Bourdain on the Belfast Student Diet 

By Ana Lazarut

It is midnight. I am sitting on my bed, shoving a chipper pizza into my mouth, gorging like a famished linebacker. The still-warm box provides some warmth to my body as my room has reached what feels like sub-zero temperatures this January night. As I take my final bite, my gaze becomes fixed on a quote of Anthony Bourdain’s I wrote on a sticky note and stuck to my cracking wall at the beginning of semester one, eagerly optimistic that I would embody all the late man preaches: an openness to change and experience, found through the breaking of bread over a table, all in the pursuit of learning more about each other, and subsequently, ourselves.  

I remember beginning the autumn semester with a regimented structure of meal prepping modelled after Bourdain’s own fridge. Tupperware boxes full of chopped vegetables, various sauces and cuts of meat, meticulously labelled and dated, stacked on top of each other. However, unlike Bourdain, my fridge was restricted by my student budget and lack of formal food training, and I quickly returned to back to unpredictability in the kitchen. The mise-en-place is failed, forgotten, and later replaced by the Deliveroo app. 

 And I wonder; What would Anthony Bourdain think?  

Bourdain dined in Belfast for an earlier episode of No Reservations, practicing table-fellowship in his own unique way. The Crown Liquor Saloon, The Rock Bar, and Cayenne were all visited, accompanied by black cab-tours where he learned Belfast’s history and formation from the very people who lived it [1]. These places are unfamiliar to me, making my experience of Belfast a very different one, yet I learn about the city in similar ways. My understanding of the city is through long queues at Boojum, late night group tours to Wing It following pints in Parlour, and an occasional visit to the chipper on the corner of my road. Sometimes I fear that the delivery drivers have begun to recognise me and my eating habits…  

Nevertheless, although my diet is not Michelin-approved, it allows me, somebody not native to Northern Ireland, find community in this foreign city. There is a camaraderie in the Boojum queue as fifty sweaty students pack into the place like sardines, and there is a glimmer of positivity in the fact that someone, albeit a Deliveroo driver, recognises me and greets me with sincerity. I find community through the collective Belfast student diet, which I (like to) believe is Bourdain-approved. 

We unfortunately will never know what the great Bourdain thinks, but his legacy is certainly strong in Belfast through my backwards way of practicing his philosophy: “Move. As far as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least their food, it’s a plus for everybody” [2].  

I finish my burger surrounded by greasy take-out wrappers and open my laptop. I purchase Kitchen Confidential and call my friends. 

Sources:

[1] https://eatlikebourdain.com/anthony-bourdain-in-belfast/  

[2] Bourdain, Anthony. Parts Unknown.  

Photo Credit: Bourdain’s fridge in Appetites (Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever, Ecco Press, 2016)