An ice breaker Q : “which famous figure from the past do you miss the most?“
My A : Bourdain.
A tribute to him poured out when that question was asked. I don’t know of any other food show where the gathering at the table and the place is more important than the food on the table. Listening to most peoples travel stories bores me for this reason. “I did this” “I saw that” “I ate that” …. The “I” precede the place, in most accounts. The information conveyed is more about what the tourist consumed than about the place. I seek stories of slow travel and a nuanced understanding of the places we live in. Geology, ecology, history, politics, culture, food, art, climate impacts, with time… must be learnt in new and old places. I look for accounts of places consuming a tourist and spitting out a different version to be returned home. I know of a few individuals who travel this way. No many can show this on screen, but his shows do.
Why him ? For this reason :
DAVIES: (Laughter) Is it true in Namibia you were offered an unwashed warthog rectum?
BOURDAIN: Yeah. Well, they killed a pig, and apparently that was the – you know, the chief yanks that part out and throws it on the grill and grills it medium rare and splits it with me. And I look – the whole tribe is watching. He’s offering me what he sees as the best part. That’s a clear take-one-for-the-team situation.
What am I going to do, refuse him, embarrass him in front of his people, look ungrateful? That changes the whole tenor of the relationship. I mean, when somebody’s offering you food, they’re telling you a story. They’re telling you what they like, who they are. Presumably, it’s a proud reflection of their culture, their history, often a very tough history. You turn your nose up at that important moment, the whole relationship changes, and it will never be the same.
NPR
The man maybe flawed in ways fans don’t want to see. But this reply changed my view point on travel and life. ( Vipassana meditation emphasize something similar – less “I” as we navigate the world and more discipline towards reducing harm. Attending a meditation camp makes you aware that your boarding, food and tutelage is made possible by charity of the practitioners who walked the halls prior to you. Mary Oliver taught “I go to the other, hold out my begging bowl, and ask them to fill it with their beauty.” ) The ‘tough history’ part of it hit me. With this mindset, there is no bad neighborhood or boring place to visit. One can travel every single day and in any location. Travel isn’t something that only starts when one boards a flight or when on vacation. Every place has a time component that tells us the why behind it. Travel is an understanding of the place. Do you know enough about the land you live on ? Have you walked every street in your city ? Do you know enough about the people who lived here before you ? His episode made me learn the history of my great-grand-mother and my ancestors who created this entire vegetarian root-to-leaf cuisine to make-do with a limited range of crops grown reliably. She had told me of a year when they only ate lentils for a month and would sell milk from the one family cow meant to feed the family, for extra cash to run the household. She knows of a hundred ways to use lentils. She had told me about how she wanted to buy an extra aluminum cooking pot and was reprimanded for wanting “extra things” when the nation was fighting for it’s independence from British colonizers. She knows how to care for the cheaper clay pots. She once told me that she pushed herself to be creative because she had this deep rooted desire to feed her loved ones better. Living the agrarian sustinance lifestyle which is hard, gave us our cuisine. They created a masterpiece passed on to us, by our mothers. This is creativity. Contrast this with outfit makers who have hundreds of items in the closet, style them and call it a creativity. I fell into this trap of confusing styling with actually creating something true with worthy constraints like sustainability and have to constantly remind myself to think better. Today, when I cook traditional plant based food at home, I am grateful for the genius and resiliance of my ancestors. It took a Bourdain episode to force me to see.
He is missed. A style tribute to him has been pending on my blog for a decade now. Nothing I tried to put together in a post, lived up to the rockstar that he is in my head. Let me present some photographs for us to observe and leave it at that.
“[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.”
“It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after,you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and whats happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.”
“For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we’ve all had to become disappears, when we’re confronted with something as simple as a plate of food.”
“There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass Irish pub.”
“Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I’ll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.”
“Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.”
“Everybody should come here. Everyone should see how complicated, how deeply troubled, and yet at the same time, beautiful and awesome the world can be. Everyone should experience, even as the clouds gather, what’s at stake, what could be lost, what’s still here.”
“How do you instruct a woman who’s already survived incredible hardship, who’s worked hard all her life, on how to live ‘properly’, when your life is, by contrast, a carefree wonderland of excess, sloth and caprice?”
“But I’m simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I’ve seen it. It’s all here: the good, the bad and the ugly.”
When his estate came up for auction, his clothes were put out for sale. They went for thousands of dollars but I did manage to grab some screen shots. Seeing the garments I admired on the man, all squished up in a stack, saddened me. I have always wanted to see his closet, but not like this. I don’t think it’s the clothes at all. And yet, his clothes do right, by him. It was still interesting to see what he chose and how he wore them.
Simona Simoni leather jacket.
Apsesi Olive Green Jacket. Kenneth Cole Distressed Jacket.
Custom US Navy Jacket from the USS Nashville with a Tony Bourdain Patch. Schoffel Green GoreTex Jacket.
Shoyoroll Windbreaker. Levis Strauss and CO + Filson Waterproof Jacket.
Looking at the articles of clothing, it’s not the obvious pairing of garments that make him a style icon. So I wont put together a collage on how to dress like Anthony. Let’s leave it at that.
He is the ultimate style icon. Such taste, such lived-in lanky elegance, such thirst for life (‘truly living’ is the ultimate style statement). I remember reading about his preference for Clarks desert boots and how he liked to listen to an album called Rome when he traveled. I did the same when I traveled nearly every week pre-pandemic. He continues to inspire even after this death, which is, of course, the true definition of an icon. Thank you for the writing the piece we needed but didn’t know we wanted yet.