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Anthony Bourdain Quotes

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Anthony Bourdain, born on June 25, 1956, was an American chef, writer, and television personality. Known for his unique culinary style and exploration of global cuisine, he hosted popular shows such as 'No Reservations' and 'Parts Unknown'.

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Famous Anthony Bourdain Quotes

“Who's cooking your food anyway? What strange beasts lurk behind the kitchen doors? You see the chef: he's the guy without the hat, with the clipboard under his arm, maybe his name stitched in Tuscan blue on his starched white chef's coat next to those cotton Chinese buttons. But who's actually cooking your food? Are they young, ambitious culinary school grads, putting in their time on the line until they get their shot at the Big Job? Probably not. If the chef is anything like me, the cooks are a dysfunctional, mercenary lot, fringe-dwellers motivated by money, the peculiar lifestyle of cooking and grim pride. They're probably not even American.”

Food Cooking Cooks Kitchen Chef Food Writing

Book:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“This book is about street-level cooking and its practitioners. Line cooks are the heroes.”

Food Cooking Cooks Kitchen Chef

Book:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“When I cook, I generally stick with what I know, what I'm comfortable with, and what I feel I've paid my dues learning, and am good at.”

Knows Feels Comfortable Paid Sticks Dues Cooks

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“When my father passed, I was still an unsuccessful cook with a drug problem. I was in my mid-thirties, standing behind an oyster bar, cracking clams for a living when he died. So, he never saw me complete a book or achieve anything of note. I would have liked to have shared this with him.”

Stills Book Problem Father Behinds Saws Achieve Drug Standing Died Notes Bars Cooks Oysters Unsuccessful Clams

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“I'm not impressed by any cooks who can brag about a filet mignon. A guy who can take the neck of a shank or can use tripe to make into something delicious is really interesting to me; that's impressive.”

Use Guy Interesting Cooks Necks Impressed Delicious Impressive Really Interesting Brag Not Impressed Shank Tripe Filet Mignon

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“My tastes in what I eat at home would be very familiar to most people who cook for families. I just organize those things a little bit differently.”

People Littles Home Would Be Bits Taste Little Bit Familiar Cooks Organize

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“If you go to chefs all across America and ask them, 'What's your biggest problem right now?,' It is finding people to cook in their restaurants. They're having an enormous, countrywide problem here staffing their operations.”

People Ifs Problem America Asks Right Now Findings Enormous Cooks Operations Restaurants Chef Staffing

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“I've been cooking for a nine-year-old and her friends for the better part of seven or eight years. It's how I cook today, it's what makes me happy. I tend to overcompensate for my long absences when I'm home by cooking and it's therapeutic to me - it's how I express love for my daughter. It felt good to do.”

Years Long Home Today Felt Daughter Cooking Seven Eight Absence Nine Cooks My Daughter Make Me Happy Therapeutic Nine Years

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“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.”

People Trying Made Shows Ability Decision Pride Please Cooks Fake Indifferent Chef No Love Lack Of Confidence Bad Food Trying To Please Everyone

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“I'm a decent cook; I'm a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period.”

Careers Periods My Friends Cooks Decent Chef

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“I’ve been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do A Cook’s Tour, I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn’t already.”

Book Known Written Expected Cooks Fortunate Quantity Obnoxious

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“'Kitchen Confidential' wasn't a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.”

States Moving Lines New York Expectations Areas West Entertainment Cooks Kitchen Restaurants Philadelphia Kitchen Confidential Confidential

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“Few things are more beautiful to me than a bunch of thuggish, heavily tattooed line cooks moving around each other like ballerinas on a busy Saturday night. Seeing two guys who'd just as soon cut each other's throats in their off hours moving in unison with grace and ease can be as uplifting as any chemical stimulant or organized religion.”

“The mishandling of food and equipment with panache was always admired; to some extent, this remains true to this day. Butchers still slap down prime cuts with just a little more force and noise than necessary. Line cooks can't help putting a little English on outgoing plates, spinning them into the pass-through with reverse motion so they curl back just short of the edge. Oven doors in most kitchens have to be constantly tightened because of repeatedly being kicked closed by clog-shod feet. And all of us dearly love to play with knives.”

Source: Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw

“I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.”

Writing Wanted Jobs Language Secret Summer Cooks Owners Chef Fries Kitchen Confidential French Fries

Author:Anthony Bourdain

“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.”

Source: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

“Learn how to cook a (effing) omelet. I mean, what nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast? You look good doing it, and it's a nice thing to do for somebody you just had sex with.”

Looks Mean Sex Nice Cooks Things To Do Breakfast Nice Things Omelets

Author:Anthony Bourdain