He also knew how to deliberately be a jackass for effect, which is a survival skill in commercial kitchens when paired with a thick skin. Fundamental emotional

He also knew how to deliberately be a jackass for effect, which is a survival skill in commercial kitchens when paired with a thick skin. Fundamental emotional issues aside, I do know that his outward-facing persona was prone to being rather flamboyant well before he was a celebrity-- which he implied in his books. One of my teachers in culinary school was a cook in P-town while Bourdain was a teenager working his first kitchen jobs, and even then, pretty much everybody in the local industry knew who he was. Generally well liked but known as a serious party animal. P-town does have a heck of a party culture and I imagine I'd have taken a very different, and much more substance-focused path had I worked summers there as a teen line cook.