Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel is having a video contest, and one lucky winner will star with iron-stomached host Zimmern on an episode. So maybe you were wondering what to do with Fluffy, your beloved pet who just passed on to hamster heaven? Well, get that fry pan going and the video camera rolling...
And if you never checked out Bizarre Foods, do, because like yak testicles, it's weirdly addictive. And we can't be the only ones who think so, because it's on the Travel Channel a lot this coming week, with episodes on Monday at 9 (Spain), and Tuesday at 10 and 11 (Ethiopia). Still, for the life of us we're not sure what it is about this show. Not that we won't try!
First of all, unlike most food/cooking shows, it's got almost no usefulness - when's the next time you're going to go to Alaska to munch on some whale eye? Second, unlike most travel shows, it's not particularly aspirational - he sometimes goes places we might want to go (and often doesn't) but then turns away from the gorgeous mountains and flowing rivers to sit in someone's dirty basement restaurant and eat a sauteed roach.
And third... well, No Reservations With Anthony Bourdain, also on the Travel Channel, has an easily understood appeal: Bourdain goes to the coolest places and eats the best food, high and low -- from chili crab and beer on the street in Singapore to a mind-blowing dining experience at El Bulli, Ferran Adria's three Michelin-starred Barcelonan restaurant that many consider the most creative, if not the best, restaurant in the world. That's total food porn. But Zimmern's show is porn too, in its way. It's just, you know, porn with scary, toothless people rubbing each other out under a boardwalk.
So why are we going to tune in to watch this man suck down barnacles and wasp larvae, and possibly try for the chance to do it with him? Beats the hell out of us.
-- Jake Kalish is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights