s. After A Cook’s Tour, he didn’t often eat things just to try something weird or exotic. He didn’t avoid things because they were common or because they were uncommon. He appreciated high end French cuisine. Everywhere he went, he wanted to eat what was the local comfort food. He knew it was probably going to be the best thing in town.
He loved real food in a real way. He did not pretend to love everything he ate on his shows. He would never seek out food because it was trendy or instagrammable. He kept a few locations on his shows secret. You never had the sense that someone’s agent could persuade him to show up at a certain restaurant as a promotional thing. He wouldn’t be caught with a cutesy dessert picked because it was cutesy. He lived in the world of television and streaming but he did it with the leather jacket and the attitude we remembered from the 1990s.
Anthony Bourdain embraced new experiences. He clearly didn’t enjoy everything his crew planned for him on his shows, but he was a good, if reluctant sport. He could even embrace the parts of being human that were unpleasant or unsettling. In the Borneo episode of Parts Unknown, he helps to kill a pig—stabbing it with a spear. And it’s clear in the episode that he does not feel good about it. He sometimes wore his emotions on his sleeve. His example was encouragement to get out and see the world. Eat what the locals eat. Join in on experiences if offered. Get out of your comfort zone, get out of your zip code, come back a better, wiser person. And you could do it best by not planning too much. As he said, “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.”
Bourdain was a chef, but he was about more than food. No one who doesn’t know him has any idea if Bobby Flay can make an edgy joke. Bourdain was funny. I am sure Tom Colicchio is very nice, but I have no idea what he reads for fun. Anthony Bourdain loved writing and writers. He loved music, especially the Ramones. He knew all the old movies. He had the kind of cool that comes from knowing about culture and books and albums and being able to wear sunglasses well. As he became more famous, he became friends with cool musicians and artists and other chefs. It wasn’t just about food.
He was on television for a long time and we saw him grow. He got better at being on tv, but he also had a deeper understanding of life. In the earlier seasons of No Reservations, he was more idealistic about travel and its ability to cure our ills. One of his quotes is this: “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them — wherever you go.” But he also came across the hard reality that there are situations in the world full of tragedy where an individual’s efforts seem to make little difference. If you see the 2006 show where he was in Lebanon and had to be evacuated from Beirut because the city became a war zone, you see this change seemingly in real time. He’s on a boat with other people fleeing the city and food can be a comfort in this kind of setting but no cure.
He grew in many ways. When he first showed up on television, he was pretty famous, but, by the end, he was very famous. He went from mocking tv chefs to being one. And he did it with grace, acknowledging it all. He could poke fun at himself. He pursued opportunities and had ambition but seemed to be grounded in some ways. He was one of many older guys who get into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but he didn’t get into supplements and start trying to look like Hugh Jackman. When he became a father, he was the Saturday morning pancake kind of dad. He stayed skinny and kind of grumpy to the end and the makeovers were minimal.
Altogether, his on-screen ethos is probably best expressed in one of his most-circulated quotes: “Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.”
What he was, in many ways, was a role model. His shows suggested that you should experience the world around you. You should not be a snob. You should be open to learning and growing and changing. But there was also a real person behind the persona. And there was sometimes real pain behind the sarcastic voiceover. And he kept some things back even from his real friends. And his life ended before it should have.
His legend lives on because the lessons he offered meant so much to many people. You should live your life to the full. Try new things. Talk to a stranger. Recognize that you are lucky. Appreciate how lucky you are. And that is why you can find his face on votive candles and his quotes everywhere and why some people hitting their middle-aged stride still talk about him a lot.
This was great!