Anthony Bourdain’s Childhood Photos

“To experience joy, my father taught me, one has to leave oneself open to it.”
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.”

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August 1965. The Circus Museum at Baraboo, Wisconsin.

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August 1966. Tony and Christopher in a neighbor’s oyster “park” in the Bay of Biscay, southwest France.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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August 1967. Pierre and Gladys Bourdain at Cap Ferret on the Atlantic coast of France (not to be confused with Cap Ferrat on the Côte d’Azur).

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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July 1968. Boy Scout camp.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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August 1969. Pierre and Tony Bourdain in a rented boat on Barnegat Bay, New Jersey.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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August 1970. Deck of rented house on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family

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Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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July 1974. Tony, Pierre and Christopher Bourdain. Most family meals were eaten in the kitchen.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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Summer 1976. Visiting Tony in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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November 9, 1978. Graduation day at the Culinary Institute of America.

Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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Photo Courtesy Of The Bourdain Family
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