Andrew Zimmern Has a Bucket List Moment While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones

there's three or four of them you know why would you do this to me [Music] hey what's going on everybody for first week feast i'm shawn evans and you're watching hot ones it's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings and today we're joined by andrew zimmern he's a chef restaurateur author and emmy award winning food tv pioneer you can catch his latest series family dinner with andrew zimmern sunday nights on magnolia network with wild game kitchen coming later this year to outdoor channel but today the man has eaten his way through the world's most remarkable and curious cuisines tries his hand at the hot ones gauntlet andrew zimmern welcome to the show it's long overdue it's i'm giddy with excitement and i'm actually uh being very truthful about that i've wanted to do this for a long time so it's great to finally be here with you [Music] i'm assuming uh starting the far right we're right in front of that all right [Music] that's delicious i'm not just a hot ones guest i'm also a customer i think i've purchased that one from you guys love it love it love it so when we had adam richmond on the show he talked about a picture of you him and anthony bourdain that was captioned the gang of three and i'm curious how do you contextualize that era of travel channel shows and ultimately the influence that they've had over the years tony's first season had just completed airing when my first season uh started to roll out so in what was his second season in my first we did a crossover episode which is to me one of the greatest 90 minutes of television i i've ever participated in that was the golden age of that network regardless of what day of the week that you were tuning in there were really really really immersive travelers taking you into all kinds of really cool places but i think what when adam talks about about that he he talks about three big hits you know with with tony show my show and adam show man versus food that for a very small network relative to others on cable was you know had three big big shows going on at the same time that audience responded to and now of course they're it's ghost and paranormal on travel channel they it's what's not even it's turbo trvl they had a vowel movement [Music] it comes up it's that's balanced even if you happen to love garlic i mean a lot of that processed stuff that sits there in soybean oil that was chopped two years ago and pasteurized that winds up in a lot of foods because it's less expensive is the least appealing garlic flavor that i can think of but that's that's really wonderful so i probably spent almost as much time watching bizarre foods on travel channel in college as i did at cam's happy hour what's your favorite bizarre foods concoction from the minnesota state fair i'm super boring that way cheese curds a really good foot long and a natural skin that snaps when you bite into it best french fries uh in america are at the french fry booth at the minnesota state fair so i'm a classicist when it comes to state fair foods uh although i did have this thing called like a cloud roll or a rainbow cloud roll and what it was it was rainbow colored cotton candy and they put sherbet down rainbow sherbet or rainbow ice cream or rainbow gelato i've seen it all different ways in the middle and then they sprinkle it with fruity pebbles and then they roll it up the way they do you know those uh commercial burrito place or that oversized burrito and you see the purse just like stuff i mean they're manhandling that thing to get it big i mean they're they really work it that's how they do it with the cotton candy and it compresses it and i've eaten that i thought to myself i'm going to take one bite and throw it it's just going to be too sweet there's no way this is going to be good but there's something about the cold quiescently frozen dessert treat in the middle part that gets me every time i love it just one more bite just one more just one just one more bite yes you can just feel the number this one hopkins with sun-dried tomato all right [Music] wow that's good so you've always had a crystal ball when it comes to the evolution of how we eat and i'm fascinated by how food trends actually pick up steam what are the key contributing factors that cause things like filipino barbecue or birya tacos to all of a sudden gain all this mainstream attention even though these things are not exactly new social media people go absolutely nuts for certain things when they see it and chefs have been well food lovers geeks like me you have been talking about charred pepperoni cups forever right i mean i don't i don't want flat you know food service pepperoni that just lays flaccidly on the pizza bakes and just kicks off a bunch of you know ill-tasting oil that's not my idea of pepperoni i want good pepperoni small cut thick enough so it curls up in little cups that char and that flavor is incredible on pizza but it wasn't until people started posting pictures of that that you know kids in small towns in the midwest were like where's my charred pepperoni cups right and i know because i had a small kid in the midwest who said where's my pepperoni cups and eventually a neapolitan style pizza place opened that did it that way and he loved it right and it changed his life forever but where he first saw it was pictures on websites and on my phone and i think that's the power that we're forgetting about these days [Music] cantaloupe melon and oh scotch bonnet fantastic my favorite chili not just because it's spicy but because it has a very unique flavor [Music] so recently we did a first wee feast episode of snack and had something interesting to say about how visiting a supermarket can tell you more about a place than visiting its museums how do you navigate supermarkets when you travel abroad and what does a country's snack selection say about its culture if you go into another country and you don't spend 20 minutes in a supermarket i think you're making a mistake it's like go to a [ __ ] supermarket look at what other people are eating see look at the prices you want to understand reykjavik you want to understand iceland go into a supermarket and see that carrots are 25 a pound but lamb is free okay dried fish buck a pound broccoli 24 a bite i mean i'm exaggerating to make a point right but that tells you all you need to know about what's going on iceland and food and how this cycle of food plays in our life and if you go into a supermarket and you look at what people snack on you can learn a hell of a lot all right los calientes los calientes rojo is the next one yeah why do they have a verde or a as a matter of fact saying rojo as a matter of fact we do we have a faraday we have a barbacoa oh that's just delicious what kind of chilies are in this one we got some smoked jalapeno in this one habanero and this one i was just gonna say i love the sweetness it's apricot is the third ingredient yeah yeah yeah yeah see that's super smart cooking right there i would pour this on anything not drip it all right thank you so much let me ask you a question sure whatever you want because you probably know this better than most people what the [ __ ] is it with people that they put a little plastic thing with another hole in it inside every bottle of everything well you know not just hot stuff ketchup all the rest but i mean like you're in this world so we don't put a stopper on ours and that includes this one the last ab apollo we don't put a stopper on that but sometimes what i find myself doing is just basically dumping half a bottle because we don't have that stopper on accident and sometimes i'm like we need a stopper on this one you know we haven't gotten to that point that's the technical term in the bottle business so yeah this is this is just the first we feast way we just make it up as we go but i always think with this one maybe we need to stop her but the other ones well i understand it was something sort of if you can't work your elbow or shoulder like i get it but everyone else should just you know put on their adult pants and let us rock yeah all right andrew we have recurring segment on our show called explain that grammar we do a deep dive on our guest instagram pull interesting pictures that need more context so we'll pull the picture up over here on the monitor i was just trying to escape this the bigger story you can't all right you can't escape what is it that you find sacred about disc golf and then do you have any tips for beginners just grab some friends go out there and do it disc golfers on the course love to share wisdom with other disc golfers and just like cooking you can go online and just google disc golf and forehand backhand putting and give yourself a lesson and carry it with you on your phone and say is this how i stand and then you know you know do it um this is pretty personal but 30 years ago i was you know i had been a homeless street grifter and addict and alcoholic and when i'm out there on the course like cooking i'm not thinking about my problems and my life and the issues at work and stuff in you know going on my friends whatever it is that we obsess about at least i'm just focused on throwing my backhand the right way and uh i look kind of buff in that picture yeah it's a good-looking picture that is a good i look like i have really big arms and i work out it's about trying new things and if i had to tell people one thing in their lives just maybe having lived a few more years than other folks it's like trying new things it's one of the things i was trying to do with bizarre foods was get move people out of their comfort zone i don't think someone is going to go down to west virginia and start hammering down squirrel brains i mean that's i i get it you're not going to do that but maybe if you're down there and someone has you know fried squirrel on the menu you may say well sure i'll try that and then you go you know something that's pretty good and maybe you'll take a risk then with something else in your life that's maybe even more meaningful than sharing a meal oh all right that works oh really good that fermented bean that flavor pairs very well with the heat whereas sweetened chocolate wouldn't my opinion i agree with you there so in recent years you've done a lot to push congress on food policy particularly when it comes to feeding hungry kids and issues involving food waste what's an issue that never comes up in the debates that people who love and care about food should think about more when they vote locally are we are we actually in this country voting for keeping children hungry because with no national school lunch program that's free for any student that needs it that food that runs 12 months a year right where any child can get a meal that's that's beyond criminal that's genocidal and it and it's genocidal because we have the ability to do it we just don't have the will to do it we have the money for it it's actually not that expensive we can do this we can statistically eliminate hunger tomorrow in america if we chose to i think it's vitally important that people understand that climate affects food and our food choices are affecting our climate right food choices for keeping cheap meat has created these you know kafo farms and all the animal dung that goes up contributes to greenhouse gases and the the runoff from these horrific chemicals that are used on animals and on the ground uh it gets into our water system and causes havoc further down the food chain in oyster beds for example where algae blooms where all of a sudden fisheries that have been productive for generations are no longer productive because they have algae blooms because of what people are spraying on their lawns so i think food is is something that we need to understand is part of our our civic decision making and that should influence our political choices jekyll and hyde if someone said i'm not gonna try that because of the name scorpion chili on that or that it says freakishly hot they'd be making a mistake you enjoyed that one very much so can you guess why i've tipped the hat a couple times on a couple of sauces well maybe it's because you kind of like the sweetness mixed in it's got sauces yeah in other words if you have something hot and vinegary to have a sweet component underneath it or a smoky component or something else all great food is made up of contrast this is just super hot bbq sauce the barbecue sauce from hell that's how i've described it a couple times during the season so i've heard you make interesting points about how restauranteurs and purveyors oftentimes they're selling food at a loss because many people what they're willing to pay for food it doesn't exactly translate to the economic food systems the biggest issue in restaurant talk that isn't talked about enough what do you think is the disconnect between the glamorization of food in the united states and the price people are willing to pay for it one of america's greatest restaurateurs and chefs tracy desjardins she had a restaurant called jardiniere for 25 years in san francisco one of america's 100 best restaurants any of the 25 years that she was open she told me a really funny story she she tried lots of ways to give money to paid sick leave and different things for her her employees um and one of the things she did was tried to raise prices to where they were actually reflective of what they were when she opened 25 years ago her chicken dish was like 19 bucks when she closed it was like 23 bucks so it had gone up four dollars uh i think that was like you know 19 or something like that but her you know her rent had gone up four thousand percent her insurance had gone up six thousand percent see where i'm going with this so if we can't pay the right amount for foods when it comes in the back door to farmers purveyors cheese makers wine makers etc and we can't charge what it is then the system becomes untenable too brittle and it collapses and i'm very very worried about our food system because we're not paying the right price for food we're losing farmers by the thousands and replacing them by the single digits and it's going to come to a head right we've got to start thinking about that well i'll start thinking about it right now you ready to move on here this is the bomb beyond insanity oh my gosh i don't like it when you make noises like that well this one never gets any easier [Music] it's a moment i dread all the same yeah that's hotter than a crack pipe on payday by the way it's the chocolate milk on your recommendation really hitting right now you know your staff sends out this little questionnaire has two questions i'm aware yeah what kind of wings do you like what kind of milk do you like by the way that's still growing yeah and burning and it it lacks to me it lacks flavor yeah i think that my favorite is producing so much saliva yeah it's like your body tries to defend against it or something yeah that's why you need ice gold chocolate milk it's been on my training table for years thinking back on your extensive experience what comes to mind when you think about the spiciest dish that you've ever eaten in your life oh yeah uh chili's in northern thailand you know costs like 50 cents from a vendor on the street there's three or four of them you know why would you do this to me or why do i do this to myself that's true you know that's kind of what's going through my head right now um so that is this may be the hottest hot sauce i've ever tried you and me both um so tiny tiny little hot chili in a little village in northern thailand but i'm thinking to myself how hot can it be the next thing that i remember is them pouring apparently i screamed i mean that was i i had an out of body experience um that to to date was still the hottest hottest uh thing that i've ever uh put in my mouth well i'm happy that we could pair that conversation by the way i just swallowed the saliva that my mouth is producing all on its own reintroduce it it was really odd that was that that was hotter than some of these down there if you yeah wow [Music] no ghost pepper hillbilly mean oh well it still is going to cool down whatever is going [Music] on you know i've been a fan of yours and the shows for a long time until you just had that last wing no um i always thought about how much fun it would be actually doing this with you but if i've writ if i'd written down on a piece of paper what i imagined it would be like i would have undersold myself this is a blast you're having a good time oh yeah as a midwesterner myself i really relate to the affection that you have for culver's butter burgers i'm from illinois what makes culvers everything that in and out is not to you in and out i still think it's the most overrated of all of the fast food hamburgers um i think their burgers are flavorless i think things like double double animal style literally were invented all those off the menu hacks just to make it the burger a little bit better um their fries are easily the worst fries in the business flavorless flavorless i know i'm gonna get a lot of letters i do every time i mention that but culver's does not freeze anything right there's no frozen they freeze their ice cream there's no frozen meat right so it's it's all fresh tomatoes come in there and they are cut by someone lettuce comes in their hole and it is cut by someone it's a smash patty of decent beef that comes on a buttered bun it's not like sally's in milwaukee where they put a dollop of whipped butter on it you get that steak vibe steakhouse vibe with the melted butter on the on the crusty burger their custard is incredible nothing gets saved overnight it's fresh it's a continuous feed machine there's just soft serve coming out of it but it's custard it's denser it's a french custard remarkable some people don't like crinkle cut fries i'm not a crinkle cut fry guy but i like the culver's fries just good right it's i'm there for the burger and it tastes like beef eating a double butter burger a thing of fries and a 16 ounce concrete which is what they call their their shakes or malts um that's not the healthiest meal in the world i mean certainly we shouldn't have is a lot of calories a lot of fats all the rest that we're learning we should be healthier but if i'm gonna do something like that at a place that has a drive-through it's gonna be at a culver's hey just keep singing that culver's gospel and you know what those meals there's a place for them if they're 1 000 i mean i i mean i happen to be a big shake shot i think that's the best one you pay a little bit more at a shake shack but you get a better uh quality product shake shack and culver's i think are the best burgers in the fast food biz preach all right andrew zimmern heat level 10 out of 10 puts an apollo pepper so the guy who made the carolina reaper yes he is a mad scientist does lots of the cross breeding yep and he kind of put together you know he's apollo is one of his frankenstein creations okay shout out to smoking ed all right cheers andrew what a ride it's fantastic literally i can cross it i have very few items on my bucket list this was one of them well i'm happy we could do it [Music] good vinegar flavor you've traveled the globe and eaten through a cross-section of humanity's experience with food but i know that the comfort you have a comfort that you find in of all things gas station pizza so to close things out i'm just like here is there you didn't i didn't detect any contempt in your voice no listen we just talked culver's i'm a midwest guy i know about gas station pizza but i'm curious to close things out yeah what is your love letter to the heat lamp cooked 99 cent slice i'm on the road i've didn't done nothing but pound down you know 14 ounces of you know fermented walrus anus and some small little village in greenland right i get in the car i see in the distance a red light it's the gas station i walk in there and i need that nasty pizza with the cheese has melted and hardened and never really melted again but it's still hot enough to be food safe and there is something of a warm hug from like your uncle's third wife who wore like really bad grandma perfume and you're like you don't really like hugging her at holidays and you told your parents when you were seven i really don't like hugging her but when you do hug her for a brief moment it's just one more person telling you that they love you and that's how i feel when i eat gas station pizza it's like an old it's like an old friend that tells me they love me a nice warm hug from gas station pizza and look at you andrew putting the wings of death into a bear hug and choking them out today and now there's nothing left to do but roll out the red carpet for you this camera this camera this camera let the people know what you have going on in your life oh my gosh uh so many things uh one stop shopping at andrew zimmern.com just go to that top drop down menus i've got a new sub stack thing i'm really proud of i have a line of spices i developed with padilla that i'm really proud of obviously magnolia television we do family dinner which is a series i i just love i put on my pants one leg at a time but i'm not sure i know someone who has as much fun as i do life is fun [Applause] as hot as that was if it was the only hot sauce out here and i was eating a meal i'd be doing more of it because it has that vinegar flavor and all the rest i've just that's what's great about hot sauce that has flavors yeah you know it's like doing drugs it's like oh my god that bong hit was you know give me one more exactly no i mean you just want one more this if i never saw again it got no flavor but i did really like some of these things in there were just absolutely fantastic well we're going to pack them up for you oh fantastic hey what's going on hot ones fans this is sean evans checking in with a very exciting announcement we've read the comments we've seen the emails and after six years more than 250 episodes we can now bring you the full hot ones experience in one convenient package i'm proud to introduce you to hot ones boneless chicken bites available exclusively at walmart and walmart.com each bag of hot ones boneless chicken bites is packed with approximately 35 breaded seasoned white meat chicken bites as well as individual packets of the classic los calientes and the last ab apollo for all your saucing and dabbing needs the full hot ones experience ready to heat and eat whenever you get the craving to spice things up at home hot ones boneless chicken bites it's a party in a bag and everyone's invited [Music]

Channel: First We Feast

Views: 2,307,403

Keywords: First we feast, fwf, firstwefeast, food, food porn, cook, cooking, chef, recipe, cocktail, bartender, craft beer, complex, complex networks, spicy food, foodie, burgers, food documentary, andrew zimmern, hot ones, andrew zimmern interview, spicy wings, spicy wings recipe, hot wings recipe, bizarre foods, andrew zimmern fondue

Id: A6C1tpdyagA

Length: 26min 7sec (1567 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022