Anthony Bourdain’s Childhood Photos

In 2012, Anthony Bourdain wrote an essay about his father for Bon Appétit and shared a collection of his childhood photographs. “My father was, as he liked to say, ‘a man of simple needs.’ He grew up with a French mother, a French name, speaking French, and spent many summers in France. But this history wasn't really a factor in my childhood. It always came as a shock to me when he'd break into French with a Haitian cabdriver as there was, seemingly, nothing ‘French’ about him, or us, or how we lived.

He taught me early that the value of a dish is the pleasure it brings you; where you are sitting when you eat it—and who you are eating it with—are what really matter. Perhaps the most important life lesson he passed on was: Don’t be a snob. It’s something I will always at least aspire to—something that has allowed me to travel this world and eat all it has to offer without fear or prejudice. To experience joy, my father taught me, one has to leave oneself open to it.”