Anthony Bourdain Asked Us to Have a Greater Sense of Obligation—to Trauma, to Triumph, and to Food
In Japanese culture, kintsugi is the labor-intensive method of repairing broken pottery by reattaching pieces using a lacquer mixed with gold. The reconstructed item, glistening with golden “seams,” is in many ways more beautiful than it was before—gifted with new meaning and purpose. The ethos of this art is often applied to people and the scars we bear, both physical and emotional, that mold us into wiser, more empathetic beings.
Last June, when news broke that chef, author, and television personality Anthony Bourdain had died by suicide at 61, culinary historian Michael Twitty tweeted out what many of us in the food-writing world felt at the time. “Anthony Bourdain was special,” Twitty said. “He called Africa the cradle of civilization, took his cameras to Haiti, honored the hood with Snoop, broke bread with Obama like a human being. [He] was an inspiration. He was so damn problematic, but embraced his cracks and filled them with gold.”