Why Anthony Bourdain Meant So Much to Me... and Probably You!

Just over 5 years ago my life changed. It is April 2013 and I am living in Gwangju , South Korea and I have barely watched any English language TV in nearly 2 years. My diet had been CNN news reports, mostly about stuff that I had no interest in. The one show that I actually made an effort to follow was Anderson Cooper 360. Suddenly, one day my attention was peaked by an advertising break during 360. It was nothing special, it was just some old dude walking around in the middle of nowhere talking about a forgotten toothbrush. But it made my mind race. I started to think that something such as a travel show might be coming my way. I like travel shows.

A week later I remember asking my friend Jesse Laudino about this dude. I'd kinda heard of the name Anthony Bourdain but didn't really know anything about him. Jesse suggested that it might be worth watching. And watch we did.

The first episode was like no other travel show I had seen before. It was in Myanmar for God's sake, who made travel shows from there? Who else gave frank insights into national histories and sensitive but accurate descriptions of domestic issues in this way. This man was clearly going to forgotten parts of the world, talking to people that we have never thought about while drinking beer and gorging on some damn seductive food.  How could I not love this cocktail of beautiful scenery, amazing tales, beer and pig meat. Oh man... lots of pig meat.

Tuning into Bourdain weekly for 8 more weeks had a profound impact upon me. I'm serious.

Bourdain rocked my world in 3 ways. Firstly, he changed the way I eat. Secondly, he helped me build some of the best friendships a man could ever have. Thirdly, he definitely changed the way I travel.

People who know me these days will see me as somebody who will eat anything. Last night's dinner was dog. Get over it! 10 years ago, I would never have even thought to try dog. In fact, when I first came to Korea, I could barely stand Kimchi. I was not the biggest fan of Korean food. This was because my mind was simply closed. If I didn't know the core ingredients, it was out. Greens, no chance. Picked cabbage? Why would you eat that shit. Cook your own food at a table? What am I paying for? Soups were for the sick and elderly during the winter.

This all changed as I first watched Parts Unknown and then delved into Bourdain's old No Reservations episodes. One episode stuck with me. From Namibia of all places. Bourdain was served a pooshoot freshly plucked from a living wild boar, NOT CLEANED and then cooked on hot coals. Bourdain clearly had reservations! But he pointed out that if somebody gives you their own food and takes the time to prepare it, no matter what it is, you should try it, say thank you, smile and tell them that it is delicious. Right now, there has never been a statement that I subscribe to more wholeheartedly.

This change in mindset has seen me experience some genuinely magnificent flavors around the world. Since then, I've enjoyed crickets as a beer snack. I actually like dog soup. I've drank coffee made from mongoose poop. I never let a balut fetus guy pass me by in South Asia. I have even eaten cat! (Get over that too.) I have managed to appreciate eating intestines, drinking blood and even got handy at cooking animal heads.

The pooping mongoose

There's been some bad stories too. Frog soju, drank in Korea for energy, is disgusting. Fish urine soup is as bad as it sounds. And plenty of sea creatures have sent me running to the bathroom.

The new culinary adventures have also come to my kitchen. When confronted with a refrigerator of left over ingredients, I no longer seek the nearest fast food establishment. I establish the main protein, and look at where a Bourdain episode was recently based. Then, simply go to the google and search. Some of the results have been very successful including, but not limited to: Sudado de Pollo (Colombia + Chicken), Cuban Mojo Pork Tacos (You can guess), Poulet Yassa (Chicken + Senegal), Moqueca (Fish+Brazil), Khoresh (Beef+Iran)... You get the picture. This little game, made me a better cook, it brightened many boring evenings and allowed me to entertain many guests. It's actually fun trying to travel the world with the scraps in your refrigerator.

Now lets talk about the travel. I was well traveled. Sort of. I had set foot in many countries. I had drank many different brands of domestic beers in different bars around the globe. I had even taken a random trip to South Korea without doing a shred of research. But it was all with mates in capital cities. It was all first world.

Let's get it straight, I didn't evolve into a vegan hippie. But I took a lot more risks. I sought to see more on my travels. I sought to actually get to know the countries I went to. I ate and drank as much like a local as I could. Even when I went to cities, I would try to seek out the real local spots, I would try to find places that were perhaps "Parts Unknown."

My first trip after joining the cult of Bourdain, was to Malaysia with the man that helped me discover him, Jesse Laudino and a man simply known as "Gavin" or Prof Trevor Groce. While we weren't fully in our groove yet as disciples of Bourdain, we did watch the fuck out of his trips to Malaysia and try to hunt down the food that was featured. We had a great time, we really did. But I wasn't quite satisfied enough. We hadn't delved deep enough. We had been based in Kuala Lumpuur which is a fine city, but we hadn't gone to the spiritual home of Malaysian food, Padang.

Sadly, Jesse left Korea. He had come to be my Eric Rippert. We had done so many of these international google leftover challenges together. I was lost. We had started to get into a great travel groove together. We had also traveled to Vietnam and the Philippines together. We had both seen THE SHOW too. That was a Bourdain inspired adventure of the highest order. The loss of Jesse would be great. We had developed a deep friendship inspired by Bourdain.

The Tokyo Robot Show - CHECK IT OUT!!!

Replacing Jesse was never going to be easy. It would take a lot of luck to get anybody that I could have nearly as much fun. But fortune smiled at me and gave me 2 replacements. Cody Jarrett and Stephanie Sweeney. A married couple that I would nickname the Swearetts.  Over time I would develop a different but just as meaningful friendship with Cody and Stephanie. We bonded over a hunt for an Uzbek restaurant. You could quickly tell that they were my kind of people. We would cook random food from around the world. We would buy random ingredients from traditional markets and entertain guests with bizarre foods. We had pig head parties and they were damn good! We would also travel together.

I would return to Malaysia to set that straight. This time with different travel buddies. Cody and Stephanie Swearetts and Erica Foffenburger. Oh and a guy called Dan, but we don't need to discuss him. This time there would be no missing Padang. The self styled food capital of Asia. It does not disappoint. Any night market or hawker stand serves great food. The Nasi Lemak is like crack. No other food will satisfy half as much. A flavor profile that is unmatched. You've got spice, you've got saltiness, you've got sour and even some sweet. You have hot and cold. You get harder and softer textures. You get into food heaven.

Nasi Lemak

Finally, it was my time to leave Korea or so I thought. I somehow found myself moving to Jakarta, Indonesia. Honestly, I don't know what I was doing. The city is ugly to put it nicely. It is a difficult and often stressful place to live. It floods. It is ridden with open sewers and clouds of blood-sucking mosquitoes. My home didn't have hot water but my intestines were happy to produce plenty of brown water. I was not happy. I was as unhappy as I can ever remember myself being. One person got me through my time there, my housemate Ian Stanley. Ian is another disciple of Bourdain. While both of us really hated Jakarta with a passion, we sought comfort in seeking traditional foods, going to interesting places and following in Anthony Bourdain's footsteps. We even sought how to eat a monkey together on my first weekend in Jakarta. Again, you could tell that he was my kind of guy.

One of the chinks of light was planning our trips out of Jakarta. There was plenty of Bourdain watching to do in order to plan these trips. This led to us having the best damn pork of our lives (Ian hasn't actually done this yet, but might be doing so at the time of writing) at Madam Ibu Oka in Ubud, Bali. You actually hear the pig squeal as you wait for your order. But the life was not taken in vain. It is given a crispy, flavorful, juicy send off to my stomach as it is pit roasted with coconut oil. We went to small towns and sampled local delicacies, we drank all kinds of strange alcohols (Damn you Arrak! Oh and how could we forget Vodka Joss???), and made lots of new friends along the way.

There simply isn't enough time for me to write a blog detailing every Bourdain adventure that I've had. There are many more friends that I have had the pleasure of meeting on these adventures and I am a better person for meeting each and every one of them.

As time went by, I wouldn't just try to follow Bourdain, I would try to beat him. I would want to be the first person that I knew to have gone to a certain place or to have eaten a certain food. It's a thrill. There's a sense of achievement. Some really amazing travelling memories followed. I have stayed in family Gers in Mongolia. I have got drunk on fermented camel milk or Chal, in Kazakhstan. I have eaten cats in Vietnam (you'll have to get over that too!) I climbed an active volcano in Indonesia. Oh and I have let off fire crackers in the middle of a Chinese intersection, with the Chinese Police.

Astana - Kazakhstan

Drinking horse milk in a Mongolian family home.

Sadly, the friends that I have mentioned in this blog have left Korea. I still hold them dear but I miss them greatly. With expat life you get used to losing friends and it is a forever revolving door. I don't think that I ever came to terms with how much I changed as a person since I started living abroad. The death of Anthony Bourdain has bought some reality crashing home for me. I have realized the losses of my friends and it is really hit my how much some people meant to me. In life, we are rarely genuinely happy, but for a period of 6 years I was very happy. Sometimes too happy, too often. The reality is that it was always going to be huge fallen down once reality hit me. I have lost a lot of friends with whom I shared some very fond memories, I still keep in contact with them but it is not the same as having them around on a day to day basis. Bourdain was a catalyst for my relationship with these people and he was a glue that bound our friendships.

As I come to terms with this, I must also now take responsibility for my own travel achievements and appreciate the friends around me today. I have lost my inspiration but now it is time for me to inspire others to explore other cultures, make new friends and to try different foods. We should all try to do this.

Just as I was thinking of how to finish this blog, I was eating some outrageously good fried chicken with a friend in Uijeongbu, South Korea. I couldn't quite get my words right. But then, as we were eating, an elderly man stood up and came to our table. He asked if we thought the food was delicious. We told him that it is was damn good. His response "All people, from all countries are happy when they can eat good food with their friends." I have been lucky enough to do that because of Anthony Bourdain and the secret to future happiness is surprisingly simple. Keep meeting new people and try to eat good food with them. There's no excuses. Just go and do it!

Thanks Tony! You've given me so much! Rest in peace buddy!