I’ve been asked several times in the last week to comment on the passing of Anthony Bourdain. The morning the news broke I was far too stunned to say anything, and as the week progressed and the tributes poured in, I struggled to find the words to adequately express myself.
It was only after some serious self-reflection that I discovered the reason for my reticence; Chef Bourdain’s life meant more to me than his passing. He was by all accounts a good, not transcendent chef. A craftsman, not a creator.
Anthony Bourdain
For those that would take issue with his relationships, that is left to the ones who matter the most. The rest of us should back off. His writing, and his later approach to food offered a bit of a paradox as he managed to at one turn rip open the underbelly of our craft, and then completely reverse himself in an effort to use food as the vehicle of conversation and change.
His writing was spare, his editing even more so. He could be profane and profound all in one sentence. And he was concise beyond measure. He also knew when his approach or performance was subpar, and he was not above saying he sucked. Ernest Hemingway famously said that “every first draft is shit” and Chef Bourdain modeled his second life after that axiom.
Whether writing or speaking his part, he created as we cook, from a firm base, but with fearless energy. It’s an alluringly attractive lifestyle, to cook and live like that, and one of the main reasons this career can capture your attention. While most of us aspire to be great — award winning, even — that does not bring satisfaction.
Anthony Bourdain was not a mentor or father figure to me. We are roughly the same age, with vaguely similar backgrounds. Our careers or personal lives never crossed. We certainly didn’t run in the same social circles.
What we do share, as do most other chefs and cooks, is a passion for food, evident in his life long career and in his writing and television productions. I have the feeling that his drive to succeed in his second career was not to make money and acquire fame, but to learn, grow, and find outlets for his restlessness.
The kitchen no longer satisfied those desires, and he shrewdly looked elsewhere to find his release. What started as a rage against the hypocrisy and dishonesty of his craft evolved into a platform for change on many levels.
The most important, of course, revolved around Bourdain himself. Always the outsider, he managed to plant a foot in both worlds, accepted into the literary while keeping the stoves on back home. It was quite a feat to expose an entire industry’s failings and still remain firmly entrenched as Chef. It helped that his leap of faith was not necessarily for fame and fortune but for a platform of change.
Bourdain made a conscious effort not to enter the celebrity chef world, but rather into the “chef as citizen of the world,” famously living the credo that one should be a traveler, not a tourist. For me that remains his greatest achievement, maybe because I see food, and my creation of it, as a way to bring about change.
The act of sitting down at a table over a meal created with care and respect was Bourdain’s way of reestablishing the lost art of dining, rather than eating. It didn’t matter that sometimes the “table” was a pushcart on a crowded street, or a cramped space in a steamy hut, and the food ranged from the trendiest Northwest foraged cuisine to a bowl of fish and rice.
The point was to bring people together, find some common ground first in food, and then for Bourdain in the stories that tumbled out over dinner. It humanized the man, even humbled him to the point of indecision and downright doubt.
There was the scene, repeated several times, of a frustrated, even confused Bourdain trying to make sense of the war in Lebanon, or the ongoing mental devastation in other countries around the world, all the niceties put aside while he tried to parse out what just happened and how it affected him personally. This is quite a change from the chef as almighty and all-knowing.
Doubt is not a trait we share; it translates to some as weakness, and no chef can be weak in his or her own kitchen. We all need some doubt every now and then, that hesitation, that hitch in your motion that makes you stop and consider however briefly, what your purpose is at this moment and beyond. Bourdain was not afraid to seek that and show it.
In his travels around the globe he invited the viewer not only to join the trip, but also to actually make the trip mean more than the food and the sights. Bourdain was seeking understanding everywhere, salivation in some places and redemption in others. That he was able to capture a willing companion in me and many others was a credit to the production, and a sign that we too might be seeking some of the same things.
I was saddened by Anthony Bourdain’s death, for all the reasons that most of us felt. I will miss him not as a great man or celebrated chef, but as a mirror of what we are and can become.
However tortured he might have been, he managed to press on for years, his inquisitiveness overcoming any fears he had of failure, physical pain, or spiritual desolation. He enjoyed the time he spent with the people he met and, by extension, with the people who followed him in books, on television, and in social media.
It was no surprise that his latest entry into the #MeToo movement caused some waves, but in true Bourdain fashion he included himself with the male chefs who were called out in the abuse allegations. It was the spirit of his admission that he had made some of the same mistakes that didn’t necessarily give him a pass, but rather gave people hope that change could come.
Eventually, the darkness in his life was too much even for him, but it was still the potential within his message that resonated with me, that energized me every time I watched an episode or picked up one of his books. That will be missed, along with man who carried the message wherever he traveled. His spirit will be hard to replace.
John Foster is an executive chef who heads the culinary program at Sullivan University’s Lexington campus. A New York native, Foster has been active in the Lexington culinary scene and a promoter of local and seasonal foods for more than 20 years. The French Culinary Institute-trained chef has been the executive chef of his former restaurant, Harvest, and now his Chevy Chase eatery, The Sage Rabbit.
To read more from Chef John Foster, including his recipes, click here.
