Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World of Food

by Andrew Zimmern

  While I did find some Stoney in cans in South Africa, the version that hails from the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Tanzania does it the best. And just my luck, you can’t find it anywhere else in the world.

  I love pleasant surprises. Often they are the familiar food memories that come to me when I’m out of country rather than the shocking surprises or the anticipated foods. As much as I love Peking duck at Quanjude in Beijing, I expected it to be good, so it wasn’t much of a surprise.

  When I was seventeen years old, my friend Toby and I spent much of the summer on the Cycladic island of Sífnos, in Greece. We lived with a family on the island, and almost every day we ate at the local pizza parlor. Keep in mind that the Greek and Italian varieties of pizza hail from completely different families. The pizza we found in Sífnos started with a cooked piece of round dough, brushed with crushed tomatoes, salty Greek goat’s cheese, and oregano, and drizzled with olive oil as it left the oven. It’s more like a seasoned focaccia than anything else.

  As a born-and-bred New Yorker, I’d like to think I’m an authority on great pizza, and I’ve thought about that delicious Sífnos pizza at least once a month for the last thirty years. One day I will get back there. Nothing would be a more pleasant surprise than discovering that more than three decades later, that Sífnos pizza joint is still putting out their simple, unexpected culinary gems.

  What does it mean to be a traveler, not a tourist? A traveler is filled with curiosity about the world we live in. A traveler realizes there are endless numbers of people to meet, places to see, and things to experience. A traveler steps outside his or her comfort zone, into unknown territory, with an open mind (and hopefully an empty stomach). At the end of the day, it is this curiosity about the world we live in that drives my actions, and ultimately fulfills me.

  Through these experiences, I’ve gained a new perspective on what an ideal life is all about. As a kid in New York, I remember watching public television documentaries about tribal Africa. I’d think about how hard the people’s lives were, how much better off I was, how sophisticated our big-city culture seemed to be. I felt superior and smug. Looking back, I can’t believe what a little brat I was. I love my life, but is it the best, most fulfilling way to live? I’m not so sure.

  Simplicity is something we Westerners tend to overlook when it comes to our day-to-day lives. However, the more people I meet and places I see, the more I’ve come to appreciate the little things. A simple shared meal with friends and family is truly one of life’s greatest pleasures, and I’ve been humbled countless times by the generosity of those I meet on the road.

  When I was filming in the Amazon jungle, my native guide Donaldo invited me to share a lunch at home with his family. He was so proud of his two-room home on stilts on the banks of the Napo River. We sat on the cooking room’s floor, eating fried coconut grubs served on leaves, along with small steamed potatoes from his garden. He ate one grub, giving me two on my leaf, and also giving two to each of his three kids. Nine grubs and a few root vegetables were all they were going to get to eat that day. How do you explain that kindness and generosity?

  From my experiences, it seems the secret to happiness is simply the ability to love and respect other people.

  Almost anything that crawls, swims, trots, runs, slithers, or flies has at one point crossed my lips. I’m always delighted to chat about the world of flavors I have encountered; how something tastes is more important than what something is. Like I always say, if it looks good, eat it.

  What it’s like to eat lamb brains (Morocco)

  I’ve tried lamb brains many times. However, the experience that will forever be branded into my own brain was the time I sampled lamb brains in Morocco. Imagine: vendors pointing maniacally into vats of bubbling innards to attract customers.… It was spooky. The brains were boiled and served with cumin and salt on the side. You might think they would be rubbery, but they’re actually rather creamy and taste like impossibly mushy river rocks.

  Lamb brains are a delicacy not only in Northern Africa, but in many other parts of the world. Italians might use brains as stuffing for ravioli; Lebanese love to fry them with a little onion, salt, and pepper (it’s a dish called nikha’at miqliyah, and it rocks!); and Indians often start their day with a breakfast of dosa (kind of like a crepe) stuffed with rice, lentils, veggies, and sometimes brains! The Chinese say eating brains will make you smarter, so eat some as your after-school snack and watch your grades soar.

  What it’s like to drink cow’s blood (Tanzania)

  In many cultures, drinking blood is considered an essential component of optimal health. The Masai tribe of Tanzania drink animal blood regularly. It’s thought to make the body strong and keep you warm on a cool day. When you chug a glass of blood, your body temperature will rise a few degrees—seriously!

  Freshly drained cow’s blood tastes like sucking on a freshly used and discarded bandage the size of a dish towel. The blood is often collected at dawn and drunk for breakfast. A tourniquet is tied around the neck of the cow, allowing the blood to pool. Then, at close range, a tribesman shoots an arrow into the cow’s jugular vein. Blood pours out of the wound into a gourd. After the cow has lost a few pints of blood, the wound is sealed shut by smearing it with the cow’s own feces.

  Drinking half a quart of this stuff was an act of desperation and hunger for me, but it’s a typical Masai breakfast designed to deliver instant protein, like a power shake.

  What it’s like to eat donkey (China)

  In the Western world, we tend to stick to the big three proteins: beef, pork, and chicken. The Chinese, however, are one of many Eastern cultures who give donkey meat two thumbs up. I’ve eaten it many times, and I can assure you that these folks are on to something.

  Imagine the best steak you’ve ever feasted on; multiply that by ten, and you get donkey meat. It’s truly one of my all-time favorite meats. It tastes a lot like veal—very delicate, with a hint of beefy flavor. The donkeys used aren’t big like horses. They’re a specific breed that’s black-skinned and fairly small, like Shetland ponies. Try your donkey meat medium rare and I guarantee you’ll go bananas for it.

  What it’s like to eat a giant fruit bat (Samoa)

  What’s your favorite after-school snack? Do you like to keep it healthy (an apple and peanut butter), or are you more of a junk food person (chips or cookies)? For kids in Samoa, roasted whole bat is a treat. I’ve seen kids fight over the last piece.

  Roasted bat is an anomaly in the food world: The Samoans don’t bother cleaning or gutting the bats prior to roasting them—because they don’t have to. The innards of bats in that part of the world are extremely clean. However, the Samoans do make a crisscross incision in the animal’s chest to allow steam to escape. The bats are then roasted over an open fire. The meat tastes like charred spoiled ham, gamy and metallic, fatty and almost sour in some places, and eating it is a fairly messy experience.

  What it’s like to eat dancing shrimp (Thailand)

  Want to bring some serious fun to the dinner table? Try eating food that’s alive. Nothing could be fresher—and freshness is the key to amazing seafood. My favorite example hands down is the Thai dish called dancing shrimp.

  It starts out with small shrimp (about an inch long) that are still alive and kickin’, along with a spicy, garlicky sauce; toasted rice powder; tomatoes; and fresh limes. When you squeeze the lime juice on the shrimp, the acidity makes them jump like crazy. This is when you start eating—if you can get ahold of one, that is!

  This dish is so alive with flavor (no pun intended) that I wish I could eat it every day. Raw shrimp are like little briny gummy bears. And the toasted rice powder and chili-lime flavors are amazing.

  What it’s like to eat rotting shark meat (Iceland)

  Hákarl, an Icelandic delicacy made of rotted shark meat, is one of the most horrific things I’ve ever experienced. This particular species of shark (Greenland or basking shark) is poisonous and is only edible after it has bee
n buried in gravel, left to rot for at least two months, and then hung up to dry. Did I mention that this fish pees through its skin? It does, and it tastes like it. You can’t imagine how nasty and ammoniacal this decaying creature is to eat. Icelanders might consider this a tasty treat, but I think I’ll stick to hot dogs.

  What it’s like to eat durian (Asia)

  Durian. The word makes me shudder. How can a simple fruit have such an offensive flavor? This fruit is slightly larger than a football and has a spiny husk that houses a flesh with the texture of rotten onions and the flavor of sweaty feet. The scent is so pungently rotten that durian is banned by law from many places, including shops, hotels, and public transportation. Why does anyone like this stuff? I just don’t get it, but folks all over Asia are gaga about this fruity stink bomb.

  What it’s like to eat balut (Philippines)

  Eating balut is psychologically petrifying. It’s a hard-boiled egg with a fully formed duckling inside. You can see the duck’s eyes, beak, and skeleton (there are even some fuzzy feathers chilling out in there!), and yes, you put the whole thing in your mouth and start chewing. When it’s fresh, it tastes like a roasted piece of poultry in a hard-boiled egg seasoned with vinegar and salt. The flavor is fantastic. The trick is having the nerve to peel it and put it in your mouth without thinking too much.

  What it’s like to eat fattened duck liver (France, the United States)

  Fattened duck or goose liver might sound like an odd thing to eat, but it’s considered one of the world’s most indulgent treats. This rich concoction usually goes by its French moniker, foie gras (pronounced “fwah grah”).

  Foie gras is one of my favorite foods. It’s like butter made of meat; it’s almost pure fat and has a smooth, velvety texture. If it was good enough for the pharaohs, it’s good enough for me. I love liver, and this is the liver of the gods. One of the biggest culinary trends right now is the pairing of foie gras with everyday foods. Hot Doug’s Sausage Emporium in Chicago offers a hot dog topped with it, and the Bazaar in Los Angeles does a foie gras lollipop—basically a bite of foie on a stick wrapped in a big puff of cotton candy. You shove the whole thing in your mouth at once. It’s delicious.

  What it’s like to eat roasted baby sparrows (Vietnam, Taiwan)

  If you’re hungry on the go in the United States, you might buy a hot dog from a street vendor. In Vietnam and Taiwan, you’d buy whole roasted sparrows placed in a little to-go snack bag.

  These crunchy little guys are roasted with skin, innards, and beak intact. They taste like great roasted chicken and crispy Chinese duck rolled into one. You pop the whole thing into your mouth—even the bones! They’re delicate yet satisfying—heavenly. Who wouldn’t love these?

  What it’s like to eat moose nose jelly (Alaska)

  I love headcheese (meat jelly made from bits of flesh from a cow’s or pig’s head). Moose nose jelly is just a jellied loaf of headcheese made from—you guessed it—moose. On a trip to Alaska, I was asked to help make this gelatinous treat. “Sure,” I said. “That sounds cool.”

  I thought we’d simply assemble already-picked bits from the moose’s head. I was not prepared to see the whole head and neck of a 1,200-pound beast plopped down in front of me. We skinned the head and boiled it; then we picked out all the meat, fat, and connective tissue and boiled it in a giant vat. After that was done, the liquid from the vat was reduced and poured over the meat. It took hours, but it was sooooo worth it.

  What it’s like to eat a giant hissing cockroach (Thailand)

  The idea of having a three-inch-long hissing cockroach on your tongue is psychologically daunting. But the fresh fried ones taste like giant Fritos, which helps get them down the hatch. Bugs are one of those things that look horrible but taste better than you think. I truly believe that anyone who tries fried cockroach or roasted grasshopper with a sprinkle of salt will wish they were packaged up and sold in their grocer’s snack aisle. The bonus: They’re an excellent source of protein!

  What it’s like to eat a tarantula (Cambodia)

  These arachnids sound like a scary snack, but they taste like soft-shell crab—especially when they’re fresh. The trick is digging them out of their underground lairs, defanging them without getting bitten, washing them, and then cooking them in a way that scorches off all their hair. It’s really important to defuzz tarantulas before you eat them—the hairs carry a poison that can set your mouth on fire and numb your throat for days. When deep-fried first and then flash sautéed with sugar, salt, chilies, and garlic, the way they do in Skuon, Cambodia, they are addictively delicious.

  What it’s like to drink aloe juice (Ecuador)

  Did you know that the plant used to cool a sunburn is available in drink form? The flavor is fine; the issue lies in the boogery three-foot-long threads of aloe scraped into the tonic. Having one end of the thread in your glass and one end in your stomach makes for a very barfable beverage.

  What it’s like to drink kopi luwak (Indonesia)

  The thought of drinking coffee once bonded by poop may make your stomach percolate, but don’t knock it till you try it. Kopi luwak is coffee derived from beans consumed, digested, and pooped out by the common palm civet, or luwak, a cat-sized mammal that sports the facial markings of a raccoon and is a relative of the mongoose.

  This dung-derived delicacy is exported from the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Sulawesi in the Indonesian archipelago. Luwaks dine on ripe coffee cherries in Indonesia’s treetops. The fruit is fully digested, while the bean remains intact and is excreted. Farmers then pluck the beans from the fecal matter. After a thorough scrubbing, they’re roasted, ground, and brewed. The lewak’s digestive process zaps the bitterness from the bean, creating a slightly sweet, rich flavor with less caffeine than your average cup of joe.

  This is, bar none, the most superb, chocolaty, low-acid coffee I have ever tried. The fact that monkey-cats poop the beans out before natives collect them is a novelty that takes some getting used to … but the thing that’s really hard to swallow is the price tag: a pound of beans costs over four hundred dollars!

  What it’s like to eat a beating frog’s heart (Japan)

  If you want to sample some of the oddest foods under one roof, check out a getemono bar in Japan. These eating establishments, frequented mostly by men, serve extremely unusual dishes; one of the strangest (and most popular) is frog sashimi.

  The most difficult part of eating this dish is having to come face to face with your dinner prior to eating it. I selected my very own Kermit (still alive) before the skilled chef made fast work of skinning him. The chef also quickly plucked the still-beating heart from the frog’s chest. Imagine trying to pick up a pulsating heart with your chopsticks—it wasn’t easy.

  I popped the whole heart into my mouth. It was a lot easier to get down than I’d expected. The frog’s heart is small, tinny-tasting, and very soft when raw. It’s almost flavorless, though, so it doesn’t appeal to me much.

  What it’s like to eat dung beetles (Thailand)

  Dung beetles themselves are light, crispy, and nutty—one of my favorite bugs to eat. Here’s the catch: you have to fish dung beetles out of piles of fresh, steaming water buffalo poop. That’s a big problem for most people. Ironically, people in northern Thailand, where this dish is a local favorite, dump them into a bucket of water when collecting them in the field not to rid them of the poop, but to keep their wings wet so they won’t fly away!

  What it’s like to eat stinky tofu (Taiwan)

  The Taiwanese are crazy about stinky tofu. The two-day-old soybean curd regularly sold on the street is delicious when split, grilled, stuffed with spicy cabbage, and basted in peanut sauce. I had it every day for lunch in Taiwan.

  What’s awful is the fourteen-day-old stuff at Dai’s House of Unique Stink. These tofu squares sit for two weeks in a ten-year-old vegetal sludge that reminds me of Dumpster juice. The result is essentially inedible, so rancid and foul I could only try it once. I still have nightmares abo
ut it.

  I hope this book inspires you to try something you think is gross—you just might like it!

  Charlie Conrad, Jenna Ciongoli, and the team at Random House who spearheaded the adult version of this book—their patience, tolerance, and understanding were limitless, and without their persistence and faith, there would be no book. A huge thanks goes out to Beverly Horowitz, Krista Vitola, and the team at Delacorte Press for not only seeing the potential to share my story with kids, but having the know-how to do so. You guys are amazing.

  ANDREW ZIMMERN is a food writer, dining critic, and chef and the cocreator, host, and consulting producer of the Travel Channel series Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre World. He is the founder and editor in chief of andrewzimmern.com, and he writes monthly for Delta’s Sky magazine and Mpls.St.Paul magazine. Andrew was also the winner of the James Beard Foundation Award for Best TV Food Personality. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and son.