Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018
My life as I know it now would not exist without the man who just gave up his. Multiply me by several thousand and you will find the result of the lives that Anthony Bourdain knocked and scored.
Now, we only have to honor him traveling, trying, taking the roads less travelled, searching and telling the stories that hide behind every bite. It's the least we can do… It's the only thing that we can do.
How easy it would be to get over the news of the death of Anthony Bourdain , writer and cook ("I'm the Charles Wepner of chefs," he joked when people addressed him as chef), denying everything and moving on with our lives as if nothing had happened. But it has happened and it is incredible that it has . Without more and in a moment, he has disappeared from our lives.
With his departure, Bourdain has orphaned a entourage of millions of followers and a huge emptiness in hearts so open to loving him, that it is impossible to think that he has finished his time on this earth. In fact, that's what made the New Yorker with a French father so wonderful: his power to capture people's attention and penetrate deep into their convictions.
He was a symbol of worship within the world of gastronomy , earning his position by telling the truth in an era in which absolutely no one saw or sees the need to tell it.
His power lay in to expose absolute truths of the hospitality industry (hence the first essay he published in The New Yorker and later became his first bestseller), and to be the showcase of an infinity of cultures different from yours, located kilometers away, presenting them before the eyes of spectators who, seeing them told by him, were able to identify with them .
And all from respect , from the need for people to understand each other and with an illusion resulting from the kindness of those who opened the doors of their homes, restaurants and his inner world to him.
No one before had been able to have the power that Anthony Bourdain achieved over the years and it is easy to say that he leaves a huge void in the world of gastronomy that absolutely no one is going to be able to fill.
No one, to this day, has had so much influence to mobilize an entire planet to discover, traveling, street markets, dishes never seen before, unknown traditions and routes that he, with the help of friends and experts, made, saw , toured and lived with such intensity.
Think about it, who's going to do it now? It has no competition, it has no successor and woe to those who dare to try it in the near future. Travelers abound, television programs abound and chefs who do both have been seen a dozen times. But no one like him: absolute truth revealer.
His fans are left with no one to admire in a gastronomic panorama that, without him, has much less meaning and emotion.
But the memory is the only thing we have left and what better than commemorate it in his honor , live it as a tribute and never forget the places he discovered for us.
Personally, my travel guide was his word . Each of them was governed by his routes, an explicit revision of ** Parts Unknown **, TheLayover _ Y _ No Reservations .
I ignored churches and monuments to see them “on the way” to a restaurant or bar at his recommendation. I discovered that the hamburgers of In N Out they are the best on this planet, I set foot for the first time ** Haizea in San Sebastián ** because it was there that he ate a succulent brick cod with Arzak.
Anthony Bourdain in Vietnam with Barack Obama
I dragged my husband across San Francisco to eat at a Korean restaurant where he ate with chef Chris Cosentino . I tried kimchi for the first time there. That's how I found out too Swan Oyster Bar , kingdom of seafood that has become my trusted seafood barometer. With him began my obsession with the entrepreneur and writer eddie huang , another defender of diversity with food as a flag, shield and weapon.
It is a great sadness to think that, from now on, I am alone in my adventure. And that from now on, he will no longer be around set the pace for us in a world where everyone seems to have lost it.
Goodbye, Bourdain, we will miss you.
Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018