How Anthony Bourdain shone the light on cultures and cuisines with curiosity and empathy

Vidya Balachander, Food writer

Of the many epithets used to describe Anthony Bourdain in the wake of his passing on June 7, at the age of 61, the one with the most amplified resonance is that he was an unusually gifted storyteller. As the charismatic host of CNN's Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, preceded by No Reservations on the Travel Channel, both multiple Emmy Award-winning travel shows, he ventured into places as far-flung to the average viewer as Newfoundland and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In what came to be his signature style, he shone the spotlight on these cultures - and cuisines - with curiosity and empathy, often belied by his wit and will-eatanything swagger. While his early fame as a television personality was informed by his daredevilry - he thought nothing of trying unfamiliar foods such as a cobra¡¦s beating heart or a bull¡¦s penis, and imbibing whatever moonshine he was offered - he came to be viewed as a cultural emissary in his later years.


Born to a French father and an American mother, Bourdain cut his teeth in the restaurant trade as a teenager, working as a dishwasher and a line cook before acquiring formal training as a chef from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978. Even though he scaled the conventional ladder of success, becoming executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles, a French restaurant in Manhattan, in 1998, it was his writing that catapulted him to celebrity status.

In 1999, the New Yorker published Don't Eat Before You Read This, an essay he wrote about the unsavoury behind-the-scenes workings of a professional kitchen. One year later, the essay would result in Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, a controversial, tell-all book that detailed the dysfunctional, debauched and adrenalinedriven environment of the restaurant business. In the book, he also chronicled his struggle with heroin and substance abuse with candour and honesty.

A global bestseller, the book propelled Bourdain's career away from the kitchen and firmly into the public eye. As the popularity of his travel shows proved, Bourdain was resolutely at ease in front of the camera. His informal style - which served as a warm invitation for viewers to join him on his discoveries - transformed travel from being seen as a privilege of the wealthy to a transformative experience that everyone had a right to be curious about.

While No Reservations, which ran from 2005 to 2012, established Bourdain as a brash gourmand with an adventurous palate, CNN's Parts Unknown gave him the licence to expand his canvas beyond food to politics, conflict, religious censorship and other issues that had a bearing on the lives of the people and the places he visited. By travelling to destinations such as Beirut, the West Bank and Gaza, which have been irrevocably shaped by conflict, he afforded them the opportunity to cast the narrative in a different light.

In other instances, such as his famous interaction with former US president Barack Obama at a bia hoi (or casual beer stall) in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2016, he showcased his consummate ease at being a diplomat of sorts for foreign cultures, using noodles and beer as his chosen tools. In 2017, Bourdain revisited Sri Lanka for an episode of Parts Unknown, almost a decade after his first visit, when the country was still in the throes of civil war.

As a travel writer who has been based in Sri Lanka for a few years, I had the opportunity to be a consultant on his show, and to later interview him on a windswept, premonsoon afternoon at the historic Galle Face Hotel. As we settled down to chat after a firm handshake, I asked him candidly whether he ever felt guilty of cultural appropriation. This was a challenging question to ask of a global icon, but he answered them with unwavering self-awareness.

"We think about it a lot," he said. All of us understand that there is an exploitative aspect to what we do. There are often consequences to our having put a place, a cuisine or a culture on TV. We understand that and try like doctors to do no harm. But there aren't a lot of people who are looking at Congo and Sri Lanka. I will admit to taking some satisfaction from that, with the full knowledge that I am appropriating. I will live with that among my many other crimes."