Fan Mail: Andrew Zimmern

Dear Mr. Andrew Zimmern, Host of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern:

Your food choices are as bizarre as the name of your show suggests. However, what I find to be more bizarre is the look you get on your face right before you shove live bugs, putrid maggot meat or cow dung soup in your mouth. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it, but after staying up for 72 hours meditating on the issue and cutting my toenails, I figured it out. It’s the same look that Hannibal Lector gave Clarice when he said, “I ate his liver with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti.” Scaaaaaary. The food is already freak nasty enough – perhaps tone down the facial effects.

So you have totally made a career out of travelling to obscure locations and scoffing down so called “delicacies” that the Department of Health would ban from being served in the US. You have probably been exposed to more diseases than hours the media spent covering the dreaded Swine Flu. I am sure your intestines are a thriving cesspool of dysentery and salmonella. But you haven’t keeled over yet! Mad props.

I think it’s time to add another element to your show, though. The squeamish factor can really only get you so far. To make things a little more interesting, I propose that you and Samantha Brown have a smack down UFC style. Instead of normal things like mud, pudding or jello, you could hold the match in a pit of mezcal-soaked agave worms or skewed crickets! That way, when you pin her (or vice versa) you can shove those protein-enriched, low fat treats in her face!

Sure she’s like 5 ft. tall and probably weighs as much as your left arm (or less), but I hear the girl is freakishly strong. This one time she took down a whole tribe of Aborigines on a trip to the Australian outback – blind folded, with both arms tied behind her back while Irish Dancing to the Purple Rain Soundtrack. They tried to steal her Shrimp on the Barbie. In fact, she’s been known to pull broken down Tour Busses and regional jets full of complaining retirees wearing white Reeboks and counting the hours until the expiration of their here-and-now safely to mountain-top destinations. I believe she holds the record for on-time arrivals and doesn’t charge extra for checked luggage. (Take that airline industry.)

At any rate, my suggestion (in summary form): Less face, more fight. Samantha Brown is a must.

-Pokey