“”

TV chef wins Muslim award for courage

Anthony Bourdain, presenter of “Parts Unknown” on CNN, receives Voices of Courage and Conscience award from U.S. Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Chef and TV presenter Anthony Bourdain, best known for his “Parts Unknown” series on CNN, has received an award from the American Muslim Public Affairs Council for an episode he did on the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank last year.

In “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain travels to parts of the world that aren’t normally on the tourist map to sample local food and learn about local customs. He received the MPAC’s Voices of Courage and Conscience in Media award last week, The Nation reported.

“I was enormously grateful for the response from Palestinians in particular for doing what seemed to me an ordinary thing, something we do all the time: show regular people doing everyday things, cooking and enjoying meals, playing with their children, talking about their lives, their hopes and dreams,” Bourdain said in his acceptance speech.

“It is a measure I guess of how twisted and shallow our depiction of a people is that these images come as a shock to so many. The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity.

“People are not statistics. That is all we attempted to show. A small, pathetically small step towards understanding.”