Anthony Bourdain in Quotes: People, Life, Travel and Food
Anthony Bourdain – A Life in Quotes
Anthony Bourdain, the chef turned author and award-winning television star, died of suicide on June 8, 2018, a few weeks shy of his 62nd birthday.
Bourdain first made his name with an essay published in The New Yorker in 1999 called “Don’t Eat Before Reading This”. He then had a best-selling memoir, “Kitchen Confidential”. Award-winning TV shows focusing on food and culture around the world soon followed.
He was always in search of authenticity and had a real interest in people. Food was the common bond with people in all strata of life.
He was open and unapologetically honest and curious and genuinely interested in people and their lives.
He did an episode of Parts Unknown in Jamaica which focused on the side of Jamaica that tourists never see. My first reaction was that I wished he had given more balanced coverage of the island and its people. But the more I thought about it, I got it.
Bourdain had a passion for food, people, and culture – and he wanted it authentic, and local, and accessible.
He wanted to try foods the way any true-blooded or patriotic local, rich or poor, would try it – the original recipe, the original cooking approach, not what has been refined by culinary school and redesigned for the palettes of tourists.
He loved Jamaican patties. He ate jerk chicken from the roadside drum pan man. He tried cowcod (testicle) soup. He ate brown-stewed fish (with the head on) on the beach at Hellshire. He visited Coronation Market, a place I would most certainly find overwhelming on my own. He ate like a true yardie.
He engaged the local residents who were trying to keep Winnifred Beach, a public beach in Port Antonio, free. He heard them, and through his show, brought attention to the issue. He courageously commented on the touchy subject of how to maintain space for locals in a country needing or desiring to develop tourism to survive.
“The inevitable grind of history seems to indicate that places like this and people like this get ploughed under, pushed aside and paved over. Who owns paradise after all? Who in the end gets to own paradise, use paradise, or even visit it. That’s a question worth paying attention to before there is none left at all.”
Thanks, Anthony for making us look at another side of paradise and for provoking us into thinking about whether or how we can have our cake and eat it too.
Thanks for reminding us to try to understand other people, and to think of the “little people”. Appreciate and value people and their culture regardless of their status in life.
Step out of your comfort zone. Don’t be so afraid. Don’t be a tourist but rather be a traveler. Try new foods. Visit new lands. Explore new cultures. Experience life. Live without regrets. Relax a little. Let your hair down. Enjoy the ride called life.
As a tribute to Anthony, let me share some of his best quotes and words of wisdom about life, travel, and yes, food.
Anthony Bourdain on Life …
“We tend to be overconcerned with safety and with cleanliness in ways that stand between us”
From Money: All the Things You’re Doing Wrong When You Travel, According to Anthony Bourdain
“The sort of frenzied compression of time needed to take the tour, to see the sights, keeps you in a bubble that prevents you from having magic happen to you. Nothing unexpected or wonderful is likely to happen if you have an itinerary in Paris filled with the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.”
From Money: All the Things You’re Doing Wrong When You Travel, According to Anthony Bourdain
“I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.”
“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? … I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”
“The journey is part of the experience – an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.”
“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
From “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”
“That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.”
From “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”
Anthony Bourdain On Youth …
Anthony Bourdain On Travel ….
“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
“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.”
“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.”
From “No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach”
Anthony Bourdain On Jamaica …
“Let’s accept as a premise that this [Jamaica] is as close to paradise as it gets.”
From Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown – Jamaica
Anthony Bourdain On Food …
“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.”
If those quotes didn’t inspire you to travel or to at least try one new thing, I don’t know what else would move you.
As much as Bourdain eagerly ran head first into all that life had to offer, there was something missing. What that was, we will never know.
Neither anxiety, depression, nor suicide discriminates. If you or someone you know has thoughts of suicide, get help today. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) in the USA.
‘Til next time.
Think and dream Jamaica!
Sherry, Darrell, and Darrian
Considering a visit to Jamaica with a group? Contact us today for more information about, Mais Oui Tennis & Spa Villa, our boutique 8-BR ocean view Jamaica villa rental experience in beautiful Discovery Bay, Jamaica. Perfect for multi-generational families and groups, retreats, bachelorette getaways, and intimate destination weddings and vow renewals.
Visit our website: https://MakeItJamaica.com
Give us a call: 866.624.7684 (toll free) or 914.709.0457
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MakeItJamaica
Follow us on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/makeitjamaica
Follow us on Instagram: @MakeItJamaica
Subscribe to our You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/MaisOuiVilla
Sign up for our newsletter and immediately get our Free Discovery Bay Insider Guide to discover what you won’t find in the guidebooks.”
