Indeed, food can break cultural barriers, turn strangers into good friends, and make a country world-famous for its cuisine. It’s something Bourdain has emphasized in his travel shows, something that his fans had always appreciated him for.
Other influencers like Nick Hamman share a similar sentiment. In a recent interview with The Guardian, he shared his thoughts on how food intersects with different facets of life.
“I believe food is political,” Hamman said. “I think food is very deeply tied to memory, nostalgia, and history. And it tells the story of our country in a very special way.”
Hamman’s large social media following (currently 220,000 on Instagram and 256,000 on TikTok) has helped the small businesses he visits. So much so that one of the restaurants he went to named a burger after him.
Another hard-hitting Anthony Bourdain quote is his description of food as a sense of identity. His exact words were, “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Lisa Kyung Gross, founder and CEO of the League of Kitchens in New York City.
“Food is a particularly good vehicle for sharing love,” she told the Smithsonian Magazine. “In every culture, people come together and connect around the table.”
League of Kitchens is an organization that focuses on building cross-cultural connections through immigrant-led cooking classes. For Kyung Gross, the goal is to humanize immigrants and share their expertise and cuisine to enrich local cultures and society.
“(Collective dining experiences are) a great way to create that connection with others,” she said. “It’s the universal love that comes through food and cooking.”
