An Artist's Plate: Remembering What The Late, Great David Bowie Loved To Eat

The music world suffered a devastating blow this past weekend with the death of the colorful, quirky, and hugely influential rock legend, David Bowie. Bowie, 69, avoided normalcy like a plague, and was famous for adopting and shedding all manner of gender-bending characters from Ziggy Stardust to the Goblin King and the Thin White Duke. Throughout his career, Bowie's taste in food evolved and transformed just as much as his musical and aesthetic persona.

Bowie, like many rock stars in the 1970s and '80s, dabbled heavily in drugs. According to biographer David Buckley, who wrote Strange Fascination: David Bowie: The Definitive Story, Bowie's diet in 1976 consisted almost entirely of red peppers, cocaine, and milk. Bowie later said that he hardly remembered anything from this period in his life.

He was also known for frequenting cafes and pubs, including the now-defunct Caffè Falai on Lafayette Street in Manhattan. Managers say Bowie used to eat at the place, which was famous for its Italian doughnuts, at least three to four times a week as recently as 2012.

Later in life, Bowie dropped his bizarre milk and red peppers diet in favor for something a little more ordinary (especially for an Englishman): shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie was allegedly his favorite food of all time, and was even included as a menu item at the David Bowie-themed restaurant in Japan. Pay tribute to the memory of the eccentric rock god by making one of The Daily Meal's best shepherd's pie recipes.