Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods is one of those shows that you just can't seem to look away
from... even in the moments where you might want to.
That said, let's take a look at some of the worst things — from an outside viewer's
perspective — that Zimmern has ever eaten on Bizarre Foods.
While many viewers might first think of some of the more questionable bits of an animal
when they think of the worst foods Andrew Zimmern has ever eaten on his trips
for Bizarre Foods, he told The Washington Post something surprising.
One of the worst things, he said, was, quote, "as vegan as it gets."
So, what is it?
Zimmern had the misfortune to be served this not-so-tasty meal in Ethiopia, where it's
pretty common.
It comes from a tree that looks like a banana plant and is, in fact, a cousin of the banana,
but definitely doesn't taste like a banana.
The edible part comes from the enset plant's pseudo-stem, and once the tree is
uprooted, it's ground into a pulp, mixed with yeast, and put into a pit.
It's left in the ground to ferment for anywhere between three months and two years, and then
it's usually baked into a thin, bread-like round that's high in carbohydrates, used to
bulk up meals, and is also used as a utensil, which is called kocho.
For the people of Ethiopia, it's invaluable.
Since it grows year-around, it can be a literal life-saver during famines, and is a staple
food for around 15 million people.
They're called suri, and they're also called coconut tree grubs.
It might make your skin crawl, but they're still regularly harvested, skewered, and charred
in Peru.
Don't fancy eating grubs?
Andrew Zimmern didn't either.
Not always, at least.
He summed up the Bizarre Foods experience this way:
"The majority of the time that I've had them,
they've either been steamed or sauteed, and they taste like a nasty pus bag."
There you have it.
So what, exactly, are they?
They're the larvae of the palm weevil, and if you've ever seen the tree that's the
symbol of the Amazonian rain forest — the aguaje tree — you've seen
where they're found.
The weevil lays its eggs inside the tree, and the larvae eat the tree's bark, hence
the digested wood texture.
They're said to have the flavor of hazelnuts, the texture of mayo, and medicinal, infection-fighting
properties.
They're pretty big, too, up to four inches long.
It's estimated that most Peruvians eat about four and a half pounds of the nutrient-rich
grubs each and every year, and in spite of the fact that cooked suri are widely available,
plenty of people just pluck them off the tree and eat them raw.
That might actually be worse.
When Food & Wine asked Andrew Zimmern what the worst kinds of food were, he gave an answer
many people can agree with:
"Worst tasting foods are the fermented spoiled ones: think Hakarl in Iceland."
Zimmern tried the infamous Icelandic food in the second season of Bizarre Foods.
Hakarl is made from the Greenland shark, which is an incredible animal.
Oceanwide Expeditions says that when left to their own, they typically live to be around
400 years old, making them the longest-living vertebrate on the planet.
They can dive more than 7,000 feet below the surface, tolerate frigid, Arctic waters, reach
21 feet in length, and weigh up to 2,100 pounds.
That's a ton of meat, but the fresh flesh of the shark is filled with poisonous neurotoxins.
But Atlas Obscura says it was the Vikings who discovered that fermenting the shark neutralized
the toxins, and it's still done today.
Different cuts of shark have different tastes and textures, and it's described as being
a little cheese-like, sometimes fishy, with the smell of ammonia and an aftertaste that's
distinctly urine-like.
It's no wonder it's often washed down with a shot of booze, and it's probably safe to
say that booze often begins the hakarl-eating experience, too.
Ketchup seems like it would be as inoffensive as you can get, but in 2018, Andrew Zimmern
told Fox News that there was a certain kind of ketchup from a Bizarre Foods episode in
Missouri that was so bad he had to use a usually-forbidden word to describe it.
"The rotten tomato ketchup certainly was disgusting, in every sense.
And that's a word I never use around food."
To be more precise, Zimmern went on to say that it was a particular type of condiment
used with various types of roasted meats.
It's essentially rotten tomatoes, covered with mold.
It's then boiled, long enough to kill the bacteria, and he says it turned into a not-so-terrible
condiment with a, quote, "faint, fermented, off flavor."
While it's certain that mold brings along a special sort of flavor, can meat truly benefit
from it?
There's something to be said for using every part of an animal.
Head far enough to the north and you'll find that animal just might be a moose.
Andrew Zimmern headed to Alaska in the first season of Bizarre Foods, and on the menu was
jellied moose nose.
And no, that's not an adorable name for some kind of cute confectionary.
Moose nose has been considered something of a delicacy among northern communities for
a long time, and the Canadian government even encouraged the use of moose nose in a 1960s
cookbook filled with ideas on how to survive — creatively — while living in the northern
wilderness.
If you want to make your own jellied moose nose, it's not terribly complicated.
Peel or skin the nose first, then combine the white and dark meat with onions, garlic,
and whatever spices you fancy.
Add other face meat if you like, and cook.
Put the mixture in a loaf pan, and fill with a gelatin-based broth.
Leave it to congeal in the fridge, then cut off a slice or two to serve, just like a meatloaf.
Zimmern has said it tastes a bit like corned beef, and the more different types of face
meat that get included, the wider variety of textures.
Here's the thing about fish: it's all about texture.
It can definitely be delicious, firm, and flaky, but lutefisk is none
of those things.
Zimmern and Bizarre Foods headed off to Minnesota in 2007 and sampled lutefisk.
Surprisingly, he found it mild and not as bad as he had expected... but still.
"It's definitely an acquired taste.
It's very salty, it's very fishy, but it's that jelly consistency that's a little funky."
And it's a gelatinous texture that comes from the way the fish is prepared.
It starts out by being soaked for six days in cold water that's changed every day.
The waterlogged fish is then put in a solution of cold water and lye for a few more days,
and yes, it's dangerous as lye can definitely cause chemical burns.
It's soaked again for around another six days in plain water, then it's prepped by either
being steamed or baked.
Why?
No one's quite sure, but The Daily Meal says it's an oft-told story that the fish was once
used in an attempt to poison Viking raiders, but they ended up liking it.
Fun fact: don't use sterling silver utensils, and it'll ruin the metal.
There are some animals that are just off-limits, like cats, dogs, and — according to tens
of thousands of Whole Foods petitioners — rabbit.
Most people in the U.S. add horse to that list, too.
The U.S. was built on the backs of horses, after all, and today, they're still treasured
creatures.
But according to Andrew Zimmern, they should be livestock raised to be eaten just like
cows.
He's been incredibly outspoken about his belief that horse should become regularly consumed,
and he's used the fact that it's normally eaten in places like South Korea and across
Central Asia as support for his argument.
Many are less convinced.
But it was Kazakhstan where he sampled the oddest cut of horse meat for
Bizarre Foods, he says.
He was in Almaty's Green Bazaar during season six when he had horse sausage.
In addition to the fact that it was horse, it was the casing that would give most people
pause: horse rectum was used as a natural casing for the rib meat, and the whole thing
was dried then smoked.
One of the first episodes of Bizarre Foods was one where Andrew Zimmern headed off to
the Philippines and sampled another massively polarizing dish: balut.
According to CNN, it's even polarizing in the Philippines, where some students are introduced
to the dish as a part of their science classes, then are instructed to eat the semi-developed
duck or fail the assignment.
Needless to say, that's led to a whole slew of people who won't eat it.
That's a horrible way to spend a science class, and it's more horrible when you know exactly
what it is.
Balut is a roughly 18-day old duck embryo, usually boiled for about half an hour before
it's served still-warm.
The liquid part of the egg supposedly tastes a little like chicken broth, the yolk is a
bit like pudding, and since the duck is about a week from hatching, you'll have to crunch
your way through a beak, feet, and bones.
"The juice.
The juice from inside there, is the funky part.
And that's a little unusual, you're just not ready for it."
There's a belief that it's an aphrodisiac, and it's also claimed
that it cures a hangover.
It's no wonder, then, that it's traditionally been a popular late-night snack sold as street
food.
The popularity of balut is on the decline, though, which is fortunate for mommy and daddy
ducks everywhere.
The Thailand episode of Bizarre Foods was a rough one, with not just one nausea-inducing
food, but a whole bunch of them.
It started with Zimmern passing on a bag of bloody cow placenta and opting instead for
a bamboo rat on a stick.
It was impaled and grilled, and if you've ever wondered whether or not grilled rat entrails
smell good, the answer is apparently "no."
Then, it was on to the dung beetles, which were "nutty," and the giant horned beetle,
which tasted like "swamp mud."
The following day included raw meat and fat from a just-killed calf, and even though Zimmern
passed on the offering of the animal's stomach contents, he did try liver dipped in a bowl
of spices and gallbladder bile.
It wasn't over yet, oh, no.
Then, it was on to hunting field rats that were cut up whole for a stir fry.
After that, it was time for some carnival food, but there were candy apples here!
Instead, it was fried sparrows and fish meat that had been salted, fermented, then rotted
for a few days.
If there's any trip he should have packed some granola bars for, it was probably that
one.
The planet's oceans are amazing places, but they're also filled with some icky creatures.
In some places, people eat those creatures.
Andrew Zimmern has said that some of the strangest sea creatures he's ever eaten on Bizarre Foods
crawl out of the coral reefs of Samoa, and they're very small worms.
They're officially called palolo, and according to Atlas Obscura, they can only
be caught on a single night in October.
That's when they come out of the coral.
Seven days after the full moon, it's both mating time and harvesting time.
Palolo have the ability to detach their heads from their tails, so when you get a plate
of the delicacy — which is said to have the texture of noodles and the flavor of seaweed
or caviar — you're getting a plate of headless worm bodies.
Males are reddish and females are blueish, and while you're eating, their heads are back
in their coral homes, busy regrowing tails -- a feat they can accomplish in just a few
days.
In 2009, Andrew Zimmern and Bizarre Foods headed to Australia, and a weird thing happened.
Zimmern and the crew went out into the Northern Territory with FrogWatch, a group dedicated
to the extermination of the cane toad.
The natives were shocked when, after helping catch the frogs, Zimmern cooked and ate their
legs.
That's not as cold-hearted as it sounds, because according to the Australian Museum, cane toads
are an extremely poisonous species with no major predators.
They were introduced in 1935 to help eliminate scarab beetles but have become major pests
in their own right.
They hunt native wildlife, compete with other species for resources, spread disease, and
can even injure pets and people.
There have been numerous attempts to find a way to control the population of these hardy
toads, and according to Professor Philip Hayward from the Southern Cross University, eating
them is actually a pretty good idea.
They're nutritious, high in the oft-touted omega 3 fatty acids.
They take on the taste of whatever they're marinated in, and eating them is a win-win
— it'll help control the population, and could be a valuable food source.
Hayward stresses that preparing them correctly takes some study and expertise as they've
got a number of poison glands, but aside from that, they're delicious.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.