Andrew Zimmern Will Eat Everything But These 3 Foods
Andrew Zimmern has had a lot on his plate — literally.
From cow placenta to dung beetles, the former Food Network star has tried almost every dish one can probably think of. He loves to sample new things and has no shame devouring bizarre foods. But like everyone, Zimmern has a few things that he won’t touch. Here are three of them.
Foods Andrew Zimmern hates
Zimmern shared his most-hated foods in a 2016 interview with People. He said even though he’s tried some of the world’s most unconventional foods, he refuses to eat walnuts and two other normal dishes.
“I can’t eat walnuts,” he told the publication. “Won’t eat ‘em, can’t stand ‘em. Raw cookie dough. Won’t eat it. Can’t stand it. Oatmeal. Won’t eat, can’t stand it. I love fermented walrus anus, so I get to not like some things.”
Zimmern also noted on Twitter in 2017 that he has a distaste for durian, a Southeast Asian fruit with a potent, unpleasant odor. But he said he’d been “trying to give it a chance” and eat it more often.
Aside from those foods, Zimmern is open to trying anything.
“Anything else, bring it on, I’m hungry,” he continued on Twitter.
The worst thing Andrew Zimmern has ever eaten
In a 2017 interview with Food & Wine, Zimmern said: “[The] worst tasting foods are the fermented spoiled ones.” He mentioned a dish called hakarl, a food that is popular in Iceland.
“Made from the Greenlandic shark, the meat is poisonous when fresh, so in order to eat it, Icelanders let it spoil in the ground for months and then out in the elements for a few more to dry,” he wrote in a 2015 post on his website. “It’s a revolting dish to many first-timers; eating it without gagging is what separates the men from the boys. While the smell of the putrefied shark itself could make the faint-hearted ill, the taste is ultimately sweet, nutty and faintly fishy…if you like ammoniated wax.”
This food is a close second
Zimmern also told Food & Wine that he has major issues with “strange indigenous fruits.”
“Bad fruit is the worst of all to deal with,” he said.
Fans got to see him eat bad fruits and just about everything else on his former tv show, Bizarre Foods. Each episode saw Zimmern hitting a new place in the world to try different dishes. He ate everything from fish eyeballs to insect nuggets.
When asked to share the most “bizarre” food in a 2012 chat with The Washington Post, Zimmern said:
“There’s something in Ethiopia called enset, which is the root of a certain type of palm tree. It’s pounded for hours to a pulp, wrapped in a cloth, buried in the ground and left to rot for three months. Then they make a very heavy, nutrient-rich bread from it. That’s as vegan as it gets, and it was one of the most horrific things I’ve ever consumed.”
Still, Zimmern told The Post that there’s nothing he wouldn’t try again.
“I’m always curious to eat things again,” he said.
Though Bizarre Foods has come to an end, Zimmern has a new show on MSNBC called What’s Eating America where viewers will get to see him continue his food journey. Fans can read more about that here.
