AliveCuisine

Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is a documentary-style travel and cuisine program hosted by Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel. The first season debuted on Monday, February 26, 2007. Bizarre Foods “focuses on regional cuisine from around the world which is typically perceived by the American masses as being gross, unique, or, of course, bizarre.” In each episode, Zimmern focuses on the cuisine of a particular country or region, and shows how the food is procured, where it is served, and, usually without hesitation, he eats it.

The many foods sampled by Zimmern in the show include goose intestines, callos (blood sausage and tripe casserole), a still-beating frog heart, frog ovary soup, fresh bull testicle and scrotum stew, mangrove worms, lamb’s eye, poached calf’s brain, cow's stomach lining, baby eels, grouper throat, mosquito eggs, chicken feet, fermented fish heads, jellied moose nose, stinky tofu, chicken uterus, live lobster, maggot pupae, tarantula pops, cockroaches, camel paw, pig stomach, snake penis, fried deer penis, yak penis, bull penis, cow udder, and live sea squirt, among others.

I’ve seen worms wiggle in his mouth, insects dart across his tongue, crawl on his lips to escape, lobster stir on his tongue. I can’t stomach it when he eats live things. I know food doesn’t begin at the grocery store but I don’t want to eat something that is eyeballing me, or feel feet still kicking as a living things passes down my throat. Nausea. I can’t stand to look at half the “dinners” he eats, enthusiastically smacking his lips. After several episodes, I simply swore I would not eat anything that is alive. Period. No exception. The other day I was in the grocery store shopping for dessert. I love ice cream. I’m allergic to eggs, so I was reading the ingredients, and I discovered that all the ice cream brands at the store include “a live culture.”

Ice Cream! I scream. You scream. We all scream. No more ice cream. Live culture in ice cream!