Anthony Bourdain was unapologetic about his food and his power to speak, a rarity in today’s world of glossy ever-smiling chefs.
“F**k that. F**k that. Is there anything on this planet more political than food? No there is not,” Anthony Bourdain had said. Something most TV chefs would rather deny than accept.
And for that, we food and travel show enthusiasts will always be grateful.
Here was someone who had earned international fame, and did not shy away from deconstructing the power dynamics between the food and the eater, the eater and the eaten. For food has been always, in the word of the great critic Arjun Appadurai, “a highly condensed social fact”. A tiny, tasty clue of our social standing, norms, religion and economy. Food is never apolitical.
For instance, did you enjoy that crème brûlée? Well, Anthony Bourdain would have told you where it originated and how it travelled thousands of miles to your plate, probably in a city at an expensive restaurant with a dash of an ingredient that wasn’t native.
You could afford that dish because of your position in the social hierarchy, even as others enjoyed a sumptuous bowl of chicken foot soup. And that is where Anthony Bourdain stepped in. He would try local cuisines at a time when cooking shows were mostly about chefs cooking in a sanitized kitchen, with clean bloodless ingredients, and not enough experimentation.
While a generation ahead of us was watching Sanjeev Kapoor’s safe dishes, we grew up on a healthy dose of adventurous Bourdain and Lonely Planet.
Here was a man who was unabashedly brash, chomping on food exactly how we were told not to, going to dark alleys for that perfect dimsum.
But did he ever think his language was abrasive? After the rape and sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein came to light, Bourdain introspected. He acknowledged his part in perpetuating the tough bro club.
“I am a guy on TV who sexualises food. Who uses bad language. Who thinks our discomfort, our squeamishness, fear and discomfort around matters sexual is funny. I have done stupid offensive shit. And because I was a guy in a guy’s world who had celebrated a system — I was very proud of the fact that I had endured that, that I found myself in this very old, very, frankly, phallocentric, very oppressive system and I was proud of myself for surviving it,” Bourdain told Slate last year.
Take a hint, Gordon Ramsay.
Bourdain talked about Donald Trump, about politics, about immigrants’ rights, about his privilege, just like he seasoned his meat — honestly.
And that was something viewers were new to. That food could be the medium and message of conflict. That the sinuous beef steak had a history from the farm to the kitchen table. That the vegetables came from another country where the economy was suffering.
Bourdain was unapologetic about his food and his power to speak, a rarity in today’s world of glossy ever-smiling chefs.
Goodnight, rockstar of the culinary world.