Biografía

The place of his suicide was first misreported as Paris, then as Strasbourg, but he actually died in the small town of Kaysersberg, Haut-Rhin, France. The idyllic town is best known as the birthplace of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). Public Prosecutor Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel from Colmar, France, said that Bourdain died by hanging at the luxury hotel Le Chambard in Kaysersberg. His body was discovered by celebrity French chef and close friend Eric Ripert.

Some of the weirdest delicacies he had ever consumed include "Balut" (developing feathered bird embryo boiled and eaten straight from the shell); "Raw Seal Eyeball" (sampled while eating with Inuits in Canada); "Roasted Sheep's Testicles" (consumed in a Moroccan desert); "Bull's Penis & Testicles"; "Hákarl" (heavily ammoniated fermented shark dish); "Cobra Heart" (sliced out of a live snake and eaten while still beating); "Maggot Fried Rice" (self-explanatory); "Warthog Anus" (the worst meal of his life, consumed with a tribe in Namibia).

His father was of French, and some Spanish, ancestry, with family that had lived in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. His mother was of Ukrainian Jewish and Austrian Jewish descent.

He and Ottavia Bourdain welcomed their first child, a girl named Ariane Bourdain, on 4/9/07. She weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz.

As a guest on BBC TV's Breakfast (2000) (9/2/10), he surprised hosts Bill Turnbull and Susanna Reid when he disclosed that his all-time favorite restaurant was the British "St. John" run by friend and chef Fergus Henderson in London's Smithfield district.

When Tony gets hungry, things die.

Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.

I have exactly the same work ethic. I don't see writing as anything more important than cooking. In fact, I'm a little queasier on the writing. There's an element of shame, because it's so easy. I can't believe that people give me money for this shit. The TV, too. It's not work. At the end of the day, the TV show is the best job in the world. I get to go anywhere I want, eat and drink whatever I want. As long as I just babble at the camera, other people will pay for it. It's a gift. A few months ago, I was sitting cross-legged in the mountains of Vietnam with a bunch of Thai tribesman as a guest of honor drinking rice whiskey. Three years ago I never, ever in a million years thought that I would ever live to see any of that. So I know that I'm a lucky man.

I don't like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don't like factory farming. I'm not an advocate for the meat industry.

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.