Anthony Bourdain's 'Don't Eat Before Reading This'
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In April 1999, Anthony Bourdain's essay Don't Eat Before Reading This was published.
It was an unfiltered look into restaurant kitchen culture. It launched his career as a celebrity chef.
He changed the way television told stories about food. Surya Elango speaks to Philippe Lajaunie, his friend and former boss at Les Halles restaurant, in New York.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
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(Photo: Anthony Bourdain. Credit: Fairfax Media via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. |
| 0:23.6 | And everything in between. |
| 0:25.0 | BBC sounds packed with personality. |
| 0:32.5 | Hello and welcome to witness history from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:37.1 | I'm Suria Alango. |
| 0:38.9 | We're the podcast that takes you back to a key moment in history. We bring it all to life through incredible archive and the amazing memories of key witnesses. |
| 0:48.0 | Episodes are just nine minutes long and they come out every weekday. If that sounds like your thing, make sure you hit subscribe wherever you |
| 0:54.9 | get your BBC podcasts and turn your push notifications on so you never miss a moment. |
| 1:00.6 | I'm taking you back to the turn of the century to meet a celebrity chef who changed the way |
| 1:05.8 | television told stories about food. If you were one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, |
| 1:14.3 | you shouldn't go out to eat. |
| 1:16.9 | Anthony Bourdain was a little-known chef in New York, |
| 1:20.8 | until he wrote an essay called Don't Eat before reading this, |
| 1:24.8 | published in the weekly magazine The New Yorker. |
| 1:27.8 | And then he became world famous for his popular TV travelogue shows, |
... |
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