Anthony Bourdain Is The Reason You Have Fancy Ramen

Today we all sadly learned that celebrated chef, travel host, and icon Anthony Bourdain passed away this morning. For me, Anthony Bourdain was everything the culinary industry wished food hosts were. He wasn’t a friendly face there to tell you that everything was easy and fun. He was a maverick, redefining what cooking content should really be about. Never settling for the next trend, the next hot restaurant, the next whatever, he wasn’t afraid to critique and change the rules as he went along.

Bourdain was much more than just another food host handing us the easy solution or the thirty- minute version. He didn’t sugar coat things — he straight up said cooking is hard, good cooking is even harder, and that you will make mistakes. Again and again throughout his career, Bourdain acknowledged that mistakes are the true food of culinary learning, and that confidently stepping up to every challenge is what separates the good cooks from the bad eggs. In his cookbook Appetites he writes about the most common cooking mistakes: His steak section was particularly bittersweet to read after I experienced a total disaster of a reverse-seared rib eye that ended up looking like a gray, chalky brick. But, following his advice, I went back and my second steak came out succulent, tender, and perfectly medium rare.

Unlike most American celebrity chefs, he didn’t Columbus his way into other cultural traditions; he never approached another culture’s food as something he himself discovered. He would listen intently to everyone, from Vietnamese grandmas to the lead singer of System of a Down explaining how Armenian food changed during the diaspora. He used his platform to share the stage and introduce amazing cuisines and chefs around the world to an otherwise unaware American audience. He never treated another culture’s food like it was “weird” or “gross”; he celebrated different cuisines and encouraged his audience to try them and learn to make them. Without Anthony Bourdain, many of us wouldn’t even know about pho, xiao long bao, kimchi, and many other delicacies that we can now just pick up at Trader Joe’s.

And let’s be real: Our Instagram feeds would look so boring and sad if Anthony Bourdain hadn’t stirred up the cultural food scene. When he was getting started as a line cook, the American restaurant industry was still convinced that French food was the height of culinary excellence, followed by maybe Italian, or, like, steaks. Not even that long ago, the culinary world used to be such a narrow-minded industry, and Bourdain challenged it and helped change it throughout his career. Without Bourdain, we would not have experienced this incredible globalization of foods and recipes. He inspired an entire generation of cooks to think outside the box, while still utilizing classic American grandma cooking tips.

For many of us, both those who work at So Yummy and those who follow along at home, cooking is so much more than a means to an end. Cooking is community, cooking is science, cooking is an adventure. Cooking, for me, is therapy. It’s something that grounds me and gives me a sense of control in a world where it increasingly feels like I don’t have that. For many of Bourdain’s followers, the recipes he shared and the lessons he taught us felt like he was taking us with him on one of his next adventures, and that even in the most intense, upsetting situations, one can still find good food and good people. He was always hungry for more, and his insatiable appetite for food, culture, and travel, will always be respected.

Rest in Peace and Power, Anthony, and thank you for showing us a whole new world of food.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).