FRENCH ROOTS
Anthony Bourdain talks about Parts Unknown’s new season, his affinity for France and Cuba’s coming renaissance and uncertain future,
Emmy award winning TV host, chef and author Anthony Bourdain is no stranger to the world of travel. Each week he gallivants around the globe, indulging in cultural delicacies in search of Parts
Unknown, his popular show on CNN. The Toronto Star chatted with Bourdain on family roots, his new tattoo and what feels like home.
In two different shows, No Reservations and Parts Unknown you had gone to look for some connection to your roots in both Uruguay and Paraguay, where your great, great grandfather had fled France and was said to have sold fireworks. Was anything ever substantiated?
The overwhelming suspicion is that my great, great grandfather was selling guns and arms in Uruguay. He was shipping gunpowder by the ton apparently, at a time when they were ramping up for a belligerent and very ill-prepared war against Argentina, Chile and Brazil.
Was there a part of you that was always curious about genealogy and filling in any gaps to the past?
Some periods in my life, sure. I like that my daughter has a better sense of where she comes from because I didn’t really.
We did not know much; my grand- father on my father’s side died quite young, I think in his late 20s. Both my mother’s parents were deceased when I was an infant. We just had a few distant relatives, who I met in France and one cousin on my mom’s side. I did not have an extended family — certainly not a big Italian family!
My wife is Italian. I am glad we have that, and that we’re aware of it. My daughter is being educated bilingually in English and Italian. That’s part of her life in a way it could not have been for me.
I know you have a strong affinity with France. Is that amplified because of your French roots on your father’s side? Didn’t he speak French growing up?
In his household, but not in mine. It’s something I forgot my dad was even able to do until we would get into a cab with a Haitian driver, or see a French film, or the few times we visited France. It really was not a French household by any means.
Where on your travels feels like home to you; a place that offers a sense of familiarity?
Home is no place like New York, really. There are a lot of places where I feel very comfortable, that I really love and look forward to going back to, but home that’s another matter. There is a hotel in L.A. I feel very comfortable in Vietnam and love going back to Italy to visit my wife’s family there in Lombardy. But home, you know is really where my family is.
Are you fluent in any other languages? Have you picked up other languages while travelling the globe?
I started travelling very late. I took French many years ago; it improves when I drink. I become a lot less self-conscious. I speak a little French and understand Italian when my wife and daughter are making fun of me, and I know a little kitchen Spanish, but I am not by any means a sophisticated speaker of many foreign languages. I started travelling very late and that sort of window where it’s easier to learn new languages had long closed.
What has been the hardest language for you or even your crew to decipher while travelling?
The bushman in the Kalahari speak with a lot of clicking sounds that’s pretty tough to comprehend.
I heard you are planning to open an Asian-style hawker market?
Yes, like a big Singaporean style hawker centre in NYC. It’s a huge undertaking. It’s over 100,000 sq. ft., so not sure when it will be open.
After a 10-year hiatus, you’re also working on a new cookbook Appetites, which should be out next year.
Yes, we are doing sort of a dysfunctional family cookbook.
Did any unexpected surprises occur in the new season of Parts Unknown that we can anticipate? I take it you’re not thrown in jail this season?
To the best of my recollection no jail (chuckles) this season. Just a new hand-tap tattoo I got in Malaysia, and that hurt, believe me. Hurt like hell, right on my chest on my breastbone. And I foolishly thought it wouldn’t hurt. It did!
The first episode of Parts Unknown takes place in Cuba. After leaving Cuba, what did you take away from it with all the changes?
I don’t think they have any idea what to expect. It’s a real moment in history; I don’t think we are going to recognize the country in a few years.