Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Michael Bourdainis an American chef, author, and television personality. He is a 1978 graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of numerous professional kitchens, including many years as executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles. Although Bourdain is no longer employed as a chef, he maintains a relationship with Les Halles in New York. He became widely known for his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. His first food and world-travel television show was...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth25 June 1956
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
What is left of the poor? Try to buy a fresh f**king vegetable in West Baltimore. It is a not completely inconceivable scenario in the future, we'll all look like that... Waddling from convenience store to fast food outlet, chewing mindlessly on 99 cent hamburgers.
If you go to working class, and working poor areas of America, the food sources that are relegated to them are generally limited to unhealthy ones.
I think it's a universal truth that most chefs I know are happiest eating simple, unadorned good things.
Having been a chef for some many years, I understand what it's like to work really, really hard to get good at something, only to have someone piss all over it.
When I cook, I generally stick with what I know, what I'm comfortable with, and what I feel I've paid my dues learning, and am good at.
I eat strategically. If I know I'm having a big Chinese banquet tomorrow, I'm not eating a big dinner tonight, and I'm not having breakfast.
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.
Anyone who doesn't have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much dead to me.
I'd learned something... Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me... and others. This was valuable information.
Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.
To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.
If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.
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.
Margarine? That's not food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I can. If you're planning on using margarine in anything, you can stop reading now, because I won't be able to help you.