Bourdain ‘aware’ that cuisine he loved a result of poverty, scarcity

Late celebrity chef and documentarist Anthony Bourdain was well aware that much of the cuisine he celebrated was born out of poverty, limited access to food, and the fact that people had to make the best with very little.

In an unaired portion of a 2017 interview with GMA News' Jessica Soho, Bourdain said that he, as well as many other chefs in America, were aware of the difference between "the people that eat in the dining room and the people down the street who are struggling to eat anything."

"I think about it all the time because much of the time I'm shooting and making television in countries where people don't have enough of it. This is something I'm very aware of," said the chef.

He added that he understood that a lot of the cuisine he loved most, the ones he did  his best to celebrate in his work, were a "direct result" of poverty and limited supplies.

"I'm very aware also that a lot of the cuisines that I love most, these dishes, even French dishes are the direct result of poverty, of limited supplies, rough seasons, oppression, war. People who... cultures that cook well, tend to cook well because they didn't have any choice, they have to make the best of very little," he said.

"And those are the cultures and the cuisines which are most interesting to me, those are the cultures and cuisines that I try to celebrate the most in my work but I'm always very aware of that dissonance."

In his award-winning travel and food series "Parts Unknown," Bourdain explored lesser known places, cultures, and cuisine.

Among the places he visited was Manila, where he got up close and personal with Filipinos, and unhesitatingly ate local street food and Pinoy fastfood.

Bourdain said that his show was not really about food anymore, but took a look at the much bigger picture.

"Well, it's about not who eats, it's about who cooks, why they cook the things that cook and what kind of environment they do. There's nothing more political in food, nothing, who eats and who doesn't eat. Why do we eat the things we eat. Why do we cook the way we cook," he explained.

"These are... the history of the world is on your plate so particularly some of the places I've been shooting for the last 5, 10 years, that's something we look at. These are stories we'd like to tell, we do so whenever possible," he added.

Bourdain died of suicide at the age of 61 on June 8. — Jessica Bartolome/DVM, GMA News