Grossest food on Zimmern's Bizzare Foods

[Minger]

I like the show and admire Zimmern's enthusiasm for unusual foods of the world. The grossest food I've seen eaten has to be the wok fried bat served in the jungles of Thailand. You see the fried little head with teeth bared. EW.

What's your grossest food on that show?

[flourgirl]

Wow, this thread was even hard for me to READ, never mind actually watch the show. I couldn't even read all the way through here and I'm not usually that squeamish.

[chefdilettante]

Though everyone is commenting on the "Fear Factor" aspect of the show, I think Zimmern does a nice job of conveying the central message of the show: Most cultures are compelled by scarcity, and protein is a valuable and essential fuel for life. His show chronicles how each culture finds and uses every bit of protein available, whether it's "alternative" (e.g. insects) or part of an animal that's edible but thrown away (e.g. testicles) by wasteful societies like our own.

[Minger]

That's a really good point you make. And maybe that's reflected in the example of the silkworms that the Vietnamese adult enjoy but the kids won't eat. The parents obviously grew up in the much leaner times than their kids in prospering Vietnam today.

[Minger]

I rewatched the Vietnam episode. In one meal, they ate sparrow, scorpions, and bull p*nis and testicles. Scorpions are cliche. Sparrows are too cute to be eaten! Zimmern bit the head off of his. Bull parts don't seem bad stewed in the hot pot but they looked gross raw in preparation.

Later Zimmern has dinner with a Vietnamese family. The kids refuse to eat the silkworms. I wonder if that is a modernization thing or will they too like their parents learn to like it? (As we do with broccoli??)

[HillJ]

Stinky, rotten tofu...good lord

[dolly54]

I think he is kinda gross, his gestures and expressions seem to be fake. He does seem to like all kinda of animal penis.

[Phaedrus]

OK, you can't just post that and not give us a post-Freudian analysis of the meaning of your last statement.

[JiyoHappy]

I watched A Z today in Delhi and even before the show started I was praying he eats something I found grossier than the grossiest, and he DID eat it. The comments that followed were equally gross but comic. He actually put it in his mouth and then took it out to show the uncooked piece attached to it. IT.
Overall it was a good show. I revisited my chowfaves in delhi.
But he did eat IT in a red curry and still could not eat some of IT
nice anyway

[Phaedrus]

IT?

[JiyoHappy]

I still can't bring myself to say the word or even type IT.......
.guess I am a prude afterall

[Minger]

I love a good treasure hunt. I guess we'll just have to rerun surf to find out what IT is!

[bitsubeats]

i believe jiyohappy is referring to goat testicles. what's so difficult about saying balls or testicles? ahahaha

[septocaine_queen]

does it start with an S and end with M.? 7 letters?

[JiyoHappy]

bingo

[Minger]

i had to look it up... scrotum. there, i've revealed it.

[sommrluv]

LOL!

The durian episode really bothered me. I enjoy the show, but did you ever notice if he's in a restaurant and doesn't like something, he'll just comment on it. However, if he doesn't like something outside, or at a street cart, he'll spit it out and make a big deal.

I find it kind of insulting.

I think the durian farmer was inwardly seething...all he could say was "That is your taste, it is just fruit".

I personally prefer Bourdain. He ate with that tribe in Africa, and they made him eggs with dirt and pork intestines that weren't quite well cleaned if you know what I mean, and he smiled and ate, and declared it delicious.

I'm sure he raced home and took four courses of antibiotics, but you know Zimmerman would be in a bush puking. So much for international relations.

[dave_c]

I've tried eating durian a couple times. I couldn't get past the odor and the taste was as described... rotting onions.

:-D

[Minger]

Cooking eggs in dirt is something else. To go back to one of the posts in this thread asking why we watch this stuff: one reason we watch is to find out how other cultures eat and live.

I think the durian example shows how most of the gross looking foods actually taste quite good, eg fried bat looks gross but tastes good, while some foods just taste plain nasty.

[paulj]

Andrew seems to handle 'animal' grossness better than the 'vegetable' stuff.

I doubt if the durian farmer was really bothered. He must have known that people either love or hate the fruit, especially when ripe. In cities like Singapore, owning and eating durian is strictly regulated, due to the offensive nature of its smell.

Also we don't know what kind of work the producer does to arrange visits like this, and to ensure that the host is happy with the experience.

paulj

[cook52]

At first I thought I had a ready answer, the worm he ate from the tree and then the coffee he drank from some rodents urine, but then I read everyone's response and now I think I watch the show for shock affect. Anyway he seldom eats anything I would eat without spitting out.

[amykragan]

the rotten shark was pretty nasty tonight.

[Minger]

I resaw the Minnesota episode. At the fair, Zimmern and a kid take a bite out of different corndogs (a Reuben and something else), then they swap dogs and each takes a bite out of the other's dog. I thought the kid might have been Zimmern's son but then they part ways after sampling a few more different foods. COOTIES!

[Fuser]

OK I saw saw the episode where he went to the penis restaurant in China and ate all manner of penises. OMG. Even his host looked as though she was going to hurl as he described the "twiggy" nature of the snake penis. While the elk penis was described -- I am not making this up -- as chewy and silky.

[MagnumWino]

I don't get this show at all. We tried watching it once or twice, but when I watch a food show, I want to be turned on by the food and not grossed out. I understand the curiosity factor, which is what it was for me at first, but after that? Plus the way A.Z. smacks his lips when he eats is really annoying.

[JiyoHappy]

I wonder how the Neely woman will behave in that restaurant

[mi_ami]

turtle, donkey, tree worm, blood clots/cubes, stinky tofu dipped in green coating, camel paw?, bear loaf, the muskrat thing from the southern state, frog heart, jellied moose nose loaf, putred meat and eggs, heart, lungs and animal genitalia. chickens comb and butt and feet. scorpion. That's all I can think of for now...

And he can't even eat Durian?! man, what's up with that

[shalisah]

When he ate the putrid meat fixed with scrambled eggs. You could see him actually gag on it.

[jvish]

The raw pork fat (dama mein) left to ferment for two weeks in a jar in Taiwan was bad news, The stinky Tofu restaurant just seemed revolting (he couldnt even eat the house specialties)
In Alaska when he ate buried rotted fish and the "Whale Blubber" condiment.

[jodymaryk]

One time in Mexico we were visiting a friend's house out in very rural Mexico and he put out a plate of raw pork fat. You were supposed to put lime juice and hot sauce on it. Sorry, I couldn't do it but my hubby gave it a try but had to spit it out. Luckily these were good enough friends they didn't get offended and just laughed at us. I thought they may be playing a trick and just trying to get us to eat it but a few of the folk (not all) were eating it up! Can you say "trichinosis"? Everything else they have ever made us out there is great and that is where I learned to cook carnitas and homemade tamales! Yum.

[Antilope]

Must be where the term "Chew The Fat" came from. ;-)

[Phaedrus]

Nah, that came from Chow Yun Fat, the Hong Kong actor.

[dave_c]

Raw pork in Mexico!

The secret of "Our Lady of Fat-ima" visions?

[cook52]

dave c; that is pretty stupid.

[dave_c]

I figured I wouldn't get an em-phat-ic response to my pun. I too wasn't in-fat-uated with my response. I think I was a too fatigue from work.

[Antilope]

Balut. The egg with the duck embryo got to me. Bleah! Also, when it comes to insects, bugs, worms and grubs, count me out.

[libgirl2]

Oh yes those tree worms, right out of the tree were gross!

[rumgum]

I like Balut. But I'd stop at the tree worms too.

[beelzebozo]

frog sashimi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOUnjB...

[Minger]

that frog clip crosses the line into surreal comedy.

[monavano]

Just about everything on the Morroco show made me want to vomit. Zimern was a bit of a curiosity at first, but seriously, it makes me nauseaus watching what he eats.
And who kisses him???????

[Phaedrus]

Piure or sea squirts, that hunk of coral or what ever with the animal living in it. They cut it open and there is all this red gooey thing that looks like a bleeding sore. On the Chile show.

[bubbles4me]

I'm with you! That was the nastiest thing ever....what was the first person that at that oozing thing thinking?! Just remembering it now makes my stomach turn...worst hands down for me.

[Miss Needle]

Yeah, that was pretty gross.

There was another thing that disgusted me -- it was a bug or worm of some sort that looked like a pus ball. Does anybody remember what it was?

[dave_c]

I found that episode fascinating. Being a Star Trek nerd, all I could think was "so that's what a Horta looks like". lol

Live Long and Prosper.

[gloriousfood]

After a while, it all begins to blur: testes, penises, insects, etc. But I do have to give props to the piure. Wow. I could've sworn that it was breathing.