Anthony Bourdain June 25, 1956 - June 8, 2018

Anthony Bourdain Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it's a start. 

Anthony Bourdain Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyone... Bad food is fake food... food that shows fear and lack of confidence in people's ability to discern or to make decisions about their lives. 

Anthony Bourdain What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast? 

Anthony Bourdain Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.

Anthony Bourdain I'm not afraid to look like an idiot. 

Anthony Bourdain For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that. 

Anthony Bourdain If I'm in Rome for only 48 hours, I would consider it a sin against God to not eat cacio e pepe, the most uniquely Roman of pastas, in some crummy little joint where Romans eat. I'd much rather do that than go to the Vatican. That's Rome to me. 

Anthony Bourdain People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice... they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get. 

Anthony Bourdain Anyone who's a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: 'Is it good? Does it give pleasure?' 

Anthony Bourdain Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one's life. 

Anthony Bourdain Being a vegan is a first-world phenomenon, completely self-indulgent. 

Anthony Bourdain I like telling stories, and I tell stories that interest me. It would be boring to have to go to nothing but the best restaurants. That would be a misery to me. 

Anthony Bourdain You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm not that bad. I'm certainly not a boy, and it's been a while since I've been a chef. 

Anthony Bourdain My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes. 

Anthony Bourdain I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food. 

Anthony Bourdain Get up early and go to the local produce markets. In Latin America and Asia, those are usually great places to find delicious food stalls serving cheap, authentic and fresh specialties. 

Anthony Bourdain You'd have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food, as far as being a hub. Given a choice between Barcelona and San Sebastian to die in, I'd probably want to die in San Sebastian. 

Anthony Bourdain I'm very type-A, and many things in my life are about control and domination, but eating should be a submissive experience, where you let down your guard and enjoy the ride. 

Anthony Bourdain Is there a sharper commentary on American culture and the world than The Simpsons? 

Anthony Bourdain When I was writing 'Kitchen Confidential,' I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car. 

Anthony Bourdain Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors - that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me. 

Anthony Bourdain There are people with otherwise chaotic and disorganized lives, a certain type of person that's always found a home in the restaurant business in much the same way that a lot of people find a home in the military. 

Anthony Bourdain The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, 'I'm not interested,' or you're unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don't understand that, and I think it's rude. You're at Grandma's house, you eat what Grandma serves you. 

Anthony Bourdain I don't have much patience for people who are self-conscious about the act of eating, and it irritates me when someone denies themselves the pleasure of a bloody hunk of steak or a pungent French cheese because of some outdated nonsense about what's appropriate or attractive.  

Anthony Bourdain I'm not Ted Nugent. My house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature. I would never hunt. I would never wear fur. I would never go to a bullfight. I'm not really a meat and potatoes guy. 

Anthony Bourdain If you get an opportunity to work with David Simon, anybody with good taste would. 

Anthony Bourdain I don't snack. I don't generally eat sweets or drink soda. I never eat between meals or even before big ones. 

Anthony Bourdain I'm a decent cook; I'm a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period. 

Anthony Bourdain I'm never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

Anthony Bourdain The Kobe craze really annoyed me. Most of the practitioners had no real understanding of the product and were abusing it and exploiting it in terrible and ridiculous ways. Kobe beef should not be used in a hamburger. It's completely pointless. 

Anthony Bourdain When I'm back in New York - and this is a terrible thing to complain about - I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I'd like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It's kind of like being in the Mafia. 

Anthony Bourdain You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together. 

Anthony Bourdain I always entertain the notion that I'm wrong, or that I'll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing. 

Anthony Bourdain Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself. 

Anthony Bourdain The Italians and Spanish, the Chinese and Vietnamese see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about - or as a ritual like filling up a car - but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon. 

Anthony Bourdain If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it's the restaurant business. 

Anthony Bourdain I've seen zero evidence of any nation on Earth other than Mexico even remotely having the slightest clue what Mexican food is about or even come close to reproducing it. It is perhaps the most misunderstood country and cuisine on Earth. 

Anthony Bourdain To be treated well in places where you don't expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, that can't be a bad thing. 

Anthony Bourdain I feel that if Jacques Pepin shows you how to make an omelet, the matter is pretty much settled. That's God talking. 

Anthony Bourdain Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be. 

Anthony Bourdain Don't dunk your nigiri in the soy sauce. Don't mix your wasabi in the soy sauce. If the rice is good, complement your sushi chef on the rice. 

Anthony Bourdain I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.  

Anthony Bourdain Big stuff and little: learning how to order breakfast in a country where I don't speak the language and haven't been before - that's really satisfying to me. I like that. 

Anthony Bourdain I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do. 

Anthony Bourdain I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times. 

Anthony Bourdain Every chef I know, their cholesterol is through the roof. And mine's not so great. 

 Anthony Bourdain I'm evangelical on the subject of some chefs and writers. 

Anthony Bourdain The cooking profession, while it's a noble craft and a noble calling, 'cause you're doing something useful - you're feeding people, you're nurturing them, you're providing sustenance - it was never pure. 

Anthony Bourdain Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it - not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.  

Anthony Bourdain I, personally, think there is a really danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture. 

Anthony Bourdain I'm not looking to freak people out - eating rodents or bugs. I don't do that anymore.

Anthony Bourdain I do my very best to avoid shark fin.

Anthony Bourdain You know, from age 17 on, my paycheck was coming from cooking and working in kitchens. 

Anthony Bourdain Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you've got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it's a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way. 

Anthony Bourdain I'm definitely looking forward to the day when I stop working - if I ever stop working. I like the idea of keeling over in my tomato vines in Sardinia or northern Italy.

Anthony Bourdain I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence. 

Anthony Bourdain I think fine dining is dying out everywhere... but I think there will be - and there has to always be - room for at least a small number of really fine, old-school fine-dining restaurants. 

Anthony Bourdain To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things - and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect. 

Anthony Bourdain An employer of mine back in the '80s was kind enough to take me on after a rough patch, and it made a big difference in my life that I knew I was the sort of person who showed up on time. It's a basic tell of character.  

Anthony Bourdain I love New York. I'm a guy for whom a New York accent is a comforting thing.