Loved Bourdain on a cook's tour but the more I saw of him, he seemed so fake and phony, like a politician that has fake accents based on who they're talking to. I saw one episode where he went to sizzler in koreatown with some ko-am chef and talked about how it was a symbol of americana and childhood memories. If he were in NY and went with a white friend he'd probably say sizzler is embodiment of what is wrong with american corporate food culture. Maybe I'm being too sensitive but it felt like he was saying "oh... poor immigrants can go to sizzler this is fat white people food you can try, but my white friends will never step foot in this place." He sounded very condescending.
When he was on CNN promoting his korean episode, the dish he chose to make was "army stew" which originated from koreans dumpster diving american military base after the korean war. I think he chose it just to feed SPAM to anderson cooper and see his reaction. I'm not a big K-Pride guy, but that was insulting. There are people who lived during that era that won't eat it and don't even consider it korean food.
It's like him promoting filipino food by making
en.wikipedia.org
Giving credit to him for "willing to try any food in any culture" is a pretty low bar. If he really did kill himself, what a selfish piece of shit. If there is an episode where he gives some profound insight into humanity, I'll watch it with an open mind. I thought he was like a cool punk rock chef/foodie when I was in my 20s and I think it's all fake now that im in my 40s.
I'm ready for the negs, didn't think I'd be writing a drunk rant on bourdain, lol.
