702: Andrew Zimmern's Secret Restaurant Critic Past

28:04That's why I asked you right away if you were like a tough critic. And so I kept getting yelled at all the time. And I was lucky, kind of like in my TV career. Yeah. I got popular enough with readers that I had a little more leverage. And I could say, well, then take me off the beat. I mean, you know, if you don't want me, I said, this is what I'm going to write and I'm going to be honest and fair. And in the world of Glossy Monthly, honest and fair sometimes isn't an option. No. Let's move on to the book. Blue foods. To me, it says a lot of things. I was thinking Blue Zone Diet, frankly, when I first heard it.

28:41Or blueberries. Or blueberries, but it certainly isn't. And I think the idea is blue foods are the next chapter for seafood. This is exactly how we should be thinking about seafood right now. Correct. And maybe forgetting or ignoring some of the previous misperceptions. And there's a lot of myths that are busted in this book. And again, such a terrific book. When I asked you right away, when I saw you, I was like, Andrew, the book's great. How long did you work on it? And you're like, a long time, right? Well, I first did what I actually said was two and a half years. And I said, well, 15 years.

29:16And I said, well, actually my whole life, because I usually, you know, on the stump, you know, talk about growing up in New York and Long Island and, you know, collecting wild mussels and clamming with my dad and surf casting for bass to throw on the grill. And I've always cooked seafood. I've eaten. I mean, the seafood has been my life. But I really sort of dove in to the deep end of the pool when it comes to policy, international trade, and the issues of sustainability and climate crisis, immigration, job equity, economic development that surrounds seafood in America as issues that affect how we eat and why we eat it.

29:57And I want to say here and now that while that sounds wonky, the book has 145 amazing recipes in it. People are going to love it. Eric Wolfinger did the photography. Oh, amazing. Yulia Shevchenko did watercolor illustrations. A stunning one of Muscles's on the cover. Barton Seaver, a legend in the seafood community, is my co-author. and a lot of he said, he said stuff is in the book because there is no one way to cook a piece of salmon, right? I mean, so we love having two different chowders and two different pastas that have the same ingredients, have the same title, but have very, very different approaches to it.

30:42But there are so many, when you decide to write a book about seafood And thank you for calling out the issue of the word blue. The United Nations came up with the term blue foods to place it in contrast to the green economy of the world was an easier way to talk about U.N. policy. Yeah, yeah.

31:34when certain fish are green light go because the fishery is doing well and other fish are farmed and they come from a responsible source. But the minute you start to write a book about seafood, immediately the audience for whom you're writing says, I'm confused. I'm already confused. It's a seafood book. And as an author, you've got to be responsible to the reader. So I delighted in being able to say, OK, we know here are your questions. Farmed or wild, the answer is both. Yeah. Fresh or frozen, the answer is both. The question we have to ask is, does it come from a responsible fishery? And was it handled right?

32:17Right. And if it ticks both those boxes, it doesn't matter whether it's fresh farmed, wild, frozen. It does not matter. None of that matters. Buy it. Eat it. And the goal is to get America to eat one more seafood meal a week that they cook at home. Seventy-five percent of the seafood that comes into America is exported overseas. Of what stays behind, of that 25 percent, 75 percent of that, Americans enjoy in restaurants. So we love seafood. We're just not eating it at home. And so there is also mythology and, you know, I think influence that comes from years of mishandled product that where people say it's it's fishy.

33:04It makes my house smell weird when I cook it. Nobody ever says that about bacon or chocolate chip cookies. I like the aroma of seafood when it's cooked in my house. If it's overcooked, oils are released into the air and that smell will increase. I'm not a big fan of that, but I'm also not a big fan of when overcooked beef spatters up on the walls and gets those aromas get out from underneath the food in my house. It's a cooking smell. We celebrate cooking smells. I'm so happy you pointed this out clearly. The beauty of seafood is that it's very easy to cook, but it actually is deeper than that.

33:42seafood is considered guilty until proven innocent. Yeah, it's true. Which shocks me simply as an eater. And I think it should shock everyone who's listening to this too and why I encourage them to buy this book. And I set this up this way. I've never heard anyone go into a supermarket and tap someone with a red apron on the shoulder and say, can you tell me where the wild cow meat is or the wild chicken? Doesn't exist. Both are farmed. They're domesticated, have been forever, right? There's also one type of chicken and one type of cow that we eat, okay? And I don't want to get into arguments that there's a couple of subspecies and all the rest of that thing and get into, you know, certified black Angus, which is a marketing term, right?

34:29I mean, let's just, you know, go with this for a second because when I get to my point, people will understand where I'm headed. Your big question for beef is what cut and fresh or frozen. And nobody ever says, well, those frozen short ribs are bad because they've been frozen. They're usually a couple dollars cheaper. And they stake hold while you get them from the market to your house, right? With chicken, it's light or dark, fresh or frozen. With seafood, you have thousands of species of edible life, plant life, you know, mollusks and cephalopods and fin fish. A terrific seaweed section in the book, by the way.

35:18I love that section. Thank you. But there is a vast world of seafood, flavors, textures, things that are meant for the grill. Things are meant for a hot pan and a quick sear. Very quick sear. Some fish you can eat raw, some fish that isn't worth eating raw because it tastes so much better cooked. So I go on and on, but the variety of flavors. The other thing that we come up against, another myth, is my kids won't eat it. Or worse, kids in general, not my kids, kids won't eat it, to which I direct people to any Asian country, all of Scandinavia, everywhere in Africa and South America. Essentially everywhere but America, children eat seafood.

36:00Um, we just don't do it here unless it's a fish stick. Uh, and we have a great fish stick recipe. Oh, the panzanella? In the book, yeah. I love it. He made, like, just as an aside, brilliant to think about, uh, a panzanella tomato salad with fish sticks. Yeah, well. Brilliant. Barton, uh, it's one of his recipes and, uh, it was one of the first ones that I cooked. He essentially replaced toasted croutons of leftover bread with fish sticks cut with scissors. Now, if you want to make fish sticks yourself, great. If you want to buy fish sticks, just make sure that you're doing it that comes from an approved resource, which is not the Gortons of Gloucester Fishermen.

36:40That is from any one of a dozen companies that make good fish sticks that are, you know, ASC or MSC. We call it the alphabet soup. But there's lots of places that will tell you this fish is responsibly sourced. And you get them just a little extra crispier. And then they soak up all those wonderful juices of the vegetables. It's delicious. It's the same reason why in our tinned fish section of the book, as much as I would have loved to have done another chef-y thing where I drain and rinse whatever comes out of the tin and do something really extraordinary with it in a souffle, I have my tuna noodle casserole.

37:17Yes, you do. Because I live in Minnesota. I saw it. I love my tuna noodle casserole. And when I started making tuna noodle casserole with drained tuna that is packed in olive oil, whether it comes from the Pacific Northwest or Italy or Spain, all of a sudden I was like, holy shit, that really tastes better than the supermarket water packed stuff. I mean, you make a very strong case for oil packed tuna and, you know, the water packed tuna seems to be not the choice. It isn't. And, you know, the water-packed tuna is the one that's most often cooked twice. A lot of people don't understand with tinned fish, most of it is cooked twice.

37:59The fish has to be cooked. Then it's loaded into a container, small, tinned, hence its name. And then it's filled with water and oil and heated to it. So it maintains its shelf stability, right? So if you start with good raw product, as many companies do these days, and you can read it on the side of their labels. I'm not here. I'm not a huckster for anything other than the right process. And have that once cooked tuna in oil and you start incorporating that into your diet. And there are American companies doing it out of the Pacific Northwest with tuna species that are sourced sustainably. Yeah.

38:45These days, eating a giant bluefin tuna is it's kind of like eating a Bengal tiger. Yeah. It's it's a it's a very difficult choice. You know, I think eating octopus is a difficult choice for people. Now, there are sustainable resources for giant bluefin tuna. They come and go. You know, I'd much prefer people, you know, eat yellowfin that's taken on a rod and reel. Yeah. And, you know, when I do eat tuna, I prefer some of the smaller species that because I want to do my part for our global food systems. And I'd like my children to be able to enjoy those those same fish. But we have so many myths and so many issues to get around.

39:37We wanted to create a cookbook that was really simple. So these 145, well, plus recipes, we have a lot for stocks and pantry items that you need to, if you're going to be making certain seafood items. And my coleslaw recipe, because if you're going to have a Minnesota shoreline, it's a really good one. No, it looks like a good one. I want to go back to the tuna, though, and oil before we move on. I mean, you really make a great point that the oil needs to be good. The oil needs to be quality. The oil needs to be good. Because if you're not picking the right oil-packed tuna, it could be a disaster.

40:14Well, it makes the fish bitter, but more importantly, it also eliminates the secondary use for yourself. So I'll give you an example. Yes. I sometimes, I know this sounds so dorky, but I make a lot of Vitello Tonato and anything Tonato. Oh, yeah. And I think my recipe— Tonato's going crazy right now. It is. Lots of things are Tonato'd. My recipe for tuna—I think it's my recipe for tuna Tonato. Barton and I worked on this for so long together, I forget whose idea and whose base recipe was what for what. But I think it's my tuna tonnato.

40:47If you use the oil, I'll save it in a jar in my fridge from opening up because we eat a lot of tin tuna in our house. I like tuna fish salad. I make vitello tonnato. That sauce requires tin tuna. Some of the oil goes into that sauce, but not all of it necessarily. I like tuna nissoise. I mean, I use tinned tuna a lot. With oil packed. Correct. Kind of always. With good olive oil. Yeah, with good olive oil. And whether that tuna in the packery or the fishery is in Morocco or Algeria or Spain or Portugal or any of the countries that are doing a really good job with packing it, you know, Europe and North Africa does a phenomenal job.

41:33Great value with the North African product. If you're tired of paying really large, crazy prices for Portuguese and the Spanish stuff, you can go down. Well, Ortiz is one of those things that, like wineries, has several different labels, right? So, you know, there are Ortiz levels. There's levels to this game. There's levels to Ortiz. But the fun of it for me is that I can take that and make a salad dressing that I might put on leftover grilled salmon one day. And it has a really extraordinary flavor because it's been packed around that fish. If you're taking sardines out of a tin and you take three or four tablespoons of that oil that's with the sardines and you make a very mustardy vinaigrette with a little bit of hot chili minced into it and a little bit of orange and lemon zest, no juice, just the zest.

42:26Save the juice for the dressing on the greens, and you lay those sardines on those greens, then you dress it with that mustardy vinaigrette that's made with the oil from the tin. It's going to curl your toes. It's got great value to it. On the flip side, if it's shitty, shitty oil is shitty oil. You know, you can't polish a turd. And you have to taste it. And if it's not the right oil, you maybe don't buy that brand. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code.

43:03Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables and little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there. ButcherBox is a true exception. I was sent a box of premium beef and pork and was blown away by the quality and variety. There was 100 % grass-fed pasteurized ribeye, tri-tip, and ground sirloin for my favorite at-home smash burger recipe. George Motes, you better watch your back. For pork, they sent me a beautiful center-cut pork loin for slow roasting.

43:39I was super impressed, and I haven't even talked about the ribs, which I cooked in my Instant Pot. There was a rub of salt, white pepper, and togarashi, and I had pressure cooked with water and apple cider vinegar. It was incredible. These ButcherBox ribs are amazing. For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year, plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always.

44:19That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. I want to ask you about farmed fish. Go back to that topic. Yeah. Because I think for many listeners, there's a serious ick with farmed fish. There was one for me. And you just, you think about, wow, those nets and those fish and that dirty water. But as you said very well and very clearly, farmed and wild, it just has to be responsibly sourced. It's interesting to me, you know, we're talking about this in at a day and time where we can actually look back 15 years and. And, you know, a woman, Jennifer Bushman, who co-founded Fed by Blue, who is the nonprofit that we collaborated with on this book and who also was the impact campaign producer for Hope in the Water, the TV series that I produced.

45:22She sent me a salmon 15 years ago and it was OK and it was farmed and it was from Scandinavia. And I think the next year, I think I got a Chilean salmon from her, and it was a little bit better. And the third year, I got another Scandinavian salmon, and it was pretty good. And I had never been an advocate for farm fish because farm fish was bad for the environment, and the fish itself was mushy. Yeah. So it was an immediate no-go for me. I mean, the fat content was higher in a lot of that fish. Well, because the feed was creating— You know, it's like it was ultra-processed food for animals. Yeah, and they're not moving and they're getting overfed.

46:00Yes. And, you know, many people like that. Hold on that, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not moving because they were in a crowded pen. Exactly. Right? And they were raised in places where the water wasn't swift enough that they didn't have to move a lot. They could just kind of sit still, which salmon can do. They move a little with their tail if there's a little eddy. But all of that has changed. I'm not sure there is a food system in the world. I've challenged a lot of people to find one for me because I know a little bit about this stuff. Tell me another food system in the last 15 years that's changed as much for the better as seafood farming has.

46:39Seafood farming was 90 percent. I got a problem with it 15, 20 years ago and is now 90 percent fantastic these days because people have understood what's at stake. And also sometimes capitalism is good. People have realized that if there's a good product and there are people who have chosen to eat more seafood for a lot of really good health reasons because it's better for you. If you're going to eat a center of the plate protein that's best for you as a human being and best for our planet at the same time, seafood wins every time over every other center of the plate protein that exists. Animal center of the plate protein.

47:22But the seafood industry has, you know, copper nets aren't used anymore. The feed ratio has gone from eight to one to either one to one or negative, right, in terms of the amount of food that you have to put into an animal to then net harvest size. The other issue is that we now are keeping fish in pens and we've eliminated overcrowding them by about 40 percent. Fish farming is done in very, very deep water, whether it's kampachi in Hawaii, whether it's striped bass off the coast of Southern California and Northern Mexico, whether it's trout in Idaho, Riverans doing an amazing job, or shrimp in Minnesota.

48:05There's a phenomenal shrimp company in Minnesota growing shrimp land-based, right? And all these other fisheries all around the world have decreased the amount of animals in the environments they're being raised in. They also are using now a different feeding system. So what was happening before was food would fall through the pen that the animals were in and it would go to the ocean floor. No one could eat them. They were overcrowded. Now, by reducing the crowding, you're reducing the amount of food. Instead of feeding them once or twice a day, there's constantly a couple of handfuls of food thrown in the water.

48:42Well, over a very short amount of time, the fish, just like any other animal, is, like, confident. I don't have to rush to the food because the food comes every hour, right? I'll wait for Murray. Murray's hungrier than I am. and I'll grab Agnes and we'll go have dinner in 10 minutes when a couple more pieces of salmon kibble come into the water. So there's nothing falling through the fish column as it sits in those pens. In many countries, like in Chile, if you and I are going to have a pen of salmon and a certain number of fish, we have to plant a certain number of columnar farms, right? Not piles, farms.

49:21So we are additive to cleaning the water because we're putting ocean, we're putting oysters and mussels and seaweed and clams in that ocean column, which filters way more water than any amount of, you know, damage we're doing to the water could exist. So we're seeing, and by the way, you know, I can't tell you, you want to know the biggest mythology out there? People think or a king salmon is wild. Oh, really? They think it's like a place it's from because it's so beautiful when it's in the case. The minute you open up one of those fish. They're not doing those in Alaska, I'll tell you that, yeah.

49:55It's stunning, right? And there are really great fisheries now for it all around the world. There are people now who are farming halibut in Scandinavia. That's an incredible product. It's going to change the industry. You know, the so many different, I mean, look, here's the bottom line. I believe, and I am biased, but I believe the answer to every problem that we have in America when it comes to food systems, blue food is the answer. And I believe within the world of blue food, aquaculture is the answer. We have to stop as a country investing in the pipe dream of cell-based seafood that's so expensive, requires so much energy, mostly in the form of water, that in the next 20 years, 30 years, it's not going to be able to be reproduced at scale to allow you and I to buy cell-based tuna or salmon.

50:51When you say cell-based, define that. Petri, you know, cell-based meat, cell-based fish. I mean, there are companies out there that are doing it. Yeah, no shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. But you're kind of blowing my mind right now. The problem is we have a lot of people who've invested billions of dollars into something to hope for a big payday 30 years from now. It's 2025. We don't have 30 years. Yeah. Right. We have we have five, seven, 10, 20, 30, depending on what the issue is. Right. And, you know, again, I mean, you know, I've spent the last dozen years of my life getting really head ass and overcoat into global food systems and issues at a pretty high level.

51:30working with a lot of NGOs and have a lot of projects going around the world. That's really what I spend most of my time doing these days. The fact of the matter is that we need just a much smaller investment into aquaculture to help it scale so that we can feed a hungry people, not just in America, all around the world. It's in our best interest to do so. I'll give you a very quick example. Africa is the world's largest island. I know it's man-made, but go with me here, right? So Africa's this giant man-made island. Some of the best seafood I've ever had in my life is in Africa. East, west, north, south.

52:11People forget what a great seafood city Alexandria is, or how good the seafood off the Namibia coast and southern Africa, Cape Town, right, in South Africa. Morocco, Aswariya, one of the seafood capitals of the world. It'll go on and on and on. Senegal has incredible fisheries. Surrounded by water with very little pressure on the animals because all the fisheries there are essentially artisanal fisheries, right? 96 % of Zambia, freehold farmers. That's a landlocked country. All the coastal countries in Africa, 90 % artisanal fishermen. So they're just going out bringing a couple pounds of fish in.

52:55They get together sometimes co-op style, sell it on a beach. But there's very little electricity comes down to the shoreline. So despite having some of the best seafood in the whole world, Africa is only responsible for about 4 percent of global fish exports. The green economy there is dying. The land is being overused because so many of those countries are in the midst of climate crisis and conflict. my work with the International Rescue Committee. You know, it's scary how those C words have, and it was COVID along. We used to be the three Cs. Now we're just down to two. But these hungries are struggling to feed themselves.

53:39So of course they're going to not let land go fallow and they're going to take every ounce of energy out of the soil in order to feed themselves. I would do the same thing for my family if I was a farmer in the interior of Africa. We have to do, yeah. And you can't tell them to not grow something. They're literally trying to feed their communities. We need to grow the blue economy in Africa. We have to teach what we've done with dairy cooperatives in the Midwest, these artisanal fishing communities in coastal Africa. We need to get a statistic on the beach. Well, what's going to happen is you get these people to understand there's strength in numbers, just like the dairy co-ops in the Midwest did.

54:17And then numbers will be aggregated. Then the World Bank and African banks will invest in them. Last year, I learned at the UN General Assembly, I was in the room with the World Bank people where they announced to a small group of us, I wish it had been public. I mean, a lot of what goes on at climate week here is behind closed doors. And I'm like, oh, my God, we should be screaming this from the mountaintops. The World Bank cut its first check to a cooperative of artisanal fishermen in Senegal. And to me, that was a watershed moment because the minute they have the money, then they can take the electricity line down there and they can buy a freezer with it.

54:56They can buy life vests for their boat. They can buy some electronics for it because of the climate crisis, they're going further out into the ocean to get fish. But now they're able to feed their communities. Now they're ramping up. I mean, they're ramping up. They're scaling up. The economic development incentive, the more we invest in other countries outside of ourselves, the safer we are. I believe these are the victories we need to celebrate. You know, jobs in this country are changing much faster than anywhere else because we're the most developed country on planet Earth in many ways, right?

55:29So we have to grow economies in other parts of the world in the hopes that American companies can participate in that economic development. Our planet is globalizing so quickly, right? What happens in one part of the world has a ripple effect everywhere else. We saw that when Russia invaded Ukraine. This isn't red or blue or left or right. These are just global facts, right? All of a sudden, canola oil prices shot up through the roof, and our food system started to wiggle again, and everyone was like, what grows in Ukraine? I mean, it was like, hello? Andrew, please come back. I have so many more questions to ask.

56:08Anytime. I really want to hear about Bazaar Foods and Food TV. I love talking food to you, and I could just go on about this. We have such great connections. You know what? You need to interview less talky people. I love talky people. Listen, this is the dream for me. There's, you know, the Blue Food Cookbook, and we were talking about this walking away from the elevator. If I could, you know, just add one thing to the conversation. The beautiful part about the Blue Food Cookbook is that I think it's a real book in the sense that a lot of cookbooks today, and it's very important for young culinarians, their first restaurant.

56:46Maybe they were a chef tested on a show and they did well and they've done a bunch of guest spots on shows and someone gives them an advance and they write a book. I think that's fantastic. But a lot of cookbooks these days kind of look the same or they retread the same territory. You know, not everyone's going to be Rose Levy Berenbaum, right? Oh, shout out. Not everybody is going to be, you know, write Le Method or La Technique, right? And I believe in books, you know. Your books are fantastic, right? But one of the things that I love about your books is they're always exploring new ground, but you also have a voice, right?

57:28Appreciate that. I enjoy reading and cooking out of the stuff that you make. I hope people see our book the same way. Everyone always asks me, like, you've written so many books. Why are you just now writing cookbooks? And it's because I made a very determined decision that I wanted to wait until I had really important things to say. This book is a joy to cook from. I want to stress that because everyone is so worried that it's just, you know, I'm going to talk about all these issues. It's just going to be wonky. No, 145 recipes. It's very clear. It is a great, great cookbook. Thank you for saying so.

58:02But I think if you write a cookbook and you don't mention what some of the issues are and debunk the myths and motivate people to eat one more seafood week that they make at home, things aren't going to change. And this is a rugged time, and it's a time for real people with real ideas and real opinions. It doesn't mean everyone's going to agree with them, but I think we need to put a lot of emphasis on solving real global problems if we want to have a shot at solving them. Andrew Zimmerman, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thanks, my friend.

58:42This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.