Fare thee well, Anthony Bourdain
The first time I ever encountered Anthony Bourdain, I had stumbled upon his famous Rome episode of the No Reservations series. Sporting a pair of vintage Italian sunglasses and wandering pensively through a medley of nondescript neighborhoods in the Eternal City, Bourdain was on a journey that felt both familiar and strange to me, and it sucked me in. I knew that he was a chef and that his show was supposed to be about food, but as the episode unfolded, his depth of commentary and mastery of allegory demonstrated how different this show really was.
The video had been shot in black and white, meant to emulate the mid-century Italian films that Bourdain had admired in his youth. He was known to be influenced by works like Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, an existential masterpiece set in the postwar years when much of Europe, idle and adrift, was trying to regain its sense of identity and purpose.
Set far from the glamor of the Spanish Steps or the enchantment of the Colosseum, La Dolce Vita chronicles the boredom, tension and despair of everyday characters on a seemingly futile quest for meaning in their lives. Along the way, they must repeatedly choose between living a happy life, alienated from their true selves, or living an authentic life, alienated from the world. It is intellectually stimulating, emotionally draining and disturbingly unforgettable. If Bourdain had ever been looking for inspiration, he could have done far worse.
To me, his existentialist leanings were obvious after watching the show for a short while. He conspicuously avoided the touristy areas and focused instead on the neighborhoods where real people lived and spent their time. There was no pretense about the food or drink featured on screen. In fact, lack of pretense seemed to be the primary objective. He wanted his experiences to be real and stand as a testament to the human connections he made on his journeys. Bourdain implicitly argued that food is culture, and culture is people; therefore, food and people are inextricably linked. True to his unspoken word, not once did he sit down and enjoy a meal in solitude, but rather he basked in every opportunity to connect with others. In Tony’s world, epicurean aspirations devoid of conversation and camaraderie were a logical fallacy.
I could never help but think that Bourdain’s soul was constantly walking a tightrope. A true existentialist would be grappling with the uncertainty of one’s purpose in life, the cognitive and emotional dissonance in staying true to that purpose, and the angst stemming from the mere possibility that there’s really no meaning at all. As documented by his myriad television episodes, his sojourns across time and space seemed reminiscent of a search for self, and in even the most obscure and seemingly insignificant of places, Bourdain found joy and pain, beauty and malevolence.
An existentialist bears the burden of seeking truth and reconciling the world to it, even if, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. In an unpredictable world sowed with division and misunderstanding, his was a transcendental voice, carried with Bohemian flair and grounded by measured subtlety. Billed as a travel host for a general audience, Bourdain surprised me with a paradoxically visceral grace: his delivery was precise, his musings erudite and introspective, his words honest, raw and irreverent.
Amidst the hedonistic undertones of wining and dining across the globe, I sensed the weight of his thoughts, the strength of his convictions, and the authenticity of his spirit in every bite of food and every exchange of laughter. I can almost picture him sharing fish and figs with Plato, arguing about the conflict between mind and flesh, toasting him with one hand while gesturing obscenely with the other. Indeed, Bourdain would argue that not only are food and people inextricably linked, but so are the mind and the senses.
For evidence of such a credo, look to the treatise that Bourdain’s body of documentary work comprises. Herein you’ll find real food, shared by real people, in real places, speaking about real life in the most surreal of ways — surreal because of how readily we are fascinated by the sensory stimuli and empathetic to the human condition before us — at once both enraptured by its exoticism and haunted by its familiarity.
Tony’s work wasn’t just about food or people, mind or flesh, meaning or absurdity. It was about the honest endeavor of unifying all these elements into a universal message of solidarity and wonder that any of us can experience whenever we open our mouths — whether to taste a new food or greet a new friend.
It’s with great sadness that we can no longer continue on this journey with him, but as members of the global village, Anthony Bourdain taught us that we can voyage on together. Whether it’s a quixotic stroll down the Via Veneto, a spontaneous moment in the twilight of a draining day, or anywhere on the spectrum in between, his spirit is still pushing us to seek a full and rewarding life, stopping for whatever quiet or boisterous contemplation seems appropriate at each moment along the way.
It’s a whisper, but it’s there: “To thine own self be true. Now go have a @#$!^&* good time figuring out what that means to you.”
