Getting paid to travel to some of the world’s most remote places to entertain your palate with mouth-watering authentic dishes sounds like “a fantasy profession” that’s just too good to be true. Except in the case of the globetrotting food connoisseur Anthony Bourdain, whose life for the past 15 years stands in sharp contrast to the experiences that set him out on this path to begin with. His travel cooking show has been featured on a number of channels over the years under different names — A Cook’s Tour on the Food Network, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel, and now Parts Unknown on CNN. The premise, in Bourdain’s own words, “I travel around the world, eat a lot of [redacted], and basically do whatever the [redacted] I want.” Now who wouldn’t want that? In his profile on Bourdain for The New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe, delves into the particulars of this New Jersey-bred, “well-heeled nomad’s” life, what makes him tick, and the awe-inspiring journey that led him to be filmed “pounding vodka before plunging into a frozen river outside St. Petersburg (runtime 42:54), or spearing fatted swine (runtime 49:55) as the guest of honor at a jungle longhouse in Borneo,” Keef writes.

So who exactly is Anthony Bourdain and what’s his story? For more than 20 years before he began his television career, Bourdain worked as a professional chef, and while he was good at what he did — having learned the basics at the Culinary Institute of America — he casually admits that he really was not the most creative. During those days, he hardly ever traveled and also battled with a serious addiction to a few types of drugs.

His lucky break only came in the year 2000, when he published his memoir Kitchen Confidential, which quickly climbed up best seller lists, as it offered people a unique glimpse into the inner workings and drama of the hospitality industry in an unabashed, “savagely honest,” gonzo-style way. From there, Bourdain soon grew into a new type of avant-garde food master who “makes a fetish of authenticity” and believes that the days of 15-course meals are long gone. “Bourdain tends to be photographed with his jaws wide open, on the verge of sinking his teeth into some tremulous delicacy.” Nine-times-out-of ten, that delicacy is some form of street food in some remote part of a city or island that most people would not normally venture into. One thing about him and a tip for the every traveller: Bourdain says he will never eat somewhere with a dirty kitchen or bathroom. Check out Parts Unknown’s official YouTube channel for more of Bourdain’s thrilling food-capades.