At his best, to Bourdain, the world was the star. The people, the cultures, the varied beliefs, the booze, the music, the rivers, the cities, the ethnic groups, what they share and their tensions. He’d often at least indicate class distinctions in his shows, at times gender dynamics as well. He spoke up in defense of the many immigrants in the restaurant industry, and was an ally of the #MeToo movement.

Starting with “A Cook’s Tour” (on the Food Network) and then the Travel Channel‘s “No Reservations” and “The Layover,” Bourdain often presented the realities of places around the world, using the universalism of food — everybody’s gotta eat, right? — as a way to show both the commonality of humanity and the creativity of various cultures.

Anthony Bourdain with diners in Lagos, Nigeria

Bourdain’s programs were in sharp contrast to corporate media’s typically clichéd depiction of other countries, frequently shown as synonymous with their caricatured rulers, with canned images tirelessly repeated. Bourdain was a television man who actually allowed the world to crash into people’s living rooms: Fresh visuals from places most U.S. viewers would never visit.

While so much of media adds spin, Bourdain, in his earlier writing and later video work, often sought to strip away the façade — get people past the veneer of tourist traps. He started by writing about what he knew, the reality of the restaurant kitchen, and then moved out from there. Though his work sometimes devolved into self-involvement or snark, he brought something to U.S. cable that is a rarity: a sense of the reality of the World Out There.

Bourdain couldn’t necessarily be considered reliably left or progressive; he occasionally dismissed the left, frequently adopting a “look at the foibles of both sides” attitude about various issues. He relished mocking farmers markets and glamorized eating red meat. His program on Libya in May 2013 almost wholly accepted the NATO line. Sometimes I wished he would come down more harshly on the powers that be — showing the side that came through when he declared that seeing the devastation of Cambodia made him want to kill Henry Kissinger.

Perhaps Bourdain’s most striking programs went to places where official punditry is often at its most uniform. He’d write:

Iran was mind-blowing. My crew has NEVER been treated so well — by total strangers everywhere. We had heard that Persians are nice. But nicEST? Didn’t see that coming.