Recovering Anthony Bourdain's Li.st's

[mirandrom]

I went down the same rabbit hole and did the exact same thing last week in a fit of procrastination. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46185128

Would appreciate a shout-out if you saw it and were inspired, otherwise it's nice to see others converging independently on the same thing.

[thecsw]

Oh wow! Did not know that—I went off the original post by Greg and he mentioned to me after I sent him this link that someone looked at Common Crawl as well.

Either way, I updated both the git and the webpage to shout-out the week-before-this findings! I linked directly to your website, lmk if that's how you prefer it.

Cheers!

[thecsw]

A companion to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054879, we now had successfully recovered all the remaining li.st entries of Anthony Bourdain that were thought to be lost to time.

Please enjoy—there is nobody like Tony.

[cbarrick]

Almost all.

According to the article, we are still missing one: "David Bowie Related" 1/14/2016

[antihoney]

Very happy to see these recovered and archived :)! I hope images are able to be recovered, super curious about which records he was talking about.

[tsujamin]

> Great Dead Bars of New York:

> 1. SIBERIA in any of its iterations. The one on the subway being the best.

Timely, as the latest reincarnation of SIBERIA just re-opened in 59th Street/Columbus Circle station

[wintermutestwin]

I know we shouldn’t be discussing website design, but using light grey font on a white background is not only ugly, it is basically illegible for anyone with oldster eyes.

[Aurornis]

> but using light grey font on a white background

The page does not have light grey text for me. Checked on desktop and mobile.

The #2B2B2B color should not look like "light grey" or be hard to read on a white background unless your display setup has a severely broken color calibration or gamma curve.

Site looks fine, in my opinion. The HN comments complaining about site design are probably best ignored.

[sndean]

I thought the same thing but noticed my dark mode extension changed the dark gray font into light gray. It looks fine to me with that extension turned off. Not sure if that happened to you.

[ursAxZA]

A sudden burst of bright white on the screen really hits the eyes, I get that.

[bunnybomb2]

and the dotted background just ever so lightly still visible. Contrast is king

[msephton]

Any movie list that features Tampopo is good by me.

[germinalphrase]

Tampopo is a gem.

[tedggh]

Loved his series until he visited my hometown and completely misrepresented it. I get his style was anti establishment and mainstream, but he ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd in town, one of them known for being a fraudster, a spoiled child running bad restaurant after bad restaurant. Somehow these guys managed to be featured in the show as the progressive minds of local cuisine. It made me question everything else I have watched from Bourdain.

[Oarch]

I had the same sense. I can see why people like the shows, but to me there's a subtle arrogance to the rich, white American guy just holding court everywhere he goes and explaining local matters as if he's an expert. The food aspect of his shows was often secondary.

[testfrequency]

I empathize with this as vice news at their peak did similar things in Chicago, which is why most chicagoans don’t like Vice.

[jama211]

He probably didn’t personally vet the politics behind each person, the production team would’ve organised it in advance and he just turns up and goes along with it. That being said it’s still grounds to be skeptical of his shows. Also, please tell us your town

[matwood]

Which town? I felt he did this in a few places and wondered how his team picked where he wild go.

[linhns]

I wish he sticked to food, his only expertise. His Newfoundland episode in Parts Unknown is the best and most tasty piece of television I have ever watched. Why is that good? Guess what, he brought on his pals that are great chefs from that place.

[kavrick]

I appreciate that must have been difficult. If you could set the record straight, where would you have taken him? Love to hear your reccos and thoughts!

[sizzle]

What city so I can avoid that restaurant

[fooster]

He did the same thing with Shanghai.

[eucyclos]

Maybe it's just the similarity in appearance and cause of death to Carradign and Epstein making me see patterns that aren't there, but I cannot watch a Bourdain clip without getting the sense something is deeply wrong.

[nicwolff]

His favorite bar, Siberia, is also back, now at the south end of the Columbus Circle subway station. Same owner, Tracy, and same no-frills atmosphere.

[amiban]

thank you very much for doing this. I'm a huge bourdain fan, and despite many of his shortcomings as a human i think he was one of the MOST interesting people in the zeitgeist. just seemed so authentic, real, and visceral. his parts unknown series is some of the best human anthro content ever put on TV. this was a very interesting read!

[Grosvenor]

Worthwhile for the hotel and book recommendations.

Obviously he has better food taste than I do, so those too. I will shit like a mink and love it.

[haunter]

>Kramer knives: I don’t own one. I can’t afford one

I highly doubt he couldn't afford a $2,500 knife https://kramerknives.com/product-category/latest-creations/

[Wistar]

A real Kramer is often much, much more than $2,500. Kramer’s mid-line knives go, even used, for $10–$30K while his high-end, rarer stuff goes for much more. In fact, Bourdain had a real Kramer with meteorite used in its construction that sold at auction in 2019 for $231,500.

https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/anthony-bourdains-bob-kra...

See also, some current mid-line Kramer pricing: https://eatingtools.com/collections/pre-owned

[RALaBarge]

I am big fan and it was sad to me when he died. It’s bizarre to me how much CNN runs content featuring him without ever acknowledging he is dead. You’d think he was alive based on how often they flaunt his content.

[toomuchtodo]

Kudos to those who performed recovery and snatched back from the sands of time.

[vasco]

People who abandon their kids don't really have anything to teach you. There's isn't much worse you can do. But in this case Anthony did that also:

> Anthony Bourdain paid a $380,000 settlement to actor Jimmy Bennett in 2018 to silence allegations that Asia Argento had sexually assaulted him in 2013, when Bennett was 17 and Argento was 37

Great role model. People see a guy that looks cool and says edgy shit and that's it, he is now a great person, lol.

[throwaway12345t]

love these, wonder what avenues still exist for the image archives

I imagine they exist in an AWS or GCP rack somewhere, too bad

[thecsw]

Someone must have their browser untouched since 2015, which has all of the li.st content stored in their cache :D

[treesknees]

At the risk of being downvoted… for the uninitiated among us, what’s interesting about these or the person? I understand he was a chef and had several TV shows. Is it just celebrity fascination?

[asveikau]

Hard to summarize. He created the impression of being authentic. He had an unpretentious New York accent. He was happy in and advocated for unpretentious areas, which goes against some of the stereotypes of overly social media friendly foodie stuff. He encouraged his audience to travel and understand other people.

His struggles and imperfections also evoked sympathy. He spoke about how he used to have a drug problem. His death by suicide was sad. He certainly would have had lots of interesting things to say in the last 9 years, had he been around.

[bunnybomb2]

Kind, curious, open minded, down to earth with a big mouth . Like any other common interest. Watching his stuff shows you how to open your eyes

[Papazsazsa]

He was the last cultured dude before tech made everyone into a superficial arrogant lmgtfy'er, disinterested in true discovery. (Heap your downvotes on me HN, I've seen what makes you cheer!)

MY BOURDAIN LI.ST:

1) Masculinity without cringe: Tough, profane, credentialed through actual kitchen labor (not culinary school pedigree), but also emotionally literate, openly vulnerable, willing to cry on camera. He modeled a masculinity that wasn't apologetic but also wasn't performative.

2) Articulate outsider: Self-educated. Could reference Conrad, punk rock, and Apocalypse Now while maintaining blue-collar credibility. His book Kitchen Confidential read like a war memoir/crime novel.

3) Permission: He made it acceptable for men to care deeply about food, travel, culture -- interests traditionally female coded. The guy had done heroin and worked the line and was 'allowed' to opine about pho. This was before the internet or at least before the internet got ultra stupid.

4) Wanderer: Not tourism, not expat pretension, something closer to seeking, now dead thanks to social media influencers, and he was curious not escapist.

5) Recovery: Open about addiction, chaos, bad decisions. A redemption narrative for men who've made mistakes.

6) Tragic: Suicide landed hard because many recognized something in him of themselves in him.

P.S. He's more elder millennial/genx coded for a lot of reasons so don't feel bad about not getting it but definitely read his book and watch his show, it's different than the slop you're probably used to.

[basisword]

He wrote honestly about a profession he worked at all levels. His travel/food programmes sampled the fanciest of foods as well as the greasy spoons, local cuisines, and all without arrogance or false humility. He was very relatable for many people.

I would recommend reading Kitchen Confidential. Alternatively watch any of his travel shows although I think understanding the man through the book first makes it easier to appreciate the shows.

Regarding this specific find I don't see anything particularly special but for many it's one final glimpse into the life of someone they admire.

[EnPissant]

He was a super hipster who pretended to be an anti-hipster.

This combination allowed him to make people feel like they were getting let in a little secret and were now part of a club that was better than everyone else.

[joeevans1000]

You won't be downvoted by me. He wrote a fun book (Kitchen Confidential, which I enjoyed) and it was downhill from there. He detailed some of his sketchy ethics in that book and it was refreshing.

Essentially, he seemed to me to be a bit of a &*$% and people liked that, confusing it for something admirable and for authenticity. He's till celebrated, especially by CNN, who paid a fortune for his show and then lost out on the chance for future episodes... now they peddle his old content on their landing page. Probably to try to recoup their probable losses.

You're not missing anything.

[yieldcrv]

Foodie culture is an acquired …. taste …., for lack of better term, but if you dive into it the outsized influences aren’t that many and there is a clear genealogy between the chefs, critics, and their restaurant concepts

Which makes it all the more interesting

Anthony Bourdain being a major one

[meindnoch]

I have never been particularly fond of Bourdain, nor have I fully understood the widespread fascination with his jet-setting New York hipster persona.

He played a significant role in popularizing a now-familiar posture among affluent Americans: the earnest declaration that "travel is my passion", followed by carefully curated excursions to economically disadvantaged countries, enthusiastic consumption of the local cuisine, and a subsequent return home marked by self-congratulatory reflections on how much they have supposedly "learned" about other cultures.

The phenomenon is difficult to admire. It resembles a kind of cultural primitivism - an unintentional revival of archaic rituals in which consuming the body of the enemy was believed to confer insight, power, or spiritual essence. In this modern iteration, wealth functions as the enabling mechanism: privileged travelers fly abroad to ingest cuisines, aesthetics, and experiences, mistaking consumption for understanding and appetite for empathy.

One returns, enriched - spiritually, one assumes - having eaten well.

[decimalenough]

Your snark is misplaced to such an extent that I suspect you have not actually read his books. Bourdain is genuinely obsessed with food, and when Kitchen Confidential entirely unexpectedly became a megahit and shot him from borderline poverty to wealth and fame, he was genuinely delighted to be able to (I quote) "travel around the world, eat a lot of shit, and basically do whatever the fuck I want." His admiration for (most) other cultures is genuine and many of his favorite destinations are also places that can hardly be called economically disadvantaged (Singapore, Japan, France, etc).

> popularizing a now-familiar posture among affluent Americans

So would it be preferable if they stayed at home, didn't share any of their wealth with less developed countries, and marinated in completely ignorant bliss of the world outside the USA instead?

[lurk2]

> He played a significant role in popularizing a now-familiar posture among affluent Americans: the earnest declaration that "travel is my passion", followed by carefully curated excursions to economically disadvantaged countries, enthusiastic consumption of the local cuisine, and a subsequent return home marked by self-congratulatory reflections on how much they have supposedly "learned" about other cultures.

I only dislike these people if they blog about it. None of them are nearly as insightful as they think they are, and most of them aren’t self-aware enough to realize that this whole shtick hasn’t been “cool” since 2010.

> mistaking consumption for understanding and appetite for empathy.

This disparaging attitude towards tourists is in vogue among Europeans right now; there’s a group of anarchists in Barcelona that have spent the last year or two scrawling: “TOURISTS GO HOME, REFUGEES WELCOME” on the sides of buildings.

The theory goes that tourists are a net negative to cities because they cause neighborhoods to gentrify and displace those who intend to actually live within the city. The money coming in is a negative because it causes the city to deploy resources intended to cater to tourists, the tourists fundamentally change the character of the neighborhood by their very presence (the cannibalism you are alluding to), the tourists are rude, the tourists look funny, etc.

Disdain for tourists is just a socially-acceptable way for progressives to practice the xenophobia that is now in vogue among reactionaries. They can’t blame all of their problems on foreigners writ large like the reactionaries do, so they “punch up” at the only sort of foreigner that is likely to make a positive contribution to their country.

[NoboruWataya]

I do think a lot of what you are talking about can be traced back to Bourdain, but in fairness I don't think it was his intention, and indeed he was dead by the time it really took off. Instagram is at least as much to blame.

A lot of it is people who like Bourdain's aesthetic and want to replicate it, but they don't know much about food, they've never worked in hospitality in their life and they're afraid to go to the sketchier parts of town.

Like with so many things travel- and tourist-related, it's okay for one person to do it and tell us about it, but when a million people all try to do the same thing it causes problems.

[bonesss]

Bourdain didn’t initiate the cultural practice of going on safari and congratulating one’s self. The Michelin guide was founded in 1900.

Bourdains travels also weren’t the curated tourist jaunts you’re describing. They often showing the grim and lesser known sides of conflicts and situations while presenting genuine local cuisines. It’s what the unconcerned tourist aspire to, not what they do.

[fancyfredbot]

I'd like to congratulate you on reaching such a level of empathy and understanding that not only do you dislike Bourdain, you find yourself unable to understand why anyone would think differently!

There's a point worth making about poverty tourism here but I'm not sure the tourist should be our major concern.

[keiferski]

Most of his rise to fame came from working in real kitchens, then exposing the underbelly of such places.

He also really didn’t spent much or any (?) time in the kinds of expensive places you’d need to be obscenely wealthy to afford.

[zild3d]

> economically disadvantaged countries, enthusiastic consumption of the local cuisine, and a subsequent return home marked by self-congratulatory reflections on how much they have supposedly "learned" about other cultures.

There can certainly be a quite shallow "instagram" quality to some traveler's trips, but it's also clear an economically disadvantaged country benefits mutually from this, and if it wasn't they'd be restricting tourist visas, etc

[anonnon]

One of his most famous quips was:

> Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.

Then he died alone, in a hotel room in France, supposedly by his own hand, with the belt of his silk bathrobe as the implement--despite being a heroin addict most of his life and thus ever cognizant of the possibility of a fatal overdose, and having friends, like Mark Lanegan, who died (painlessly) from a fatal overdose. But no, instead of OD'ing, he supposedly chose to "unalive" himself with his bathrobe. And he left no note. And he tweeted this out a month earlier: https://x.com/Bourdain/status/998954845146177536

[varjag]

Come on, this is just contrarianism without substance. Or as we used to say in less pretentious times, "this thing is lame now".