Anthony Bourdain: gone and missed

We Lost a Truthful Voice on Food

Dave Chappelle once captured the brutal contradiction at the center of Anthony Bourdain’s death: here was a man with what looked like the greatest job in show business, flying around the world, eating unforgettable meals with unforgettable people — and still he was gone.

I am still pissed-off at Anthony Bourdain. He has deprived us of his truthful perspective on an eternally important subject: food. I feel as if a friend and ally, someone on my side of the food / fuel equation, left the field when he was at the top of his game and when we needed him the most. He had one hell of a soapbox. On our behalf, Bourdain railed against the evildoers: the corporate food industry, the joyless scolds, the safety-at-any-cost bureaucrats and their allies in governmental paperwork kingdoms.

We lost that powerful pen. Bourdain saw the future. And that future was run by clerks, legislators, inspectors and Nanny State overseers telling us why we could not eat artisanal cheese, drink raw milk or take pleasure in risk, while looking the other way as artificial “foods” invaded the shelves and the food court. Bourdain told it true.

That powerful voice stilled itself. No one could state it better. At his writing best, he hurled thunderbolts.

Bourdain Was a Chef Before He Was a Star

Bourdain was a Culinary Institute of America graduate, the Harvard of American cook schools. For years he fought heroin and other drugs and had a resultant checkered, start-stop career. He eventually straightened out, got help from Big Foot, and had a long tenure as a high-level chef ramrodding an elite New York City bistro, Les Halles. Bourdain had decades in the cooking trenches. He cooked at a level that garnered respect from his betters, the superstar Michelin-starred chefs.

Bourdain was a real writer. He wrote fictional crime novels and had real writing chops. When he turned his attention toward food, chefs, cooks and the restaurant subculture, he wrote with unrivaled depth of perspective. He was no effete food critic offering up cutesy turns of phrase. His years in the pits provided him with a bullshit meter that was invariably accurate. He made his bones with the book Kitchen Confidential.

Bourdain the Writer

Kitchen Confidential was a high-level insider sharing the alternate-universe realities of big-league cooking. A Cook’s Tour was a travelogue, the precursor to the cable TV show of the same name. The Nasty Bits and Medium Raw are series of essays, ruminations on related topics, plus chef and restaurant profiles. He introduced us to a cavalcade of incredible chefs on a worldwide basis.

Tony was, along with the late Jim Harrison, the most insightful food writer on the face of the planet. His writing style was chock full of fire and brimstone, amplified by his deep knowledge of the subject. He had a heavy Hunter Thompson influence.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky once noted, “We all crawled out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat.’” His point was that Tolstoy, Turgenev, Lermontov and the great Russian writers that followed Gogol were influenced by the style, verve and realism of Nikolai Gogol’s short story, The Overcoat. So too, young writers like Bourdain, and myself, were liberated by the outrageousness of Thompson’s Gonzo style. Hunter was the first rock-and-roll writer. Thompson embraced the rock-star lifestyle and frittered away his talent in a haze of dope and Wild Turkey. He died bitter and burned out.

Bourdain was not a burnout. He seemed at the top of his game. He was a superstar of the culinary world and did so without selling out. He attained celebrity on his terms.

The Television Traveler Who Did Not Sell Out

Bourdain broke from the book world into the TV world with his A Cook’s Tour cable show. He later attained superstardom with No Reservations and then Parts Unknown. I was a fanboy. I salivated as he ate beef ribs at Mueller’s BBQ in Austin, or when he would tear into a chunk of perfectly roasted whole pig in the Philippines. I moaned watching him moan as he took his first bite of roast goose in Peking and declared it the greatest single bite of fowl he had ever eaten.

Bourdain introduced us to Gordon Ramsay, who at the time was still behind the stove in his first restaurant. Ramsay remarked when feeding him, “My God! He eats like a horse! Like three people!” Only when it’s sublime. Tony introduced us to other culinary gods: Fergus Henderson, Marco Pierre White, Thomas Keller, Ferran Adrià and Eric Ripert.

Demi-Gods Recognize Gods

I felt kinship with him. Bourdain was not a culinary god; he was a demi-god, a lesser god. His demi-god status allowed him access to the gods, and he was given respect by the gods. In my world, strength and athletics, I too was a demi-god, a lesser — but I too had status enough to be given access to the athletic gods. Tony wrote about elite chefs and food preparation while I wrote about elite strength athletes and barbell training. I had done my 27 years in the trenches twice over, actually.

Anthony Bourdain’s TV persona was a tad exaggerated. He played the New York hard-ass role that got snide at times. Factually, he was a more complicated man than the persona. He had big appetites that got him in trouble. Relatively speaking, he curbed his deadlier habits in his later years, but this is not to say he stopped smoking and drinking. I loved the scale of his appetite, even when the excess was troubling.

On one episode of No Reservations, he famously fell out of a chair at a chic winery, mid-conversation, unconscious before he hit the floor. “I went to brush something off my cheek,” he later said. “It was the floor.” Keep filming.

Kitchen Skills Are Not Optional

Bourdain made statements that backed up my own contention that there is zero excuse for not having rudimentary kitchen skills. All self-respecting men should be able to roast a perfect whole chicken, grill or pan-fry a perfect burger, prepare salmon, steam or sauté shrimp, and make an omelet. Can you make a salad, cook asparagus, deal with green beans, dice onions, prepare rice and potatoes with ease, variety and consistency? Food shopping is an art. Obtaining quality proteins and produce makes creating excellent dishes and meals easier and more potent.

As I have pointed out in the past, elite chefs and elite athletes seek the same quality foodstuffs for entirely different reasons. Chefs seek the freshest proteins and produce for the potency of flavor. Athletes seek the freshest proteins and produce for maximum nutritional potency. Potency and flavor are two sides of the same coin. The most flavorful ingredients are usually the most potent. Guys like Bourdain show kitchen neophytes how to succeed.

For more on that chef-and-athlete overlap, see What Elite Chefs Can Teach Athletes About Nutrition.

The Duck Breast Lesson

In another episode, Tony somehow ended up duck hunting with a bunch of Arkansas duck hunters. These men had gunned down mallards for decades yet were mystified when Bourdain patiently sautéed a giant, fresh duck breast in bacon grease. He presented them with a crispy-skinned, medium-rare chunk of duck that changed those men’s lives from that point forward. They were incredulous at the deliciousness of the duck and the simplicity of the preparation. The mortals thanked the demi-god profusely as he headed back to his luxury condo on the Upper West Side.

Vatel, Bourdain, and the Empty Station

I found it sadly ironic that, upon rereading The Nasty Bits, I came across Bourdain’s reference to the elite French chef François Vatel, who in 1671 took his own life after a critical fish delivery came late for a banquet for the King of France. In his essay “Viva Mexico!” Tony praised the resilient nature of his Mexican coworkers. They would not have folded if the fish were late. They would have improvised and made it happen.

Bourdain’s point, harshly stated, was that the real professional covers the station, soldiers on and gets the food out. Manuel would not have wailed and collapsed over a late fish delivery. He would have shrugged, adjusted and kept cooking.

No one has shown up to cover Anthony Bourdain’s station. It might be a while before someone has the gravitas and chops to fill those shoes.

Safety Note on Suicide, Addiction, and Food Talk

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW tribute to Anthony Bourdain. It is not mental-health, addiction, nutrition, food-safety, or medical advice.

If this topic feels close to home, or if you or someone you know is in emotional distress or crisis in the United States, call or text 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Outside the United States, contact local emergency services or a local crisis-support line.

Bourdain’s defense of pleasure, risk, real food and artisanal food should not be read as a recommendation to ignore food-safety guidance. Raw milk, unpasteurized dairy, undercooked foods, alcohol, drug use, and extreme eating all carry real risks depending on the person, source, preparation, and circumstance.

Equipment Notes for Food, Fuel, and Training

This is not a buyer guide. Still, Bourdain’s lesson for serious athletes is simple: real food matters more when real training creates a real demand. The training side of that equation can be built with basic tools such as dumbbells, kettlebells, indoor rowing machines, and exercise bikes.

A simple training setup might include IRON COMPANY premium powder-coated kettlebells, an IRON COMPANY urethane barbell set, IRON COMPANY urethane dumbbells, a Body-Solid Endurance FB300B fan bike, or a Spirit Fitness CRW800 commercial rower, when those tools match the lifter, room, budget, and training goal.

The equipment does not create the food lesson. The athlete earns the appetite. The kitchen skills, ingredients, and discipline turn that appetite into fuel.

Related Food and Nutrition Reading

For Marty Gallagher’s broader food-policy critique, read The Food Taliban: Nutrition and Diet Rules. For a deeper dive into chef-level food quality and athletic nutrition, read What Elite Chefs Can Teach Athletes About Nutrition.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.