[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap]nthony Bourdain, the rock-star chef, author, and television host who vigorously defended Latin culture, immigrant cooks, and food-service workers, has died at the age of 61.
Bourdain was found unresponsive Friday on location in France during a shoot for his popular program "Parts Unknown," CNN reported. The cause of death was suicide, the broadcaster said.
The New York-born chef upended the food world with a 1999 New Yorker confessional story titled "Don't Eat Before Reading This." The following year, his tell-all book "Kitchen Confidential" became a best-seller and cemented Bourdain's status as the original bad-boy of the modern restaurant business.
In his New Yorker piece, Bourdain tore away at the myths of clean cooking in restaurants and the ugly realities of a business fueled by competition, pride, and in many cases, addiction. He describes the thinking behind not ordering fish on a Monday night:
The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times. Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions.