Anthony Bourdain
After traveling the world, achieving fame as chef and author, and finally becoming a TV personality for the hit "No Reservations," in its fifth season, it is definitely time to recognize Anthony Bourdain as a flavorologist of high merit.  But more important than his prestige, it is Bourdain's keen sensitivity to the people and places behind the food that earns him this distinction.

For 28 years Bourdain proved his mettle in New York city, making his way from dish rooms to fine kitchens.  In 2000 this elbow grease and keen sensitivity to irony materialized itself as "Kitchen Confidential," a memoir of his experiences.  It was an international bestseller.  The book was followed by others: "A Cook's Tour" (a nonfictional account of "Typhoid Mary") "a Bone in the Throat," "Gone Bamboo," and "The Bobby Gold Stories" (crime novels), "the Nasty Bits" (a collection of essays), and "No Reservations."

Bourdain knows food; he knows chefs; and he knows people.  When he sits down at a table in the Amazon, in Papua New Guinea, or in Canada, food is more than just good or bad.  Sometimes Bourdain starts off revolted and ends up with a horrible stomach virus.  Yet, eat he does, because the food is merely the gateway to a million other opportunities for insight and pageantry.

The quest to taste is the quest to understand.  The Travel Channel writes, "an understanding and appreciation of how others eat is akin to discovering secret societies and cryptic subcultures...  the food is only the first glimpse of a wider view of how people live their lives in faraway lands and unfamiliar territories."

With his wit, his adventurous spirit, and his stomach of steel, Bourdain sets a high standard for flavorologists everywhere.