November 1, 2006 (2006-11-01) – August 14, 2008 (2008-08-14)
Locations visited by Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is a travel and cuisine television show hosted by Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel in the US. The first season began on Monday, February 6, 2007, at 9pm ET/PT.
Bizarre Foods focuses on regional cuisine from around the world which is typically perceived as being disgusting, exotic or bizarre. In each episode, Zimmern focuses on the cuisine of a particular country or region. He typically shows how the food is procured, where it is served and, usually without hesitation, eats it.
Originally a one-hour documentary titled Bizarre Foods of Asia, repeated showings on the Travel Channel drew consistent, considerable audiences. In late 2006, TLC decided to turn the documentary into a weekly, one-hour show with the same premise and with Zimmern as the host. In 2009, Zimmern took a break from Bizarre Foods to work on one season of the spin-offBizarre World.
Balut, Calamansi, Bamboo shoots, Coconut and rice paste wrapped on banana leaves and roasted, Okoy (shrimp pancake), Deep fried fertilized duck eggs, baby chickens marinated, steamed and fried, tokneneng, Ube and cheese-flavor ice cream in a bun.
At Balaw Balaw in Angono, Rizal: Balaw-balaw sauce, with fermented shrimp paste, soup Number Five (bull's rectum and testicles soup), uok in adobo, white worms from the larvae of crickets or beetles found in fallen coconut trees, crispy fried Alagaw leaves, ginatang bilo-bilo.
At Everybody's Café in San Fernando, Pampanga: Dinuguan, a blood stew, crickets of rice fields cooked in adobo style, Betute Tugak (stuffed frog with pork). Puerto Princesa: Banana skewers, bananas rolled in brown sugar and deep-fried with caramelized sugar crust, fried chicken intestines on a stake. Kinabuchs: seaweed, mussels on a half shell, grilled tuna belly, snails cooked with coconut, tuna collars grilled. Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, mangrove worms.
2 (2)
March 5, 2007
Morocco
Marrakech: Mashwi, roasted lamb, sheep's head steamed, tongue and eye, snails in turmeric broth, beef tongue, cow's heart, pancreas stuffed with rice and raisins. Khlea, dried cooked meat preserved in fat, cooked with eggs.
Huatulco: Shellfish, scallops, oysters, sea snails, mussels, abalone, octopus, El Grillo Marinero Restaurant: with garlic sauce or stewed in its own ink, cocktail de pulpo.
Season 1 recap with some of its highlights, including lamb's head, guinea pig, roast pigeon, worms, grubs, armadillo, and stinky tofu. Also included were outtakes and unaired scenes.
14 (14)
February 26, 2008
Best Bites
Season 1 recap with some of its highlights, including balut, hen's uterus, grubs, conch, ptarmigan, jellied eels, nutria, octopus and souse. Also included were unaired scenes and a preview of season 2.
Pig's foot, lutefisk, reuben on a stick, spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, gator on a stick, teriyaki ostrich on a stick, wild boar's liver, brain, and testicles, venison, sauerkraut pie, deep fried chicken gizzards, goober burger (with peanut butter and mayonnaise), herring roe.
Grilled squid, dim sum with chicken feet, stuffed duck's feet, stir-fried milk with shrimp, turtle soup, pigeon, scorpion, suckling pig, jellyfish salad, worm and hairy crab roe omelet, wood ear mushroom, frog legs, 60 meter long noodle, stinkhorn, hairy gourd, starfish being used for decoration.
Fried grasshoppers, pork liver and beef stomach and intestine soups, coconut balls, stretched squid, stuffed mackerel, wasp larvae, stir-fried stingray, mole crabs, wasabi-, chili-, and tom yum-flavored cashews and cashew apple juice at a cashew factory, red weaver ants, forest lizards, fish stomach sauce, deep-fried fish skin, horseshoe crab, sea whelk.
Samoan apple, se'a (sea cucumber intestines), pork pies, mutton, umu-cooked eel, whole pig cooked in 'umu oven, raw tuna eyeballs and still-beating heart, giant clam, roasted tree grubs, fruit bat roasted on coconut husks.
Head cheese, slow-cooked piglet in goose fat, pig ears, tongue salad, and eyeballs, scorpions on toast, South American ants on string potatoes, crickets, worms, shot of wheatgrass and barley, "rawsagna" with ground sunflower seeds, flax, cherry tomatoes, and dates, hemp-sunburger on flax flatbread, coconut-durian smoothie, soondae, hot dog burrito, cow's tongue sandwich from the taco truck, monkfish with caviar, sea urchin roe, Santa Barbara shrimp sashimi, octopus tirodido, menudo, corn smut, nopal salad, grasshoppers, whole catfish, deep-fried chicken testicles, Peking duck, cockscombs.
Zimmern went to a vegan supper and a Hispanic family's feast. Featuring special guest chefs Wolfgang Puck, Ben Ford and Ani Phyo and Los Angeles food blogger Eddie Lin [1].
This special discussed unfamiliar foods that are considered scary and what made Westerners uneasy about them. Zimmern then hosted a Halloween party with Bizarre Foods fans where he served his favorite fares. He discussed drinking blood with the food historian and author Linda Civitello, which is based on culture and status. The anthropology director at the University of Minnesota, William Beeman, explained about fear of bugs and organ meat, saying that people are more likely to eat insects with a side. The chef Patrick Lue Chai, at whose restaurant Zimmern ate in Los Angeles, cooked fried crickets with potato strings as well as other insects for the party. Appetizers at Zimmern's feast were tarantula, waterbugs, grasshoppers, hissing cockroaches, and Thai stir-fried ants and crickets. The entrees were fresh cow's blood, raw goat kidney, chicken feet and guinea pig.
Imu-cooked kalua pig, poi, aʻama crab, heʻe luau (octopus w/ taro leaves), bonefish, Spam musubi, pineapple upside-down cake with Spam, guava-glazed Spam, tempura Spam, naʻau (wild boar offal and blood), ono with lavender sauce, lamb with lavender salt and pepper, goat with Maui onion and chili peppers, Hawaiian fusion - natto, clams, wasabi, and soy, local escargot, caviar, seaweed, goat stew with intestines and bile, opihi.
Fermented enset fiber pancakes and porridge, raw sautéed beef, ayib cheese, unfiltered honey, berbere, goat organs in ox intestines, crepe with chicken and onion, coffee, sorghum popcorn, fresh raw beef and camel kidney.
In Addis Ababa, Zimmern shopped at Africa's largest market and in Harar he fed meat to wild hyenas.
Braised dried oysters with black hair moss, English goose, pig's feet and lentils, snot (sweet potato starch), cow cod soup, rabbit and wheatberries, Swedish meatballs, cuttlefish eggs, pork intestine soup with red dates, tobacco-wrapped cheese, porcupine stuffed with potatoes and bacon, sweet noodle kugel, spritz cookies, sweet fish-shaped cake.
Zimmern hosted a holiday pitch-in party with chefs and friends he made around the world. It was at a historic mansion in Minneapolis and the food was cooked at the Calhoun Beach Club.
Lungfish, white ants lured by drumming, matoke (steamed green bananas), braised goat with peanut and sesame sauce, grasshopper, squirrel, millet bread, goat stomach lining and intestines, Nile perch, rotten goat meat from a Ugandan drive-through, roasted corn, mixed grill (intestine-encased organs), cane rat with tilapia from Lake Victoria and raw Nile crocodile.
Zimmern takes part in a spiritual possession ceremony while in one village.
35 (13)
December 9, 2008
Japan
River eels, sea squirts, stonefish liver, Bluefin tuna eyeballs, mayonnaise fondue and milkshake, octopus egg sac, sea cucumber egg jerky, turtle blood sake, octopus ice cream, pit viper ice cream, beef tongue ice cream, horumon, takoyaki, raw horse mane, funazushi, squid ink soup, stewed tuna eyes in mirin, giant sea snail, sea snake soup (smelling sea snake anus in the market), raw goat testicles with scrotum.
36 (14)
February 10, 2009
Sexy food
This episode was a Valentine's Day special. It was a compilation episode about the cultural connections between food and sex, featuring foods that are supposed to be aphrodisiacs or are made of sexual organs of animals. Zimmern visited the Mall of America where he gave out samples of bull testicles to see people's reactions and if they would eat it when told it would help their sex life. The author and food historian Linda Civitello talked about the history of eating reproductive organs. At the Midtown Global Market, Zimmern interviewed people about foods that were supposed aphrodisiacs, including chocolate and oysters. He handed out chocolate-covered meal worms and crickets that tricked people into thinking they were pretzels. At the end, Zimmern and some others ate sushi off a naked woman, a practice called nyotai mori.
Zimmern samples the traditional Tanzanian breakfast called supu, soup made with goat lungs, heart and liver, as well as cow stomach, intestines and tongue. He also travels to the famous Mount Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro Crater. Visiting a local tribe, he tries such delectables as fresh cow's blood and the coagulated form of it. The blood is obtained by shooting an arrow at close distance into the jugular vein so that the wound heals quickly and the cow is not harmed.
Zimmern feasts on the country's most authentic soups, barbecues and fermented foods. His Asian adventure goes beyond eating when he makes his first batch of fresh kimchi. He also eats raw octopus (san-nakji), chueo-tang, samgyeopsal, tteokbokki, soondae and haejang-guk.
Zimmern goes into the Australian Outback where he eats wallaby with Aborigines, samples crocodile cooked on the barbecue and makes a meal out of poisonous cane toads.
Zimmern goes to the Appalachian Mountains for a taste of the region's culture and its food. The mountain range runs north to south touching more than a dozen states, and many of the people in the area still maintain the traditions and foods that were a part of life for their ancestors.
Zimmern goes to Singapore to experience the diversity of food and culture. The melting pot is seen everywhere, including the Hawker Stalls where he samples tasty treats.
Zimmern samples some of the most outrageous food creations at the Texas State Fair, including nitrogen frozen dessert, chocolate bacon and fried alligator. He alsohas a behind-the-scenes tour of the kitchens at NASA to taste space food. A fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich, fried Coke, javalina, barbacoa, sweetbreads, cabrito
Zimmern visits Nicaragua, "the land of lakes and volcanoes", tasting everything from juicy cheese worms to bull balls soup and raw bull balls ceviche. He visits a bush doctor in the Atlantic port town of Bluefields, eats a family rondon stew, and treks up into the Matagalpa highlands for some "black gold" where he learns how to do "the slurp" with master coffee cupper Julio Obregón.
Zimmern travels to Puerto Rico where the flavors of the food tell the history of the island, from the deep-fried treats brought in by Africans to the roasted pork made popular by the Spanish. He tries a variety of traditional foods, including a stew made with different parts of a pig.
47 (10)
June 16, 2009
Survival Special
Zimmern is dropped in the jungles of Mexico, where he learns how to live off the land. It is a journey where his stomach, mind and body are tested. He takes extreme to a new level, surviving with only a handful of helpful tools or objects and eating only foods he can forage in the woods.
Zimmern goes to a roadside Farmers' market near Udon Thani. He mentions a personal rule that he must try something twice. He then visits a couple of farming families/villages, the annual winter fair in the city of Udon Thani, and lastly a silk village.
Zimmern meets young adventurous eaters around the world, from children who try fried frog legs in Florida to children in Tanzania who show him how to eat clotted cow's blood.
Zimmern goes to the biggest fish market in Tokyo, visits a Tokyo Tuna restaurant, Horamon restaurant, Visits Alcatraz ER: theme restaurant, Visits the home of Dr. Nakamats, watches sumo wrestlers in a stable
Zimmern visits the Umayyad Mosque in the Old City of Damascus, the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, a Bedouin tent in the desert, Aleppo, then goes back to the New City of Damascus. In Damascus, he eats fresh camel after slaughter, shawarma, and Syrian ice cream and cheese. In Aleppo, he tries ful, pistachio candy, Arabic bread, and camel hump sausage. He also eats roast goat with a Bedouin family.
Zimmern tries out glassblowing on Murano island and fishing in the Venetian Lagoon. Here he eats calves' liver, snails, cuttlefish in ink, beef carpaccio, salt cod, fresh crayfish, and donkey salami.
Zimmern visits Madagascar, where many natives still live the way they did hundreds of years ago, hunting and gathering for their food. Morandava: king mackerel, baobab tree seeds, beef and cassava, giraffe beetles, river eel. With his wife Reisha, he buys a zebu to be given as a gift at a ritual circumcision ceremony.
Zimmern visits the Vienna Beef factory, visits a hot dog restaurant, tries molecular gastronomy at Alinea with Grant Achatz and candied delicacies at Graham Elliot's restaurant. Rick Bayless introduces him to his Mexican food and local street food. After a meat-butchering demonstration, he tries pork jowl and kidney. In Albany Park he takes a world tour of cuisine, including Korean fermented cabbage tacos and Iraqipacha.
Zimmern visits Namibia, where he meets members of a semi-nomadic tribe whose way of life hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Catatura: smiley sheep, cow stomach and foot and potatoes, mopane worms in brine, dried catfish. On safari, he tries wildebeest eyeballs, and he goes oyster fishing in Walvis Bay. Visiting the Himba tribe in the Namib, he eats chicha (fermented milk with rice and goat parts).
Zimmern checks out alternative food sources in San Francisco, from raising edible bugs (making mealworms, cricket empanadas, and wax moth larva fritters) to foraging in the wild. He rescues dumpster vegetables and dives for abalone. At a spontaneous foraged food dinner, he has mussels with seaweed aioli, escargot with porcini mushrooms, and wild boar raviolis. At Chris Cosentino's restaurant Incanto, he has blood mousse, foie gras ice cream sandwich, prosciutto ice cream, pig intestine tacos, calves' tongue sliders, trotter tots, and brainaise.
Zimmern explores old and new food traditions in Hungary. He attends an outdoor feast with a Romani family and meets an acclaimed chef who puts a modern twist on traditional Hungarian favorites.
Reusing a large proportion of previously aired footage from Bizarre World - Sulawesi and Bali episodes. In Ubud, Bali, he goes to a pork feast and visits a tooth-filing ceremony. Denpasar: cobra restaurant (blood, gall, marrow, penis, soup, and fried cobra), jackfruit, saba, kelengkeng (longan). In Negara he watches water buffalo racing. Tanatoraja, Sulawesi: salak, water buffalo soup, papyong (spiced pork in bamboo). In Batutumanga he eats snake, eel, and water buffalo entrails soup and visits a funeral celebration.
69 (13)
April 27, 2011
Taste of the Tropics
Reusing a proportion of previously aired footage from Bizarre World - Belize, Cuba and Florida episodes
In Johannesburg, he eats medicinal dirt, impala, wildebeest, and water buffalo. With the Ju wasi people in Aha Hills, Botswana, Zimmern tries jewel beetles, porcupine, and small bird, and participates in a dance ritual. Scenes reused from Bizarre World.
71 (15)
May 24, 2011
NYC: Will Work for Food
Zimmern returns to New York City to try his hand at cooking, waiting and street vending to see if he can still cut it.
Zimmern goes to some of the foreign embassies in Washington, DC to taste the different diplomatic food, including those of Sweden, France, Palau, Indonesia, Peru, Kazakhstan, and Finland.
Andrew cooks meals with a family in Lapland and discusses the simple ingredients of Nordic cuisine with a world class chef. Blood cake and lamprey in Helsinki. Tries bear and feeds them at a sanctuary. Hailuoto: seal, cured herring, salmon soup. Reindeer milk, grilled reindeer liver and onion, crayfish, salmon pie.
Zimmern treks into the jungle of Suriname in northern South America, sampling the local fare, including wild pig and a rodent-like rabbit called coconi.
Zimmern visits the Mediterranean island of Sardinia to learn about what the locals like to eat, from mountain goats, to sea urchins, to casu marzu (rotten cheese).
Zimmern is joined by Nadia Giosia on a comprehensive culinary tour of Montreal that includes both traditional and avant-garde cuisine. Montreal-style bagels, duck livers, and horse-heart tartare are among the foods sampled in this multicultural city.
Beginning with Season 7, the show has been retitled Bizarre Foods America. The format remains the same but focuses more on the United States rather than international travel.
A spin-off series of half-hour episodes that focused on famed destinations' classic foods—where they came from, how they're prepared, and the best way to enjoy them. Focused on general fare and not bizarre foods.
Zimmern visits Taipei, Taiwan and faces down stinky tofu in a mountains aid factory, learns the secret to turning eggs into hard-as-iron street food, and masters pulling the longest and strongest noodles.
Zimmern travels to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and while hitting the city streets at night, he feasts on sucking snails and duck tongues and on the outskirts of town he hunts for rice field rats, and gets a taste of farm-raised porcupine.
