Andrew Zimmern's Field Guide to Exceptionally Weird, Wild and Wonderful Foods: An Intrepid Eater's Digest

Andrew Zimmern. Host of Bizarre Foods and several spin-offs. Minnesota Chef and writer. Man who will eat just about anything. 

I really like Zimmern. He seems authentic. I don't get the vibe that he's conceited or feels like he's the smartest person in the room compared to a lot of other celebrity and professional chefs that I know and watch. Zimmern has a world view that the things we eat are what can bring us together, despite differences in both opinion and taste. It's something I try to emulate in my culinary classes; especially when we discuss global food cultures. 

Over the past 6 months, I've been trying to increase my culinary knowledge by reading all kinds of works about the food industry. After the recent loss of our oldest cat, Lily, I felt like I needed something light for a while. Thankfully, Andrew Zimmern's Field Guide to Exceptionally Weird, Wild and Wonderful Foods was sitting on my to-read shelf and it helped me during my time for grief and recovery immensely. 

Though there are a few recipes in this book, this is not a cookbook. It's also not 100% culinary related. There are about 3 dozen alphabetical listings of foods that Zimmern finds to be kinda oddball. Some of the things he lists like Bird's Nest Soup and Durian (both of which I have sampled), I wholeheartedly agree with. Twinkies and Hot Dogs (again, things I have consumed), I just don't. I understand Chef's argument that how they are made with a terrifying assortment of parts, bits and chemicals can be looked upon as weird. I would define those foods as troubling. As for things like alligator, (one of my all-time fried favs), I would classify them as exotic. Wonderful, not Weird. But to a non-food professional, I can see those large lizards are being both weird and wild to eat.

Amazon rates this book as being for readers aged 8-12. Zimmern in his opening chapter says his book is for all ages. I know that kids and adults alike love Zimmern's TV travel series that explore foods that the common American kitchen lacks. So this book has a universal appeal to fans. However, with some very advanced terms and a frank but necessary discussion of how feces, urine and blood are often intertwined with some of these foods, I can see where not all readers will be fans of this book. OR that all readers would be ready for the material.

The all-age appeal that I think Zimmern is talking about is some of the additional factoids he includes. For example, under his chapter on bats, he includes facts about some of the greatest baseball hitters of all-time. That appeals to generations of readers. I know his TV shows cover non-culinary aspects of the cultures he visits and if Zimmern had stuck to that as additional information, I would totally be on board. I would have liked more entries of bizarre foods and less about how to defeat a zombie, as discussed in the chapter on brains. The off-the-wall non-culinary segments were fun. Just not what I wanted in a Bizarre Foods related read.

Going back to the bats. This book was written in 2012. Of course, many of us know of the urban legend that somebody in China eating a bat was who started COVID in 2019. I'd be interested to know how if this book was re-issued today how Andrew Zimmern would cover the eating of bats due to the rumors. It would be an opinion that I would definitely be interested in hearing.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List

A Hanukkah present from my Jewish bride, this book is part cookbook and part chronicle of the Jewish experience in relation to food. This book came about from an article of the same name that appeared on the Jewish culture website, Tablet. Edited by Tablet editor Alana Newhouse, several dozen notable Jewish chefs, restaurateurs and foodies wax poetic on Jewish foods all the way from matzoh to schmaltz to even yes, bacon. Just because it's a Jewish food, that doesn't mean you should eat it...

Names I recognized from this book were Molly Yeh, Michael Twitty (a personal favorite of mine) and Zac Posen. There was one writer whose name I cannot remember and to be honest, I'm glad I forgot it. It was the pseudonym of an African American rabbi. Thankfully, he only wrote 2 pieces in this book. But it was enough to make you lose your appetite. The only times that the F-word appears in this book, it's this gentleman's diatribes full of piss and vinegar that were just unasked for. 

The foods listed in this book are not ranked. There is 1 exception that most of the contributors agreed was essential to Jewish cooking, cuisine and culture. I won't reveal what it was. But I can say that I agree with the consensus. But I did disagree with 1 food that I felt was wrongly absent. Where are the knishes?

If you had me name the top 5 most Jewish foods, the knish, a meat, cheese or potato filled hand pie, would probably be the 3rd thing I come up with. There are some dishes that seem similar in this read. But in a book that arranges by alphabet instead of rank, the Ks were devoid of the knish!

If the Knish is in here under another name, then I really wish that this book had a glossary in the back. There were a lot of Yiddish words that I didn't know and unless I went to Google them, I also didn't understand. A small 1-2 page listing of some of the most common Yiddish and other Jewish terms from other languages was needed.

Jewish cooking gets ignored quite a bit in the culinary world. Most students I teach know that pork isn't Kosher. But they have zero idea what being Kosher means. This book is going to be a great help in that. I'm also hoping to utilize some of the recipes in this book with my students. There's a lot of dishes that are amazingly complex for a cuisine often thought of comprised of mostly peasant food and dishes that grandma made. That assessment could not be further from the truth. I made an amazing red lentil stew from this book. Other than my accidentally forgetting to add the lemon juice at the end, it turned out so freaking well. And there was at least 30 more recipes on my list now to try in the future.

Also, there were at least 1 or 2 books from some of the contributors of this book that I am interested in one day getting my hands on. So, there's a ton of potential more learning and exploration on the horizon for me and my pupils ahead. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food

WORTH CONSUMING!

The book I wanted so long to be reunited with is finished. In the Devil’s Garden by Stewart Lee Allen is excellent. It covers the religious and moral taboos of food from the Cavemen to Roman Empire, From the Estrucians to the middle Ages, From Pope Pius to 1999, if someone thought it was wrong to eat something or bad to kill, it’s probably covered in this book.

The book is broken into 7 chapters; one for each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Here’s a fun food taboo fact from each chapter:

Chapter One: Lust Because of how closely in resembles a mummified person, the Mandrake was considered taboo, because people though the root was God’s first attempt at creating people (well that, and the fact people thought when you pulled the “Man” up, he gave off a terrible scream that drove the puller mad).

Chapter Two: Gluttony ever heard of the dish Trojan Pig? It was an outlawed dish in Rome (circa 76 A.D.). It was made by roasting an entire steer, stuffed with a lamb, which is stuffed with a swine, which is stuffed with a chicken. (pg. 50)

Chapter 3: Pride One theory as to the rise in Diabetes is the development of high yield (and thus high sugar content) corn, which makes the breakdown of insulin harder and the eater more diabetic.

Chapter 4: Sloth John Barleycorn was the name given to Alcohol during the 19th and early 20th century. He was thought to be the laziest, meanest man in the world, thanks to all the whiskey that flowed through his veins.

Chapter 5: Greed Kuru, or laughing man’s disease, is an ailment found in cannibals in the Congo and New Guinea. It’s obtained by eating the brain of a human which contains over-active proteins called prions. This disease is the human version of mad cow decease.

(This chapter actually has 2 facts that I had to include: it is believed that AIDS will continue to spread in Africa not because of sexual activity, but because of the delicacy of eating primates, which is causing not only the extinction of monkeys but Africans as well) (pp. 162-164).

Chapter 6: Blasphemy it was a common practice of Catholics in the medieval times till the 1800s to disguise food not allowed to be eaten during Lent to look like food allowed during the holy fast. The thought behind this: if it didn’t look like the forbidden food, it was not a sin to eat. Examples: A pheasant lined with almond scales to look like fish and egg shells stuffed with white and yellow almond paste.

Chapter 7: Anger The Aztec’s created smoke bombs to attack Cortez and his Spanish Armada by launching sacks filled with flaming peppers, which give of a potent and sometimes fatal smoke.

If these facts whet your appetite, you are in for a rare treat. Allen’s book makes gross things seem yummy. I didn’t get nauseous once, though some sections in the Lust chapter get a little steamy (and I’m not talking Brussels sprouts). There are several great looking recipes in here as well as fascinating history. Be sure to check out the Endnotes section as well. It’s not the normal endnote fare and has a lot of stuff not covered in the main body of the book.