Andrew Zimmern Has a Bucket List Moment While Eating Spicy Wings ｜ Hot Ones [A6C1tpdyagA].webm.wav.txt

 There's three or four of them.
 You know, why would you do this to me?
 (laughs)
 (dramatic music)
 - Hey, what's going on everybody?
 For First We Feast, I'm Sean 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 who's 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 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.
 (dramatic music)
 (dramatic music)
 - I'm assuming starting in the far right,
 we're right in front of that.
 All right.
 That's delicious.
 (gentle music)
 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 Richman on the show,
 you 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 started to roll out.
 So in what was his second season and my first,
 we did a crossover episode, which is to me,
 one of the greatest 90 minutes of television
 I've ever participated in.
 That was the golden age of that network,
 regardless of what day of the week that you were tuning,
 and there were really, really, really immersive travelers
 taking you into all kinds of really cool places.
 But I think when Adam talks about that,
 he talks about three big hits with Tony's show,
 my show, and Adam's show, Man vs. Food,
 that for a very small network relative to others on cable,
 had three big shows going on at the same time
 that audience responded to.
 And now, of course, it's Ghost and Paranormal
 on Travel Channel.
 Well, it's not even, it's Turvill, T-R-V-L.
 They had a vowel movement.
 (laughing)
 It comes up, it'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 could think of.
 But that's, that's really, well,
 (coughing)
 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 are really good foot long
 and a natural skin that snaps when you bite into it.
 Best french fries 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.
 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 commercial burrito place
 or that oversized burrito
 and you see the person just like stuffing it.
 I mean, they're manhandling that thing to get it big.
 I mean, they really work it.
 That's how they do it with the cotton candy.
 And it compresses it.
 And I've eaten that and I thought to myself,
 I'm gonna take one bite and throw it.
 It's just gonna be too sweet.
 There's no way this is gonna 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 bite. - Just one more.
 - Just one more bite. - Yes.
 - Speaking of. - You can just feel the.
 Number this one.
 - Yes. - Clark and Hopkins.
 - Calabria. - Calabria.
 With sun dried tomato.
 - Hmm.
 - All right.
 - Wow, that's good.
 (coughing)
 - 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 birria 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 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.
 Cantaloupe, melon, and oh, Scotch bonnet, fantastic.
 My favorite chili.
 Not just 'cause it's spicy,
 but because it has a very unique flavor.
 - So recently you did a First We Feast episode of Snacked
 and it 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 fucking supermarket,
 look at what other people are eating,
 see, look at the prices.
 You wanna understand Reykjavik,
 you wanna 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 in 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. - Or do you just like saying
 Rojo?
 - As a matter of fact, we do.
 We have a verde, we have a barbacoa.
 - Oh.
 Mm.
 That's just delicious.
 What kind of chilies are in this one?
 - We got some smoked jalapeno in this one,
 habanero in 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.
 Pour it.
 - Thank you so much.
 - Let me ask you a question.
 - Sure, whatever you want.
 - 'Cause you probably know this better than most people.
 What the fuck is it with people
 that they put a little plastic thing
 with another hole in it inside every bottle of everything?
 - Well, you know, here's the thing.
 - Not just hot stuff, ketchup, all the rest,
 but I mean, you're in this world.
 - So we don't put a stopper on ours,
 and that includes this one, the Last Dab of 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.
 - Is that the technical term in the bottle business?
 Sauce business stopper?
 - 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 a stopper, but the other ones,
 like that ride. - 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 a recurring segment
 on our show called Explain That Gram
 where we do a deep dive on our guest's Instagram,
 pull interesting pictures that need more context.
 So we'll pull the picture up over here on the monitor.
 - I was hoping I would 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, do it.
 I mean, 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 with my friends, whatever it is
 that we obsess about, it leaves, I'm just focused
 on throwing my backhand the right way.
 And I look kind of buff in that picture.
 - Yeah, it's a good looking picture.
 - It 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, try new things.
 It's one of the things I was trying to do with Bizarre Foods
 was get people, move people out of their comfort zone.
 I don't think someone is gonna go down to West Virginia
 and start hammering down squirrel brains.
 I mean, that's, I get it.
 You're not gonna 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.
 That was really good.
 That fermented bean,
 that flavor pairs very well with the heat.
 Whereas sweetened chocolate wouldn't, my opinion.
 - Yeah, I know.
 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 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 runs 12 months a year, right?
 Where any child can get a meal,
 that's beyond criminal.
 That's genocidal.
 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, CAFO farms and all the animal dung that goes up
 contributes to greenhouse gases and the runoff
 from these horrific chemicals that are used on animals
 and on the ground 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 had been productive
 for generations are no longer productive
 'cause they have algae blooms
 because of what people are spraying on their lawns.
 So I think food is something that we need to understand
 is part of our civic decision-making
 and that should influence our political choices.
 Jekyll and Hyde.
 (dramatic music)
 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 kinda like
 the sweetness mixed in with these hot sauces.
 - 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 barbecue 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 restaurateurs and purveyors,
 oftentimes they're selling food at a loss
 because many people, what they're willing to pay for food,
 doesn't exactly translate to the economic food systems
 that they come up-- - 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 had tried lots of ways to give money
 to paid sick leave and different things for her employees.
 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 $4.
 I think that was like 19% or something like that.
 But her rent had gone up 4,000%.
 Her insurance had gone up 6,000%.
 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, et cetera,
 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 gonna come to a head, right?
 We've gotta start thinking about that.
 - Well, I'll start thinking about it right now.
 Are you ready to move on here?
 This is Da Bomb Beyond Insanity.
 (laughing)
 - Oh my gosh.
 I don't like it when you make noises like that.
 - Well, this one never gets any easier.
 It's a moment I dread all the same.
 - Yeah, that's hotter than a crack pipe on payday.
 - By the way, 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 and burning.
 And it lacks, to me, it lacks flavor.
 - Yeah, I think that's a fair criticism.
 - You see, so much saliva.
 - Yeah, it's like your body tries to defend against it
 or something. - Yeah.
 That's why you need ice cold 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, 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.
 So that is really, this may be the hottest hot sauce
 I've ever tried.
 - You and me both.
 - 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, I had an out of body experience.
 That to date was still the hottest,
 hottest thing that I've ever 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.
 - And it was really hot.
 That was hotter than some of these down there.
 If you, wow.
 Oh, ghost pepper, hillbilly mean.
 Well, it still is gonna cool down whatever's going on
 right now.
 (laughing)
 - You know, I've been a fan of yours
 and the shows for a long time.
 - Until you just had that last wing.
 - Yeah.
 I always thought about how much fun it would be
 to actually doing this with you.
 But 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 Butterburgers.
 I'm from Illinois.
 What makes Culver's everything that In-N-Out is not to you?
 - In-N-Out, I still think is the most overrated
 of all of the fast food hamburgers.
 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 the burger
 a little bit better.
 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 all fresh.
 Tomatoes come in there and they are cut by someone.
 Lettuce comes in there whole 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
 and you get that steak vibe, steakhouse vibe
 with the melted butter 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 dense or 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?
 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 shakes or malt.
 That's not the healthiest meal in the world.
 I mean, certainly we shouldn't have,
 it's a lot of calories, a lot of fats, all the rest of 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 1000%, I mean, I happen to be a big Shake Shack.
 I think that's the best one.
 You pay a little bit more at a Shake Shack,
 but you get a better quality product.
 Shake Shack and Culver's I think are the best burgers
 in the fast food biz.
 Preach.
 All right, Andrew Zimmern.
 (gentle music)
 Heat level 10 out of 10.
 What's an Apollo pepper?
 So the guy who made the Carolina Reaper.
 Yes.
 He is a mad scientist, does lots of the crossbreeding.
 Yep.
 And he kind of put together, you know,
 Apollo is one of his Frankenstein creations.
 Okay.
 Shout out to Smokin' Ed.
 All right, cheers, Andrew.
 What a ride.
 Fantastic.
 Literally, I can cross, I have very few items
 on my bucket list.
 This was one of them.
 Well, I'm happy we could do it.
 Mm.
 Mm.
 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've just--
 Is there some, you didn't, I didn't detect any contempt
 in your voice over that.
 No, 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 done nothing but pound down, you know,
 14 ounces of, you know, fermented walrus anus
 in 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.
 So many things.
 One stop shopping at andrewzimmern.com.
 Just go to that top drop down menus.
 I've got a new substack 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 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.
 (clapping)
 - Great job.
 - Thank you.
 Great job to all of you guys.
 Fantastic.
 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 of that.
 That's what's great about hot sauce that has flavors.
 It's like doing drugs.
 It's like, oh my God, that bong hit was,
 you know, give me one more.
 - Exactly.
 - I mean, you just want one more.
 This, if I never saw again,
 'cause it's got no flavor.
 - But I did really like some of these things in there
 were just absolutely fantastic.
 - We're gonna 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 Dab 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.
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