Monday, July 30, 2012

The Bizarre Truth

The Bizarre Truth: How I Walked Out the Door Mouth First...and Came Back Shaking My Head by Andrew Zimmern  271 pp.

I enjoy watching Andrew Zimmern's shows on the Travel Channel although some of the strange foods he eats leave me a little queasy. In this book Zimmern gives some of the stories behind the filming of the shows including anecdotes of mishaps and dangerous situations he found himself in. The rest of the book is about the people of different cultures he has met in his travels, his favorites of all the foods he has eaten around the world and experiences he had in kitchens with some of the world's great chefs. However, the real point of this book is teaching travelers to step away from the organized tours and "safe" (& boring) hotels and restaurants to explore the markets and out of the way places in different countries in order to meet the people and really experience different and unusual cultures (many that are in danger of extinction). Some of his food descriptions will leave your mouth watering, others not so much. In a similar way, many of the foreign places he visited make me long to hop on a plane and go there, while for others I can easily say "no thanks." This book was as fun to read as his shows are to watch.

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