The Fall Food Trend Anthony Bourdain Wanted To See 'Drowned In Its Own Blood'

Anthony Bourdain rarely minced words. Whether he was talking about his favorite fast food chain, dumb food fads, or his frenemy Guy Fieri, he told it like it was. And few modern food trends earned his ire quite like the pumpkin spice latte. To him, pumpkin spice wasn't just a seasonal flavor; it was a symbol of everything wrong with American consumerism. His distaste for the now-ubiquitous fall beverage was well-documented. In a popular Reddit post, Bourdain delivered one of his most memorable jabs at Starbucks' seasonal hit: "I would like to see the pumpkin spice craze drowned in its own blood. Quickly."

It's not that he especially hated the flavors of cinnamon and allspice. For Bourdain, it was about the meaning (or meaninglessness) behind it all. While he certainly wasn't a stranger to indulgences, he couldn't stomach the artificiality and predictability that the PSL brought with it every autumn. 

Pumpkin spice (which often doesn't include actual pumpkin) is a pre-mixed blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and ginger. Obviously, Bourdain had tasted all of these in his lifetime, just in very different contexts. And for Bourdain, context mattered. He celebrated food that told a story and carried the imprint of places and people. A mass-produced, overly sweetened latte with synthetic syrups and vague "fall vibes" definitely didn't qualify. He may well have classified PSL fans alongside entitled elite Yelpers critiquing restaurants.

Anthony Bourdain also didn't hesitate to reiterate his hatred of PSL in subsequent interviews, just in case we didn't catch it the first time. In a 2015 interview with People Magazine, he reiterated, "I think pumpkin spice is disgusting. I certainly don't want it in my coffee."

There was surely some deeper cultural critique going on as well. Bourdain frequently railed against the homogenization of taste and how corporations package flavor into easily digestible, heavily branded products. Pumpkin spice, in his view, was flavor stripped of context. It was a fake flavor made purely for the sake of an Instagram– pure seasonal nostalgia sold to us by marketing teams. And to a man who spent his life chasing the real, the raw, and the rooted, that was something worth calling out.

Now, Bourdain didn't begrudge people their guilty pleasures. The super-sweet drink didn't just taste bad to him, but it signified something bad: culinary laziness, cultural sameness, and the triumph of trend over taste. But then again, he wasn't really much of a dessert guy.

Bourdain made yet another jab at the poor PSL in a 2017 interview with Town & Country when they dared ask him what he thought of the then-new Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino. His response should come as no shock: "It's the perfect nexus of awfulness. Just add pumpkin spice to that mix, and you can nuke the whole country."