Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World of Food

by Andrew Zimmern

  I am not in the business of animal cruelty, and the debate can rage on for decades about whether or not a lobster has “feelings,” but there are many cases (oysters, clams, to name a few) where lively freshness is imperative when dining, and, frankly, in most cases I am very content being ensconced firmly at the top of the food chain. I would also say that many of the more extreme examples of my dining on live animals falls into the experiential category and not into the everyday-habit category.

  I love sushi. A lot of people think sushi is just about raw slices of fish, but that’s not always the case. You can order maki—rolls of sweet, sticky rice topped with fish or vegetables and wrapped up in nori, or seaweed (kind of like a mini burrito). Nigiri is sliced pieces of fish placed atop a firm pad of rice. Sashimi is the sliced raw fish served straight up. Navigating a sushi menu can be a daunting task, with lots of unfamiliar words on the menu. For those of you with sushi anxiety, I’ve put together a list of my favorite items, in no particular order.

  ~Tekka maki. This was the first type of sushi I fell in love with, and my five-year-old son loves it as well! It’s simple: raw tuna and rice rolled in nori. Dunk each cylindrical piece in a dish of soy sauce and eat the whole thing in one big bite.

  ~Unagi. If the idea of eating raw fish creeps you out, start off with barbecued unagi, or freshwater eel. Sure, eel sounds pretty weird, too, but it’s fully cooked and covered in a sweet and savory Japanese sauce.

  ~Maguro. This slice of raw bluefin tuna is a deep red, and it is a definite crowd pleaser. A high-quality piece of maguro will have a mild flavor and a meaty texture.

  ~Hamachi. A good piece of hamachi, or young yellowtail, will melt in your mouth. One bite of hamachi, flavorful and buttery, will turn you into a fan for life.

  ~Tobiko. These tiny little spheres are fish eggs, the roe of flying fish. They sometimes are sprinkled over rolls for a slight crunch, but I prefer to order them off the nigiri menu. Hundreds of these eggs are placed on a pad of rice, then wrapped in nori. They pop in your mouth, kind of like bubble wrap. It’s really fun to eat.

  ~Hikarimono. Silver-skinned fish sliced for serving, with the silver skin left on. You actually eat the silvery fish scales.

  ~Mirugai. Raw geoduck, a huge clam that resembles a certain male appendage (wink wink). It’s sweet and slightly crunchy—much like a cucumber.

  ~Amaebi. Sure, eating sweet shrimp, served raw, is pretty good. However, most sushi bars will serve you the shrimp heads, deep-fried, as an accompaniment. They’re absolutely delicious. For the record, you’re supposed to eat the eyes, antennae, shell, and all.

  ~Uni. The gonad of a sea urchin, this is one of those foods that people either love or hate. Uni are gold in color, and are typically sweet and creamy.

  ~Fugu. The innards and blood of this fish, also known as blowfish or puffer fish, contain a deadly poison. Only licensed chefs are allowed to prepare the fish. Fugu tastes fine, but the real attraction is the danger associated with this meal. A master sushi chef will serve every edible part of the fugu—not just the flesh but the liver, intestines, and skin.

  There certainly is a lot of culinary magic going on in Japan, and not just with the restaurants. Good Japanese cooks—and I’ve had the pleasure of working with many in my life—are brilliant replicators. So precise, with impeccable knife skills. Their diligence, discipline, and powers of concentration are far beyond the average Western cook’s. Give them a classic French or Italian dish and within a day they can nail it every time. The great French and Italian restaurants in Tokyo are hindered only by availability of ingredients, which in the age of the airplane does not limit them much at all. But the last time I was in Tokyo, I had the opportunity to have a meal—alone, in an empty restaurant in between lunch and dinner—that stands to this day as the greatest single sushi experience I’ve ever had.

  THE BEST OF THE BEST

  Sushi Mizutani is a teeny restaurant in the basement of the Ginza Seiwa Silver Building, right around the corner from the Shimbashi Station. Open six days a week, serving lunch and dinner Monday through Friday, this gem is the best sushi restaurant in Tokyo.

  Behind the counter is a space that is only big enough for one person to walk through at a time, and there is only one chef here, so no need for more room. A table for two, tucked away in the corner across from the sushi bar, may be used at dinnertime, but only when Chef Mizutani deems it fitting to seat someone there. He loves to dole food out himself, lavishing stories on his patrons, allowing them a front-and-center seat to what may be the greatest set of sushi skills operating in the world. Mizutani is the man. Every bite of food in this restaurant passes through his hands at some point.

  The real magic happens before the restaurant even opens, when Mizutani himself, along with his assistant, prowls the markets, collecting the best product available in the city—and with almost fifty years of cooking under his belt, he knows what he’s looking for. He’s a neat and tidy little man, very thin, with a big, round face and an easy smile. His giant round glasses emphasize the curving features of his face. He’s probably approaching seventy if he’s not already there, but he has the energy of a man half his age.

  His restaurant is spare and without pretension. You actually go down into the building’s basement, where you’ll find a nondescript sliding screen door. You knock and enter. It’s one of the more hidden-away restaurants that I’ve ever experienced, especially for one of this caliber, but Mizutani doesn’t want it any other way.

  He’s been there for years now, doing what he does like no other: simply providing people with the best. The best-quality fish and shellfish, the best aged soy sauce, the best shari (vinegared rice).

  Every ingredient has a special provenance. His rice, for example, comes from a handful of growers at a very special farm a couple hundred miles south of his Tokyo eatery. The vinegar he seasons his rice with is made in a renowned prefecture in northern Japan. His dishes have few ingredients, but each one is comprised of the highest quality foodstuffs available.

  I think the food world has come full circle in many ways. It used to be that all food was served on platters with everyone sharing family-style. Over the course of the next couple of hundred years, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, taverns came into vogue; by the end of the eighteenth century, restaurants were popular. Real restaurant culture developed in Europe in the early nineteenth century, but taverns—simple places to enjoy a meal—well, these eateries have existed for centuries. Serving individual foods plated in single-portion is a relatively modern convention that began in the 1700s and developed with the rise of a true middle class—average, everyday folks who began to accumulate some disposable income. Give a man an extra dollar and chances are he will spend it on food.

  THE FOOD VS. THE CHEF

  For hundreds of years, it was restaurants themselves—not the food or chef—that were famous. Of course, many chefs garnered fame for inventing certain dishes at certain restaurants, especially in America. Chefs of New York’s Delmonico’s restaurant in the nineteenth century were justifiably famous, not necessarily by name or face, but by reputation. And it didn’t matter who was cooking—you always knew someone good was there, much as it is at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans today. This has been home to some of the greatest chefs working in the South. You knew every time you went there, year in and year out, that it was going to be good.

  For the past few decades, restaurants have been all about the chef. While some of today’s chefs have achieved rock star status (hello, Wolfgang Puck), the quality of the ingredients is just as important as the person cooking them.

  You go to many restaurants not just to see what a certain chef can do with a given menu or oeuvre, but to eat food made with ingredients available nowhere else. Sometimes the chef and his ingredients are synonymous. Today, it’s all about ingredient worship, and I think sushi bars are the most obvious places to witness that development.

  IT’S ALL ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS

  When it
comes to ingredients, Japan’s respect for food matches Italy’s passion and simplicity. Like Japanese cuisine, Italian food at its essence is extremely simple, extremely seasonal, and not overly complex or clichéd. But the Japanese are indeed special. I think it’s the only culture in the world where a single pickled plum served on a giant plate gets the kind of oohs and aahs that elsewhere are reserved for more ambitious culinary pyrotechnics.

  In Japan, “simple” really works in a way that it doesn’t elsewhere. It’s pretentious when I see that type of cooking in other restaurants; they are just imitators and replicators, as opposed to true disciples. When you’re in a Japanese restaurant where a chef is actually making complex philosophical decisions about what to put on a plate, it can get really impressive. Japanese chefs would never serve that plum at its peak of ripeness just sitting naked on a dish; they would feel obligated to cook or prepare it in some way, even subtly. I mean, that’s why you go to a restaurant, right? If you wanted to eat the perfect raw plum, you’d go see a farmer; you wouldn’t go see a chef. But—and it’s a big but—if anyone serves food in a more naked or exposed or simple manner than the Japanese do, I haven’t seen it.

  Great Japanese chefs do just enough to those special items to heighten the eating experience without killing the ingredient. An ingredient captured at its peak moment of texture and flavor may not need much tweaking, which is why Mizutani’s less-is-more approach works.

  Sushi Etiquette

  ~Though you’ll receive chopsticks at most sushi places, it’s A-OK to eat sushi with your bare hands—even in fancy restaurants.

  ~Many people like to dip their sushi into a dish of soy sauce. While that’s fine, keep in mind that, traditionally, sushi is dipped fish—not rice—side down.

  ~Don’t rub your chopsticks together. It’s a sign to the waitstaff that you think the restaurant is cheap.

  ~Eat nigiri-style sushi in one bite. This is not always easy (or possible) in North America, where some sushi-ya make huge pieces, so just use your best judgment.

  ~Never leave your chopsticks sticking up in your rice. This is a bad omen, as it resembles symbolism used in Japanese funerals.

  ~The pickled ginger slices are intended to cleanse your palate in between bites—kind of like a moist towelette for the mouth. They are not meant to be eaten in the same bite as a piece of sushi.

  ~Watch out for the green stuff. Wasabi, or the small green mound on a sushi platter, can be delicious or a disaster. Wasabi is Japanese horseradish, and a dab is all you will probably need. Taking too much at once is a rookie mistake—one that will be rewarded with an intense burning sensation in the nose accompanied by teary eyes. Symptoms dissipate quickly, but knowing how much is too much will stick with you for life.

  Mizutani himself greeted me at the door while his wife and assistant tidied up the kitchen—it’s still a restaurant, after all. He invited me to sit at the sushi bar and asked me for my order. Who would better know what to order than Mizutani himself? I opted for an omakase-style meal, where you let the chef take the reins and you pray for the best.

  Of course, I had nothing to worry about here. Mizutani serves only the best. Japan grows great rice, and Mizutani has been getting his from the same family for years. All their rice is hand-planted, tended, and harvested in small batches. The care with which Mizutani prepares the rice is astounding. He washes and dries it, then gently cooks and seasons it with his specially formulated vinegars to give it a faint sweetness. This special care extends to the way he cuts and stores his fish, and the way he handles individual pieces of fish, especially ones with a high fat content—like certain cuts of tuna—not allowing the warmth of his hand to change the texture of the fish. Rice. Fish. Plate. Simple, but not easy.

  I watched as he handled the saba, or mackerel. He cups the fish in his hand, keeping his palm in contact with the rice for different lengths of time depending on the fish itself, transforming the flavor for the better, making it less fishy and less oily, as the warmth of the rice and his hand actually draws some of that oil from the fish into the rice itself. In a sense, he cooks with his hands.

  It’s not that Mizutani serves the most unusual fish. My meal ran the full gamut of traditional seafood, such as akagai, mirugai, and hokkigai. However, superior freshness, presentation, and symphony of texture exalted this meal to a new level. I ate several different types of hirame, or flounder. The dorsal fin was one of the most fabulous textures of any sushi I’ve ever eaten: crisp and corrugated, sweet and briny. The monkfish liver was kissed with sake and mirin, warmed ever so slightly. Mizutani followed up with paper-thin slices of abalone draped over rice sushi-style, chutoro (which is the meaty and fatty cut of bluefin tuna taken from the belly), incredibly fatty otoro as well, along with maguro.

  The squid was so fresh and delicate, cut with a dazzling sort of diamond cutter’s expertise. Millions of little knife marks ran across the flesh in a crosshatch pattern, allowing the fish to simply disappear on your tongue. I had two types of eel, freshwater and saltwater, braised in a soy, sugar, and mirin sauce reduced to a syrup. The fish is cooled and cut to order, sauced and thrown under a broiler to char the edges, then draped over small balls of rice.

  Mizutani served the best uni that I’ve ever eaten in my life. The shad that I had, a small bony fish that is called kohada, is usually a very pedestrian sort of fish in America, but in the hands of Mizutani, it was absolutely insane. His knife work is amazing, and he left little bits of skin on the shad but cut away other little pieces of the skin so it, too, disappeared in the mouth. I had aji, a Spanish horse mackerel minced as a little sashimi course, that was ethereal. These offerings are normally fishy even in the best of eateries; here they aren’t. And his cooking skill is amazing.

  Everybody raves about his tamago. This egg dish is made in a square or oblong pan; it is cooked in thin sheets and folded on itself, then pressed into a block. It is typically sweetened, and it makes a great last bite in a sushi meal. Mizutani’s tamago was creamy and textured in a way that reminded me of ripe peaches.

  MASTERING FOOD

  I’m a big student of art history. In that field, we always talk about the space that sculptures occupy, but more important, we also talk about the negative space where something isn’t. Often, less is more. It’s the greatest discipline challenge for chefs. I love young, bold, brash chefs. I love to eat their food. Their experimentation is awesome, but often there is one ingredient too many on the plate. A bold, brash chef who’s been around the block a few times yet still harbors that energy and curiosity in the kitchen relies less on gimmicks and needs fewer ingredients. Ingredients, pyrotechnics, and architecture in the kitchen are a great way to cover up lack of skill. Serving a single piece of fish placed on a small mound of vinegar rice is naked cooking. You’re on a tightrope without a net. This simplicity and this greatness come only from those who understand that all good cooking stems from good shopping.

  But Mizutani is more than a shopper. He’s disciplined enough to buy only foods at their peak of flavor. He knows the best way to handle and prepare a fish. He is a master, and that is what he loves the most. This passion translates to patrons. A great restaurateur knows great food doesn’t end in the kitchen. It ends on the table.

  When it comes to global cuisine, I’ve tasted it all: whole roast sparrows in Vietnam, stinky tofu in Taiwan, a glass of warm steer’s blood in Uganda. As the Cantonese say, anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible. I can tell you firsthand, the Cantonese are on to something. Considering the range of crazy foods I’ve eaten in my life, it might shock you to know that my most memorable food experiences involve fruits. This certainly shocked the heck out of me. I never would have guessed that my most thrilling food moments would come in the form of a juicy bite of fruit. Whether it’s rare and exotic or ridiculously plentiful, you can’t beat fruit grown in the ideal environment, picked at the right time. It’s nature’s candy.

  MY FIRST EXOTIC FOOD EXPERIENCE<
br />
  Mangosteens were the first exotic fruit that opened up a world of new ideas for me. Often referred to as the queen of all fruits, mangosteens are universally well regarded for their sweet, succulent flavor. It’s like eating a sorcerer’s blend of honey blossoms and wildflowers ingeniously mated with the sweetest melon. These small, round fruits have a sturdy green stem and a firm, purple, husky exterior. Place the fruit between your hands, making sure to not crush the delicious center to smithereens, press your palms together, and crack the spongy, fibrous shell. Inside, you’ll uncover eight or nine misshapen segments around a central core. It’s not entirely unlike a snow-white mandarin orange. Sweet and juicy, and once you take a bite, you can’t stop. What makes mangosteens extra special is their relative scarcity around the world outside of their growing zones. The small mites that live inside their thick skins make these fruits next to impossible to transport, and attempts to cultivate the fruit in places with similar climates, like Hawaii, California, and Florida, have failed miserably. While I wish we all had better access to this incredible fruit, there is something to be said for being able to eat it only while in a specific area of the world. Why? Because when it comes to food, I believe in eating with the seasons. Can’t really enjoy a summer tomato unless you eat beans and stew all winter long. And in the age of the jet plane and in a time when all our lives are built around instant gratification, it’s nice to have something to look forward to when you travel.

  MARULA

  One of the most interesting fruits I’ve ever tasted hails from Botswana’s Kalahari Desert. The marula trees drop yellow, golf-ball-size fruit, which sun-ripen (rot, actually) on the ground. Marula fruit, with an extremely tart frontal assault and a sweet finish, is not only a bushman favorite but is popular with the kudu and baboons as well. Unearthing the small bit of fruit is an involved process. You bite through the rind, remove the cap, and then squeeze the fruit from the end. The fruit pops into your mouth like an oversize lychee. Suck out the sweet-sour flesh and spit out the big seed—but don’t throw it away. When roasted and dried, this seed can be cracked open and eaten. For thousands of years, marula nuts have been one of the five primary staples of the bushman’s diet. I savor the simple pleasure of walking through the desert, ten marula fruits in hand, snacking on them as juice streams down my face and hands. SweeTarts never tasted so good.