50 Top and Best of Anthony Bourdain Quotes You Must Know
Anthony Michael Bourdain was born on June 25, 1956, in New York City. He was an American celebrity, author, chef and travel documentarian who starred in various programs that focused on exploring international culture, cuisine and the human condition. Bourdain is widely known for his bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.
Anthony Bourdain was an American treasure. Although he is popularly known for his television presentations and culinary writings, and books on food and travel, he also wrote fiction and nonfiction books. His insatiable drive for the weird, unusual and the crazy inspired many people to step out of their own comfort zones.
On June 8, 2018, Bourdain committed suicide in France. May his words continue to ignite, inspire and challenge us to step into the unknown.
Read our post on best of Alan Watts quotes.
The List of Best Quotes by Anthony Bourdain
1.) “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.”
2.) “You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.”
3.) Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.”
4.) “To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.”
5.) “Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyone… Bad food is fake food… food that shows fear and lack of confidence in people’s ability to discern or to make decisions about their lives.”
6.) “Your body is not a temple. It’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
7.) “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 McDonald’s? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head?”
8.) “Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.”
9.) “In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family.”
10.) “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. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”
11.) “I travel around the world, eat a lot of s—, and basically do whatever the f— I want.”
12.) The Italians and Spanish, the Chinese and Vietnamese see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about – or as a ritual like filling up a car – but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon.
13.) Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.
14.) “I’d put aside my psychotic rage, after many years being awful to line cooks, abusive to waiters, bullying to dishwashers. It’s terrible — and counter-productive — to make people feel like idiots for working hard for you.”
15.) “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
16.)I don’t have much patience for people who are self-conscious about the act of eating, and it irritates me when someone denies themselves the pleasure of a bloody hunk of steak or a pungent French cheese because of some outdated nonsense about what’s appropriate or attractive.
17.) “To be treated well in places where you don’t expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, that can’t be a bad thing.”
18.) “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you.”
19.) Anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‘Is it good? Does it give pleasure?
20.) “I don’t have to agree with you to like you or respect you.”
21.)“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.”
22.) “The way you make an omelet reveals your character.”
23.) “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”
24.) “Assume the worst. About everybody. But don’t let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious, and corrupt asshole shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them, or finding them entertaining.”
25.) “What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?”
26.) “It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.”
27.) “Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.”
28.) “Basic cooking skills are a virtue… the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill. [It’s] as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s own a–, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money.”
29.) “Luck is not a business model.”
30.)“When dealing with complex transportation issues, the best thing to do is pull up with a cold beer and let somebody else figure it out.”
31.) “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.”
32.) “Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom…is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”
33.)“I, personally, think there is a real danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture.”
34.) “I am not afraid to look like an idiot.”
35.)“Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, and moribund.”
36.) “Without new ideas success can become stale.”
37.) “Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever.”
38.) “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.”
39.) “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.”
40.) “I always entertain the notion that I’m wrong, or that I’ll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.”
41.) ““There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.”
42.) “People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice… they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.”
43.) I’ve long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we’re talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime ‘associates,’ food, for me, has always been an adventure”
44.) “Sometimes the greatest meals on vacations are the ones you find when Plan A falls through.”
45.)“I am not a fan of people who abuse service staff. In fact, I find it intolerable. It’s an unpardonable sin as far as I’m concerned, taking out personal business or some other kind of dissatisfaction on a waiter or busboy.”
46.) “For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we’ve all had to become disappears, when we are confronted with something as simple as a plate of food.”
47.) “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
48.) “An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.”
49.) “It’s been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
50.) “Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbones and Pernod.”
Conclusion
Here is the list of the best quotes from Anthony Bourdain. I have covered most of the quotes in the best way possible. If you have more suggestions, feel free to contact us and we will definitely prioritise your suggestion.
Reference: EverydayPowerBlog