When #MeToo came to the food world, Anthony Bourdain didn't let anyone slide. Even himself.
Jessica M. Goldstein
Anthony Bourdain knew how to talk about what he didn’t know. He was excited about places he’d never been and food he’d never tried. He carried around the world with him a sense of glee and awe — that new information, new ways of tasting, of seeing and understanding, were out there always, are out there still.
So it is not surprising that Bourdain brought eloquence and insight to the #MeToo movement, which has seen dozens of men facing microphones spew inarticulate and/or victim-blaming blather at the universe. Presented with new information — this time sickening, harrowing truths about the industry where Bourdain built his career — Bourdain responded not with defensiveness but humility, not by lashing out but by looking within.
It was after another star in the culinary world, New Orleans chef John Besh, was at the center of sexual harassment swirl — the Times-Picayune reported that his company ignored sexual harassment claims and that Besh had also been a perpetrator of that harassment — that Bourdain started tweeting about “institutionalized Meathead Culture in the restaurant business.” (This was before celebrity chef Mario Batali responded to allegations that he’d sexually violated female employees for 20-odd years by acknowledging their accounts sounded about right to him and then sharing a recipe for pizza cinnamon rolls.)
Bourdain could have said nothing — that’s quite the common tactic, even among self-identified allies. And there are plenty of no-comment-comments available to the man who would prefer to stay uninvolved.
From men who are what you could call “accused-adjacent” — family, friends, colleagues of the #MeToo women — you can often hear, underneath whatever they’re saying aloud, this defensive reflex. Annoyance mingled with exhaustion. The whiny whisper of: what do you want from me?
But Bourdain, who on Friday died by suicide at 61, took the opposite approach. His was, by far, among the most insightful responses to #MeToo by any man in public life.
Bourdain’s partner, Asia Argento, says Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her; she was among the first women to go on the record about Weinstein’s alleged violence. In an interview with Slate, Bourdain spoke about how watching Argento go public with her story, and seeing the unimaginable toll it took on her, showed him “the kind of the difficulty of speaking out about these things, and the kind of vilification and humiliation and risk and pain and terror that come with speaking out about this kind of thing. That certainly brought it home in a personal way that, to my discredit, it might not have before.”
Clearly, sexual harassment and violence is as rampant in the culinary world as it is in many other industries. Yet Bourdain admitted he was largely unaware of that reality: “Other than one woman chef restauranteur friend from Canada, nobody has really been speaking to me about this until recently.” It took the Weinstein case, and his connection to Argento, to change that. Since the Weinstein story broke, Bourdain said, “I’m starting to hear personal stories from a lot of women.”
https://thinkprogress.org/when-metoo-came-to-the-food-world-anthony-bourdain-didnt-let-anyone-slide-even-himself-ca0396203411/
= new reply since forum marked as read
while working as a chef. Some guy would grab his was each day so one day he had enough and jabbed a meat fork through the guy's hand and the harassment stopped. I can see Tony doing that. I will miss him a lot. 
Here's to you Tony!