Gadling

I’m here with Andrew Zimmern, the wildly popular host of Travel Channel’s hit series, Bizarre Foods. He’s a personality that needs no introduction–at least around the Gadling water cooler. You could even say he’s our Paris Hilton.

His show–which is about what it sounds like–has just finished its second season, with episodes spanning the globe from Iceland and Bolivia to St. Petersberg and Delhi (check out our episode guides here). Beyond the tube, he’s a celebrated food writer, dining critic, radio talk-show host, and chef. For more Andrew, check out his blog.

In this exclusive interview, Andrew dishes on everything from director Ang Lee’s stinky tofu fetish to his NYC School of Hot Dog Consumption Theory.

What did you do after you got out of the restaurant business in 1997? How’d you end up on the Travel Channel?

After leaving daily restaurant operations, I started working for a local monthly glossy magazine and a local Fox news station, doing food stories for both. I began to work on several shows on HGTV as a part-time talent and just kept pushing tape everywhere I could. I began to develop a reputation and a following, and eventually started working with a local production company on show ideas. I have always wanted to be the food guy on the Travel Channel. It was my goal from the beginning and once they saw our tapes they commissioned some specials from us, and then those took off and the rest just happened thanks to the viewers. I am totally blessed and the luckiest guy in the world.
Any tips for tackling street vendor food? For me, they’ve been either a cultural delight or a speed ramp to my hotel bathroom.

I use the NYC School of Hot Dog Consumption Theory. I only eat from street vendors with happy customers, long lines and a clean cart. I look for hot food that is really hot and cold food that is really cold. I smell and look at anything twice before I eat it, and I always ask people where the food is from and who made it. You can tell a lot if you follow those rules.

Advice for travelers who want to get over that psychological barrier to trying a bizarre local fare?

Remember when you were seven and your best friend dared you to eat earth worms? Go back to that mind set. The equation changes once you eat your first dish of something that you swore you would never try. It is always better than you thought it would be. Often times it is delicious and then you have to pinch yourself and say “holy crap, I am eating coconut grubs with Pilchi Indians in the Amazon.” It’s all downhill from there.

Can you give us a preview of the next round of Bizarre Foods premieres?

Well, beginning September 9 at 10 PM (ET/PT) on Travel Channel, you will see Hawaii, Paris, Sicily, Goa, Los Angeles, Maine, Turkey, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Korea, Tokyo, Texas, Appalachia, Fiji and Australia. Every show keeps getting better and better, and the people I meet as I travel around the world keep showing us that the planet does taste better one bite at a time. In Maui, we cooked with James McDonald at O’o Farms and then explored the world of SPAM at a local greasy spoon. We killed a wild boar and ate him in the mountains of Hana, we shared dinner with Roy Yamaguchi and then ate wild goat roasted on the slopes of a volcano. In Sicily, we sailed the Mediterranean with a fisherman and then shared a seafood lunch back at his house with a stop along the way for some dried salted tuna sperm. Sounds good, no?

And most importantly, if you and Anthony Bourdain got in a hot dog eating contest, who would win?

Tony is one of my idols, and has become a friend over the years, but trust me when I tell you that it would not even be close.

I’m here with Andrew Zimmern, the wildly popular host of Travel Channel’s hit series, Bizarre Foods. He’s a personality that needs no introduction–at least around the Gadling water cooler. You could even say he’s our Paris Hilton.

His show–which is about what it sounds like–has just finished its second season, with episodes spanning the globe from Iceland and Bolivia to St. Petersberg and Delhi (check out our episode guides here). Beyond the tube, he’s a celebrated food writer, dining critic, radio talk-show host, and chef. For more Andrew, check out his blog.

In this exclusive interview, Andrew dishes on everything from director Ang Lee’s stinky tofu fetish to his NYC School of Hot Dog Consumption Theory.

What are the top four worst foods you’ve sampled, ranked by terribleness?

• My aunt’s meatloaf. Horrific. Each slice ringed with an orange pool of fat, spreading out on dirty plastic plates. I was six at the time and it traumatized me.
• Stinky tofu at Dai’s Sisig in Angeles in the Philippines. It’s a quick hash made with meat and cartilage from chopped pigs faces. It was really nasty.
• Raw pigs balls sliced and served with raw egg yolks. I ate it at a getemono bar in Tokyo, and texturally and aromatically, it was a real challenge to eat.
• And I guess to round out the list I would have to choose all the bad versions of dineguen, which is a Malaysian blood soup that I adore, but bad versions of it are just hideous.

Any food you would recommend? (A question for readers who haven’t caught your show)

WOW…all the rest! I think that we are all bored with boneless, skinless chicken breasts wrapped in plastic in the grocers shelves. My show teaches people that if they just put their pinky toe outside their comfort zone, they will end up diving in face first.

I would in general encourage people to eat street foods in the countries they visit, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Hard Rock in Beijing is popular with Americans. When you’re in China, why not eat Chinese food? Think of it this way, Kraft American Cheese Singles sound strange to nomadic tribes in Saharan Africa, and roasted sparrows sound weird to kids in Minnesota, but the yuck factor, the contempt prior to investigation is learned behavior, it’s psychological. I have watched little kids dive onto a platter of fried bats in the jungles of South East Asia, but in our country we are taught a mythology of food that is often times misguided at best. The kids in Thailand, or Samoa, don’t have Halloween, or Vampire stories. To them, bats are just yummy, like chicken wings with meaner faces.

I’ve heard you sometimes carry around Pepto-Bismol. What other accessories, food-related or just travel, are must-carry?

For some reason I’m impervious (knock on wood) to stomach troubles, but I always carry Pepto-Bismol with me on the road for peace of mind. It’s smart for any traveler to carry Pepto when visiting new places or experiencing new foods. Because of different security rules around the world, I keep the chewables in my carry on.

I also carry your typical antibiotics and first-aid stuff in case something happens. I think one has to be prepared for anything. I have never had to even take Cipro on the road for traveler’s trots. I never travel without my Grundig world radio for those slow nights when you can’t fall asleep, my iPod is loaded with radio and TV shows “Ring of Fire” from NPR is one I love to listen to late at night). I always bring five more books on the road than I can ever read (William Boyd and Michael Chabon top the list today).

How do you pick the cuisine and the destinations for each season? Do you have local fixers? Tips from viewers? Your mother?

The production company I work with is fantastic and we have a dozen team members who work all year long finding the best stories for our show. Originally we came up with a master list of countries and cities and we are just barreling through them as we go. Sometimes the network wants us in a country because we are doing a network-wide approach to a theme, like China Week. Sometimes we are steered clear of a locale because some other shows on our station just went there and it would be overkill. We use local fixers in all locations and we learn plenty from viewers, we really read all the mail and get our best tips that way. My mom responds to any question she is asked with the standard mom catchphrases about making sure I ate and made my bed.