Looking down on ‘exotic’ cooking culture

Andrew Zimmern

Bizarre Foods” is an “extreme” TV show that travels the world to look for unusual dishes, exotic ways of cooking, and weird culinary practices. But unusual, exotic or weird to whom?

Last year, the program telecast a show from the Philippines—and since we knew the context of the cooking and eating culture of the featured dishes, we understood much more clearly where the show was coming from: Everything is seen from the host Andrew Zimmern’s American point of view—and, despite his best efforts to show that he was an open-minded guy, biases turned out to be quite predictable.

For instance, he found eating worms and other crawly creatures really bizarre—despite the fact that they’re a pretty standard source of protein in quite a number of countries, including our own.

In fact, some parts of the United States are also fairly conversant with the crawly critters—like, I once found myself in a small grocery in the US Midwest, where I bought a can of—ants in honey!

So, excuse me for thinking that the program host is laying on the “shocked” and “yukked” reactions extra-thick, just to get an appropriately “aghast” reaction from viewers.

Trouble is, there’s also a bit of “looking askance” or “looking down” on so-called “exotic” cooking cultures, the not-so-covert implications being that “ours” isn’t as good or as “civilized” as “theirs.”

The same telecast provided another example of this, when the program host reacted strongly against something that we take for granted in these parts: eating ice cream not in a cone but with bread, in an ice-cream “sandwich.”

He found it too strange and silly for words—just because he’d never seen it done before. But, isn’t that what the show is supposed to be about?

Another distraction for him was the fact that the ice cream in question was our “dirty” ice cream. Perhaps he took the word too literally?

He was reacting just like any suspicious, supercilious tourist who expects to see abroad what he’s used to at home.
Given the show’s ostensibly “bizarre” bent, wasn’t that a contradiction?

Another complaint the TV host had was about the unfamiliarity of the ice cream flavors he was made to sample.

It appeared that this was the first time for him to savor cheese and ube ice cream—and he absolutely hated it, describing it as “just frozen butter on bread.” —Well, excuse us!

Now, like we’ve said, some of this overly critical reaction may have been put on intentionally for effect.
But, the host still struck us as not being internationally savvy enough for the show’s purposes.

Or, he may have been tapped to host the show because his lack of open-mindedness reflected the program’s intended audience’s own lack of sophistication—and their strong bias against the unfamiliar! Now, that’s bizarre…