Why Anthony Bourdain Almost Never Ordered Ground Beef-Based Dishes

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Despite being notoriously harsh over the years, Anthony Bourdain's later career was defined by his willingness to give anybody's go-to cuisine a shot — he even gave a stamp of approval to Waffle House in the process. However, his early work in the public eye wasn't quite as forgiving, with his time spent working as a chef in New York City in the 1990s informing his hesitancy to order many dishes at restaurants. This included almost anything that used ground beef as a primary ingredient. The reason for this was Bourdain's suspicion that these ground beef-centric recipes were using meat leftover from other beef dishes.

Bourdain noted this distrust for ground beef in his book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly," in which he also warned readers not to order fish on Mondays — advice he later retracted. As for his vote of no confidence in ground beef, Bourdain gave several examples of dishes to avoid. "'Beef Parmentier?' 'Shepherd's pie?' 'Chili special?' Sounds like leftovers to me," Bourdain wrote.

Anthony Bourdain's stance on ground beef-based dishes was far from concrete, as he was a known lover of cheeseburgers — especially from popular fast food chain In-N-Out. Even with that in mind, however, a general distrust for ground beef at restaurants isn't a feeling that was unique to Bourdain or to people in the restaurant industry. Many diners question the quality of ground beef dishes, either due to a similar perspective as Bourdain or a fear that the mince was ground and packaged an indeterminate number of days prior.

When it comes to using leftover meat, the practice is a poorly kept secret at many restaurants, with Wendy's admitting to using leftover burgers in its chili in order to combat food waste. Alternatively, some diners aren't comfortable with restaurants using beef that comes already ground, as it is more likely than whole cuts of beef to contain harmful pathogens. Plus, beef that is ground on the same day as it's cooked generally tastes much better than beef that is ground and packaged days earlier, making it an even more noticeable discrepancy. Because these practices vary so drastically by restaurant, some diners prefer to err on the side of caution and avoid ground beef-based dishes entirely.