Anthony Bourdain’s Memorable Quotes about Food

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. – Anthony Bourdain

Food is the perfect expression of love, and cooking is the ultimate act of nurturing. – Anthony Bourdain

I have 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. – Anthony Bourdain

Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. – Anthony Bourdain

I think food, culture, people and landscape are all absolutely inseparable. – Anthony Bourdain

Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life. – Anthony Bourdain

If you’re a good food writer, it doesn’t matter where you go what you eat, the interesting things are the people you meet along the way. – Anthony Bourdain

Your body is not a temple; it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. – Anthony Bourdain

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. – Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain’s Memorable Quotes about Food part 2

It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience. – Anthony Bourdain

Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman – not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen – though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying. – Anthony Bourdain

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food. – Anthony Bourdain

If you have the opportunity to eat with somebody or talk to somebody who does it for a living, that’s priceless. – 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. – Anthony Bourdain

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. – Anthony Bourdain

Food may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start. – Anthony Bourdain

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. – Anthony Bourdain

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. – Anthony Bourdain

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? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once. – Anthony Bourdain

There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass Irish pub. – Anthony Bourdain

I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional. – Anthony Bourdain

He’s seen the movie Titanic one too many times. People who think their food is ready the moment the timer dings often have problems baking. – Anthony Bourdain

There is simply something wrong with people who need to go out in public all the time. – Anthony Bourdain

Even when filming, I find time to sit down and enjoy a meal with my crew. – Anthony Bourdain

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food. – Anthony Bourdain

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. – Anthony Bourdain

Age and treachery will triumph over youth and skill every time – if that old person is me. – Anthony Bourdain

What are our expectations? If we are satisfied with being spoon-fed success, we’ll starve in mediocrity. – Anthony Bourdain

I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas – fat, drugged, and completely out of it. – Anthony Bourdain

The skill involved in turning a home into a comfortable, welcoming B&B is similar to successfully creating an intimate and warm dining experience: It all comes down to the art of hospitality. – Anthony Bourdain

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. – Anthony Bourdain

I’ve seen zero evidence of any nation on Earth other than Mexico even remotely having the slightest clue what Mexican food is about or even come close to reproducing it. It is perhaps the most misunderstood country and cuisine on Earth. – Anthony Bourdain

The meal isn’t over when I’m full, the meal is over when I hate myself. – Anthony Bourdain

I always entertain. I love department stores. – Anthony Bourdain

Chefs don’t do brunch. – Anthony Bourdain

I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times. – Anthony Bourdain

I travel around the world, eat a lot and basically immerse myself in whatever culture I happen to be in. – Anthony Bourdain

Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever. – Anthony Bourdain

Luck is not a business model. – Anthony Bourdain

Today, food is about status and money — it’s no longer instinctual. – Anthony Bourdain

It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience. – Anthony Bourdain

I judge a restaurant by the bread and by the coffee. – Anthony Bourdain

I always entertain. I love department stores. – Anthony Bourdain

I travel around the world, eat a lot and basically immerse myself in whatever culture I happen to be in. – Anthony Bourdain

I don’t have to agree with you to like you or respect you. – Anthony Bourdain