The Meat That Anthony Bourdain Thought Was Awful

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Perhaps even more than his way with food, chef, author, and TV personality Anthony Bourdain had a way with words — one that was often irreverent, scathing, and brutally honest, by turns. Over the course of his too-short 61 years, Bourdain helmed several high-end NYC restaurants, he traveled the world on camera, he carried on a (somewhat one-sided) feud with fellow celebrity chef Guy Fieri, and he publicly hated on food trends like everything pumpkin spice. Some of his most heated commentary, however, was reserved for ... chicken? 

In a witty, confessional 1999 New Yorker magazine piece entitled "Don't Eat Before Reading This," Bourdain dished some dirt on the restaurant industry. Painting a less-than-glamorous picture of chain-smoking line cooks and sub-prime, sinewy steaks saved for the rubes who would dare to order their meat well-done.

On the topic of diners who didn't consume pork for non-religious reasons, Bourdain scoffed: "Chicken — America's favorite food — goes bad quickly; handled carelessly, it infects other foods with salmonella; and it bores the hell out of chefs. It occupies its ubiquitous place on menus as an option for customers who can't decide what they want to eat. Most chefs believe that supermarket chickens in this country are slimy and tasteless compared with European varieties." Does this mean that Bourdain always abstained from chicken himself? Not at all ... one can assume that his many chicken recipes and well-known love for a certain poultry-centric fast food brand meant that there was nuance to his strong opinion.

As a chef, Anthony Bourdain definitely did not refuse to cook chicken. His exceptional recipes using this protein live on, including his dutch oven Poulet Basquaise, a buttery and lemony roast chicken, and a succulent coq au vin, among many others. His Les Halles Cookbook even contained an unconventional chicken soup recipe that was so indulgent, it contained both meat from a whole chicken and chicken livers as well. When he was planning his Bourdain Market food hall in 2017 — which was ultimately a vision unfulfilled until it was reborn in different hands as Midtown West's Urban Hawker in 2022 — he noted that Hainanese chicken rice was among his dream dishes for the many food stalls he hoped it would contain.

Interestingly enough, chicken featured foremost among one of Bourdain's guilty pleasure foods. The man had a well-publicized love affair with fried chicken from Popeye's, his favorite fast food chain. In interviews during which he extolled the fried chicken as a pinnacle of American cuisine, he recalled getting caught by photographers when sneaking out of his hotel late at night to grub some chicken, mac n' cheese, and Dr. Pepper, comparing it to the sensation of being caught with obscene materials. Clearly, Bourdain's snobbery regarding American poultry only went so far. Again, this culinary and literary genius was also an infamous trash-talker (albeit an incredibly eloquent one), so perhaps it's best not to take his words at their most painstakingly literal.