A Celebrity Chef's Passion for Science

National Science Foundation
Office of Polar Programs
4201 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22230

Posted June 27, 2019

Angela Zoumplis, a biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, earlier this week wrote on the opinion pages of the New York Times about a visit to a field camp in the McMurdo Dry Valleys by the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

One of several researchers who discussed their work and Antarctic experience with Bourdain on and off camera at NSF’s Lake Hoare Camp, she was initially a bit perplexed about why he he had come to the southernmost continent.

“A lot of us knew Mr. Bourdain as a chef and foodie, but Antarctica isn’t known for its local cuisine,” she writes. “There are no Michelin-starred restaurants there (or any restaurants for that matter) and so amid the excitement, there was also a bit of confusion about his visit.”

But, she concludes at the end of her piece, “He hadn’t come to Antarctica for the food. When you look back on his shows, you see that he rarely went anywhere just for the food. Food was a common ground. It was a means to conversation. The conversation that weekend was about science, and Anthony Bourdain, who would have turned 63 on Tuesday, was our champion, as he was for so many others.”

Read the full opinion piece here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opinion/bourdain-antarctica-climate.html

Zoumplis' experience is consistent with what Bourdain himself wrote about his visit to U.S. Antarctic Program facilities in 2017.

In the Field Notes that accompanied the Antarctica broadcast, he wrote:

“This could easily have been a show about history and geology and the changing climate, about penguins and seals and breathtaking vista—-and it is about those things. But what it’s really about is the incredible community of people who choose to live and work in the harshest environment on Earth, working long hours in decidedly Spartan conditions for months on end, all in support of the acquisition of knowledge. It is an extraordinary and inspiring thing.

So shout-out to the Wasties and Fuelies and Carps and Riggers and Beakers and everybody else who works tirelessly in support of that increasingly unpopular discipline called "science."

You will meet some extraordinary people on this show, and I’m grateful to them for their work and their many kindnesses.”

Read his full essay here: https://explorepartsunknown.com/antarctica/bourdains-field-notes-antarctica/