Travel Channel Gets a Taste of the Bizarre

Andrew Zimmern bit into a fried morsel of mullet roe at Chet's Seafood, and his shocked look made it seem like he would prefer stir-fried bats than batter-fried fish egg sacs. And, truth be told, he would. And he has.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, that would be a negative 1." Zimmern, a nationally known food critic and chef, said of the fried, yellow mullet roe.

Zimmern isn't being cruel. He's being honest. That's his job as host of the new Travel Channel series "Bizarre Foods," which takes Zimmern across the globe in search of culinary oddities.

Zimmern, along with a crew of three, visited Chet's Seafood and the Fish House in Pensacola on Thursday to shoot an episode centered around Gulf Coast cuisine.

And although Zimmern, 45, couldn't stomach Chet's roe -- he said frying dried it out -- or the gizzards (too rubbery), he said he understands why locals wait outside on benches to get a seat in the local landmark.

"This is just spectacular," he said after munching on traditional fried mullet. "Just spectacular. Chet's really does know what it's doing. Because the filet itself is just delicious."

Earlier, at the Fish House, chef Jim Shirley served up grouper throats and gazpachi salad, a native Pensacola salad that includes hardtack bread to absorb the liquid.

Zimmern said the grouper throats had a "better flavor than the filets themselves."

Zimmern, a friendly, outgoing type, debuted the pilot episode of "Bizarre Foods" earlier this year. The inaugural show traveled to Asia, where Zimmern dined on deer penis, snake sake, coagulated blood cake, stir-fried bats and a frog's still-beating heart.

The first full season of "Bizarre Foods" premieres March 12. The Gulf Coast-themed show will air sometime midseason, Zimmern said.

"When he called me, I told him I didn't do anything like they did on the Asian show," Shirley said. "No beating hearts or anything like that."

Still, Shirley admitted the grouper throats aren't the most-popular item at his restaurant. "It's very hard to sell," he said, "due to the anatomical description."

It's just that most people -- or at least most Americans -- won't want to eat anything billed as "throats."

"It's psychological," Zimmern said of people's reluctance to sample most exotic fare. "There are more harmful bacteria in the American beef system than in the rodents and bugs that crawl across the rainforests.

Eating bats in Thailand, well, there were no negative connotations. They were chowing down on it like fried chicken."

Zimmern said part of the Gulf Coast show's focus is to demonstrate how some people use all the parts of an animal or fish when cooking.

"In this country, we tend to eat 20 percent of any animal," said Zimmern of Minnesota. "We have a goofy food system in our country."

Randy Sanders took over Chet's upon the death of his father, Chet Sanders, earlier this year. He said many of his customers order the roe and gizzards, although the filets are by far the restaurant's specialty.

"We cook every part of the mullet," he said. "We sell a lot of the yellow roe. You either love it or hate it. There's no in-between on the roe. I like the yellow. It tastes more like corn bread. The white roe has more of an oyster taste."

Pensacola residents Jeanne Thompson, 80, and Doris Finch, 77, stopped by Zimmern's table to give him a little background on roe and gizzards.

"We'd catch it and clean it," Thompson said, "and eat the roe and the gizzards. It's good."

Zimmern said the Gulf Coast show also will feature stops in Morgan City, La., and towns in Mississippi.

"We ate nutria, which is a giant water rodent," he said. "We did squirrel, possum, raccoon and turducken.

We did alligator ribs, alligator fingers, smoke alligator."

What about his crew?

During Zimmern's Pensacola visit -- his first to the Panhandle -- his three-person crew didn't touch a thing at either restaurant.

"I wouldn't come close to eating some of the things he's put in his mouth," cameraman Bryant Mock said.

"The pig brains and scrambled eggs in Mississippi -- that was not fun."

Zimmern said his crew usually packs plenty of Power Bars, candy and energy drinks.

"Some places," he said, "the crew stops eating after three or four days and then sort of limps to the finish line."

Both Shirley, who has seen Zimmern's show, and Sanders, who has not, said they have no problem being associated with a show called "Bizarre Foods."

"It will probably help us," Sanders said. "And just make people think of us a little more."

And Sanders said there's no hard feelings about the roe. In fact, Sanders and Zimmern plan to fish for mullet today near Fort Pickens and in the Pensacola Bay for additional footage for the show.

"There's a phenomenal vibe here in Pensacola," Zimmern said. "The people are really nice. I was walking up and down the beach last night watching the sunset. It was fabulous."