That is not how Bourdain travelled. He was an interloper, not a guest, which meant that the onus to delight, to cater, and to satiate was entirely on him. That meant trusting people who chose to express their gratitude and love through foods many other food travellers would call “bizarre” and “weird.” Not once did he use these words as pejoratives, or — more patronisingly, as some annoying shock-jock travellers do — as badges of bravery. Bourdain travelled as someone with deep respect and deference to the people he was seeing. He took his shoes off when he went into a Japanese home without complaint. He sat down in a plastic stool with as much gratitude as if it were a Mies van der Rohe. He learned how to say “thank you” and “excuse me” in every language his hosts spoke, attempting to get the pronunciations right in ways that were so eager and earnest that it was almost embarrassing if you believed his punk veneer was all there was to him.