Informer
The celebrated chef and Emmy Award-winning host of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on his travel inspirations and the dishes worth journeying for
What drives you to travel?
“Primarily, it’s curiosity and the knowledge that I have the best job in the world. I get to go anywhere I want, to decide what we’ll do when we get there and how I’m going to tell the story. I don’t even have to behave on the job. I work with friends. It’s the sort of job I’d be reluctant to pass up.” obsessed by the self-indulgent food culture there. Tangier in Morocco was a literary trip driven by my interest in William S Burroughs and Paul Bowles.”
Anthony Bourdain
Q&a
Which ‘unknown parts’ of the world are you heading to next?
“I’m looking at a whole bunch of locations: the Middle East, Africa, Copenhagen, Iran and Tokyo. I’ll look at Tokyo from a psychological perspective. I’m trying to draw a connection between what’s fantastic about their food and what we find very strange about their pop culture. I find their manga comic books, the popular entertainment, the nightclubs, the pornography fascinating. All of these things are very shocking to people in the West. How does that relate to the food? I don’t know… as yet.”
In conversation with
I can’t think of anything that I’ve had lately that was so far out of my comfort zone that I had a problem eating it.”
Libya must have been particularly challenging.
Have you ever come back home and cooked a dish you’ve eaten on a trip?
How do you pick the destinations you film in?
“My motivation differs with each trip. Either someone’s told me about it in a bar, or I’ve read something and that’s got me interested, or something’s happened there recently, which has compelled me to go. Libya, for instance, was a place I’d wanted to experience because friends told me it had a sense of excitement, which was unusual. And I’ve been fascinated by the history of the Congo for years; it was beautiful, frightening, overwhelming and confusing. Montreal was a place I felt a personal connection to. I was
“I was repeatedly moved by what people said to me, how open they were, how young the people in the militia were and how hopeful they were about their country’s future. The courage of these kids—and many of them were kids—offered me an open question as to whether a change in regime in Libya was really in the interests of the West. I just think
“I never cook like that. I love Thai food but I would never be so arrogant as to try and prepare it at home. It takes a sushi chef years and years to perfect just cooking the rice. It took me my whole career to get French cuisine right. So no, I never try to pick up tips on the road.”
What foodie destinations would you recommend?
I never try to pick up tips on the road. I love Thai food but I would never be so arrogant as to try and cook it at home
it’s extraordinary that so many of these kids returned to their country from overseas to fight Russian tanks with homemade weapons. That kind of optimism is inspiring to me.”
You’ve eaten dishes made from cobra heart, maggots, tree grubs and ants. What has been your most bizarre meal so far?
“After so many years, I don’t even know what that means.
“Definitely Tokyo: visit an izakaya and a yakitoriya there. In