Though the epicure culture that has emerged over the last decade has emboldened eaters to pretend outside of their culinary comfort zone , offbeat food for thought trucks and a fewfried grasshoppersat a ballgame have nothing on the dishes highlighted onBizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern . The Travel Channel series , which debut in 2006 , take Zimmern — a chef who was born in New York City but began his career in Minneapolis — across the earth to essay the singular slightness extend by cultures on nearly every continent . He ’s eaten crocodile in the Australian outback , go through puffin in Iceland , and brainiac curry in India . And somehow , things only get eldritch from there .
While you might not be able to put up everything that ’s cooked on the show ( it takes a special eccentric of person to watch Zimmern eat somebraised tuna eyeball ) , it ’s is a unique looking at at what the rest period of the world puts on its denture . drudge deep into this Travel Channel staple fibre with these facts aboutBizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern .
1. THE SHOW ISN’T ACTUALLY ABOUT BIZARRE FOODS.
Sure , oddities like donkey salami and bull bollock soup ( affectionately calledSoup Number Five ) get you to tune in , but for Zimmern , Bizarre Foodsis really a show about tolerance — and not in a back - to - school special sort of mode .
“ I did n’t care about outre foods,“Zimmern told Yahoo!.“The show I sold was about preach solitaire , allowance , and empathize about things that separated us ; dissimilar sexualities , different skin colors . I wanted to babble out about matter we had in common . I thought I was the best guy to do that , because I had the ability to look at bowl of soup and tell you its ethnical definition . ”
Zimmern had been approached before about experience a more traditional cookery show , as a chef behind a foreshorten card walk the witness through how to make each dish . But hetoldDisruptionMagazine that “ I retrieve intellectual nourishment can change the way hoi polloi see the world , ” so he set out to show audiences how unlike — but ultimately similar — we all are through the lens of a pertly cook meal .
2. THE SHOW ISN’T AS IMPROVISED AS YOU’D THINK.
What makesBizarre Foodswork so well is the instinctive feel of the show . The cameras follow Zimmern as he nonchalantly thread through Moroccan marketplaces , explores the South Korean night life , or samplesstreet foodin Singapore . It takes a circumstances of provision to look so jury-rigged , and the people behind the show have had to adapt over the years and plan more meticulously for the news report Zimmern and crew want to tell .
“ We used to slip up upon things more than we do , ” ZimmerntoldThe A.V. Club . “ As the show has become big , and therefore more expensive to make , and there ’s more advert sell against it , and it becomes a bigger part of the web plan , we ca n’t put on the line going somewhere and not coming back with a certain figure of story to sate up our hour . So we have it away when we go to , whether it ’s Detroit or Djibouti , we know that we ’re cash in one’s chips to go there , and here ’s six stories we ’re doing . ”
Even the best - laid plans can change at a moment ’s notice , and something more interesting than the original melodic theme can walk in front of them and interpolate the show ’s direction . “ Sometimes the stories are harder to discover , ” Zimmern keep , “ but we spend a lot of prison term parsing on the ground . ‘ Okay , lease ’s not do this because what ’s in front of us is even more interesting . ' I think of , we ’re a TV crew . If a unicorn walks in front of us , I ’m gon na eat him . ”
3. THE SHOW FEATURED ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST NOTORIOUS FOODS.
From tarantulas to rectum sausage , Zimmern has wolfed down near every animal , bug , and strange plant you could imagine , usually with a reassuring smiling to tell interview that the ocean cucumber he ’s munching on is n’t nearly as hideous as you ’d consider . That is , unless it ’s fermented .
Zimmern has gone on record as say the “ worst taste solid food are the fermented spoiled ones . ” And in one episode , while chatter Iceland , he got to eat one of the most repulsive examples of work food for thought : Hakarl , which is basically rotting Greenlandic shark . All it takes is a quickGoogle searchto see that Hakarl is almost universally accepted as the worst food on the planet .
The flesh of the shark is poisonous when refreshing , so it ’s first buried underground with stones placed on top to squeeze the toxic moisture out . After a few weeks or month of that , it ’s grasp up , cut up , and left to hang for a few more months to crest off the putrefaction procedure . Though the shark literally “ oozes toxic ammonia ” for months , it ’s a delicacy in Iceland that goes back to Viking sentence ( though even Icelandic natives that eat it today describe it as tasting like ammonia and urine ) .
Hakarl has gained worldwide infamy due to its , well , repulsive preparation . But Zimmern care to brave the molder shark , saying it was“ultimately sweet-scented , buggy and faintly suspect … if you like ammoniated wax . ”
4. ZIMMERN WAS BESTED BY SOME STINKY TOFU.
Though the Hakarl must have been unpleasant , Zimmern managed to eat it with grinning on his face . The same ca n’t be said for the “ malodorous tofu ” he was served during the installment in Taiwan . The bean curd is have in a saltwater with a mix of veggie for two year at room temperature , and when it was serve to Zimmern , he say hecouldn’t get it downpast the back of his mouth . A television fromGreat Big Storyfeatures the same eatery he visited — Dai ’s House of Unique Stink — and the smell emanating from the dish aerial is equate to rotten garbage or feet .
Though Zimmern tell he ’s eaten malodourous tofu with no trouble before , Dai ’s House of Unique Stink proved to be a challenge that not even he could best . He had less luck with a 1000 - twelvemonth - old egg , which , can you blame him ?
5. SEA URCHIN, HORSE MANE, AND DONKEY WERE AMONG HIS FAVORITE DISHES ON THE SHOW.
Bizarre Foodsisn’t aimed at audience with a weak breadbasket , but the show makes sure to maneuver out that these strange dishes are n’t just edible — in many cases they ’re quite delicious . When asked by the Travel Channel about some of hisfavorite bizarre foods , Zimmern name - checked everything from cow udders he eat during theBuenos Airesepisode to the ( shudder)donkey skinhe gratify in while filming the Beijing episode .
6. ONE OF ZIMMERN’S LEAST FAVORITE FOODS IS THE HUMBLE WALNUT.
Though Zimmern has gone on record to talk about his challenges with sure fermented food and especially mordacious unpleasant-smelling bean curd , his least favorite food is the walnut tree , because , according toThe Daily Meal , he arrogate “ they taste soapy . ” sound like a put-on ? Well here ’s a video of himspitting outsome intellectual nourishment made with walnuts . For the sake of caustic remark , here ’s a videoof him not spitting out — and even relish — something called maggot cheese .
7. ZIMMERN’S ONLY REAL FOOD-RELATED ILLNESS CAME FROM TAINTED CUMIN.
Zimmern ’s option of strange culinary art may raise some eyebrow , but the host says out of everything he ’s eat , both for pleasure and on the show , the only sentence he ’s gotten really sick is from his tripper to Morocco when he ingested some corrupt cumin .
The solution was something called burn mouth syndrome , which is a computer virus that — you guessed it — cause a burning or tingling whizz in a mortal ’s back talk trace the infection . It never really snuff it away , but Zimmern also say it ’s only blaze up up a few times in the tenner since he first contract it . He told The Huffington Post thathe carriesa “ steroidal rinse ” for his oral fissure should it ever reemerge .
8. SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE U.S. INSPIRED THE MOST RECENT SEASON.
Zimmern ’s initial concept of a show that unifies the globe through food has never been well-timed — though now he ’s looking to do so in his own backyard . So for the serial ’s latest time of year , which wind up in September , the product continue ( mostly ) in the United States , to show how the area flourish when unlike culture , customs , and culinary art meld together in unison .
“ The trouble that we always try out to solve with the show is this notion that the cosmos needs more patience , tolerance , and understanding with each other,”Zimmern toldEsquire . “ And if I could pick one place on Earth where masses need more forbearance , tolerance , and apprehension with each other , it ’s America in 2017 . ”
The premise of the season was to highlight that “ there ’s a whole world within our own history and ground that prove us to be a state of immigrant , embracing commonality as Americans about the good things we share and not about the thing that have been split us historically . ”
Along the elbow room , the show bring home the bacon a look into Americana itself , explore the culinary art of the Yukon Trail , Erie Canal , andthe lifeof a Texan cattleman .
