Ep. 352: Bizarre Guests with Andrew Zimmern

set of tongs. App not all great, though still one of the guys that works for his Garrett Long he's been on the show. He texts me this morning, bumm that he couldn't come meet you. He said. We watched Andrew Zimmer's Bizarre Foods like some people go to church. We'll say I think that was a good show that was not mentioned that you'd get your special clothes on and the family would gather around. That brought the Longs together.

They brought the Longs together, creator, executive producer and hosts of shows including Bizarre Foods franchise and Travel Channel Driven by Food, I mean, winning the Zimmering List, Family Dinner, What's Eating America from MSNBC and this year it's the premiere of his newest show, Wild Game Kitchen on the Outdoor Channel hitting the air waves. People still say that is it still air waves? I'd go with it. What I what I call my phone my telephone, and people like,

why do you say that? It's your phone hitting the airwaves? September nine. Also four books, The Bizarre Truth and Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World of Food, Andrew Zimmern's Field Guide to exceptionally Weird, wild and Wonderful Food. And here's an unexpected one Alliance of World Traveler's Volume one A Z in the Lost City of oh Fear. Hit me with that

real quick. I used to make up stories to put my kid to sleep, and I finally well at the time one and I, I just finally said, there's nothing in the eight to twelve year old space for kids. There's a really good cardboard books, I mean for anny, dad's or moms out there. Yeah, I mean, you know, inky Stinky Caterpillar and you know ye, there's just a whole bunch of great for little kids. And there's really good stuff for twelve thirteen and up, but there's there's

a missing chunk. I think that was underestimating what eight to twelve, eight to thirteen year olds could read. So I made a kid's book and it's the to this, I mean one a lot of awards, and then you can't sell the second one because that age group fell out, somehow fell out of favor because they're all reading stuff on their computers or their telephones. So you did you intend to go many volumes? I wanted to. I still want to. I will. I'll force my way into something.

I'll figure it out. Yeah, that's cool, though, I'm gonna get a copy of that. I have to right now. The land right in that zone. Oh my god, they'd love it. It's a it's an adventure time traveling tale with the greatest premise ever. There's a strange uncle Arthur, who is the works at the British Museum in London and yet lives in this old Victorian mansion in in St. Paul, Minnesota. And uh he has his near Dowell kid who's basically me, can't do anything right. Uh, doesn't have a lot of

self esteem. He's a total mess and pure in the kids book, but I wanted kids. Here was the thing. I wanted kids. That was the whole point to relate to because that's how the kids are feeling, right, So I wanted to put in real kids with real feelings and real kid characters. And so little Lazy sneaks his

way on board. Uh his uncle's playing unbeknownst to the uncle, and sneaks with him, just kind of creeps behind and gets into the British Museum and he's found out and his uncle banishes him to the office uh that he has, and the kid pulls out one of those old um picture viewers where you slide the picture into the tube and hold it up to the light. And it's a time traveling device and the uncle is trying to hide it in plain sight, and he goes back to ancient Egypt.

But as the time traveling thing is happening, a whole bunch of people rushing to the office and he is sent back to ancient Egypt with three or four other kids he doesn't know. And then the evil villains also make their way back there. And it's like Indiana Jones, just cliffhanger every chapter as they hurdle their way to the exciting finish where they saved the world. Great man, Yeah, it's good for sale. Uh, yes, I guarantee if you put it, put it this way, I will send you

one perfect Oh. I got one more question for you, right quick? Two questions for you. The T shirt? Yeah, peace in America? Yeah, thank you. Um. The second question is are you super scared? I think you'll do pretty good at trivia. You know you're playing trivia with us. I heard about that afterwards. Um. I don't think you'll win, but I think you're good. Here's here's the great thing I think you'll do. Here's here's here's the great thing. I was talking about this with someone else, say they

do on a different subject. At a certain point in your life, if you have lived, if you have if you have subscribed to whatever you believe right living is, and you've started to live by a certain set of principles, I mean really live by them. You make mistakes all the time, because you're a human being. We all make mistakes. We all have a lot of messy issues in our lives. We all have a lot of things that are private

that we're not good at, you know. But if you live by a certain set of principles, you develop enough self esteem that really you're not scared of anything. So if you fail at something, it's it's unimportant. It doesn't matter to me if I didn't answer any of them. Not I it's not just when it's I don't care, if I don't care if I embarrassed. I don't care

if I embarrass myself anymore. But you have you have a professional amount of of pride and expertise on the line if we're playing an outdoors based trivia or a game. Is that a nice way of saying Steve as a fragile ego. No, it's it's a it's a nice way. It's a nice way of saying, there's more pressure on you guys, Like if I want to okay, let's say I was to go. Let's say Andrew has a show and they have a culinary uh world culinary trivia show. You might do pretty good. Well I go on the show.

He would probably say to me, I think you'll do okay. I don't think you'll win, right, I think you'll get a three or four. I don't know that. Andrew would say that he's nicer than you. Stay. Oh, I'm trying to do here, man, I'm just trying to drum up expectations, trying to drum up, trying to drum up listener. You know how like in in world wrestling, like the pro wrestling, they take like whole Cogan and the other guy and they have like the meeting before to promote the thing.

That's all I'm trying to. Let me tell you, that's trying to me is no longer with us. And I grew up watching through the years, through the years. It's uh, I love wrestling. When I was a little, little little kid, you had to buy the magazines and then wait a week till Saturday and and watch pro wrestling. Remember do you remember having I remember having honest to God debates with kids when I was like in elementary school about whether it was real or not. I'm not buying it,

you mean, what do you mean? It was very real to me for a very long time until I started to see you know, like the the and me no disrespect to little people. But the minute they put in like at the time they called them midgets right and you know, Skilo Low and little Beaver, and I realized, Okay, this is not only disrespectful to little people. It may just struck me as being wrong, but it's also disrespectful to native Like the whole thing kind of struck me,

is is not right? And then I started to sniff things out and then I was like now, and it started dawn on me at age like eleven twelve that my love of the sport needed to change a little bit. And it and it and it did. But it still didn't mean that I wasn't obsessed with Milmascarris coming off the top rope. Well maybe after the trivia thing, you pro Russell. I love it. I'll get a folding chair. I've done it, have done, have you? Oh my god? But most funny, once in a a while there's a wrestling

match on, like a video shoot. Yeah, yeah, I like doing it. Here's a thinker for you guys, all you listeners out there. Hack saw Jim Dugan. He got to bring a two by four into the arena because he incorporated would into his name. Basically, that's all I could figure out. Called me Stevie, Blade, called me Brody the taser for the meat you could bring like a big Tomahawks steak. Probably podcast uh. Duck Lore season two is

out now, tell him sean yep. Duck Lore season two, which was kind of the back half of last Waterfowl season, first episode out right now is on the Great Salt Lake, which is pretty wild. Um. Yeah, duck lawers out and along with that the new First Light waterfowl gear yeah, which is tight. Yeah, well it's tight, but it's Tyfa Tyfa which is a genus for cat tails. Great name man um. So First Light Tifa has launched. I know.

This is the first of two waterfowl like, two collections of waterfowl material that will be coming out from First Light um meaning like the entire collection Ralph the top comes out in two batches. So right now, only certain styles are out for purchase, but you'll see a lot of that stuff if you watch duck Lore, Yep, you see a lot of gear. Phenomenal, phenomenal stuff. I love it. Um. Certain styles arevailable for purchase right now. Other styles because

an available at a later time. Here's what you got now, the Landing Zone jacket, the Tundra net Gator which is sweet, three new beanies, and the coal ab collection with tangle free. Yeah. That's all that's of the new styles, right and then we've got a bunch of the you know, existing product like the Catalyst and all the wool and all that, and so there's yeah, it's obviously all kinds of crossover stuff, other kinds of First Light apparel that crosses over real well,

so um, you know, there's a bunch of Marino. There's the Origin hoodie which I have in Typhon. I've had that for a long time, Catalyst Vast Catalyst jacket, Catalyst paint, leafy jacket, Uncle Pagret two point oh all out now in the type of pattern. And then more of the First Light Waterfowl line, which is like a great collection they've got through. I mean just keep getting better and

better stuff coming all the time. And so check all that stuff out now and hopefully by by Waterfowl the rest of the dry yeah, yeah, and and in duck Lor along with the duck Lower launch will have some videos and stuff on the Mediata website, like getting into the like the conditions I'm wearing each piece in and kind of talking about some of the features of these jackets. There's some like ridiculous thinking that went into these even like one specific feature, right is the casting stripe on

the underside of the arms for casting your dog. Little things like that. We break down why all these pieces are the way they are, what's casting sorry, casting stripe is for casting your dog on hand signals right, for for directing your dogs. Underside of your arm is a visible bar. So when you're telling your dog, like Cal's super dog, you to point, snap, yell like what that what do you yelling? You can tell them a direction over and that's dog stops or that dog will run

out and be kind of lost her minute. He's like stops and stares at Cal. Cal does the hand signal, points his arm, what way it goes, and that's something. It goes in that direction, which happens to be like the best feeling is the best tool. What color is that? I mean, is it like just so they can see it? Good? Yeah, because you know that type. I mean, it's kind of funny when you think about it. The whole point of the jackets to be camo and then you're standing again

and the dogs like where the hell is he? Yeah, well, so under the arm there's black. Hold your arm out and you got like a directional bar. Further the dog gets away, the bigger you need to become. Typically if you gotta do the hand signals. Yeah, dude, there's nothing worse than most dogs. But like nothing worse than most dogs. But the dogs that are dialed are just cool. Man. We're gonna have a bunch of dial dogs her rubies kicking butt. How's your dog doing, Sean Cases doing well.

I don't want to jinx it right because a guy that talks up his dog a dog, I'm happy, never talked about your own dog, never talked dog. I'm considering training my first dog. Persistency. That's that's the whole, that's the whole thing. I think I have the time now and I think I finally have the dog, and I'm super super excited about it. It's a Lagatta Romanolo. It's an Italian water dog. But did those have like the white? But it's very good, very good. But you are good

at trivia. But she's she is, believe me. As the only sixty one year old New York City Jew at the table, I figured it had to be something right on. But the I finally have the dog that as a she's five months old, but she she's kind of a natural. So just slowly doing stuff with her at the house. I broke my leg and fractured my ankle in April, so I've had a lot of time. And it was the day she arrived. She was actually the cause of

me slipping falling and was chasing out the house. And so there's a bond between the shot and well, this is what I think is the spiritual pay. I think the universe is like I saved her, uh, which is how I see it. And uh, then did my suffering, my forty years in the desert for her and now exactly and now she is going to pay it back

to me. And but this this dog will like at a very young age, will obey commands and roots out stuff that is unbelievable to me, where her older brother, same parents a year apart is completely inefficient, fantastic to couch dog. But that's where it ends with Luca Clemmy the exact opposite. Yeah, you know, like pro trainers that are that are then a lot of dogs under under their watch. A lot of times it averages out to

like twenty minutes a day of of of real training. Uh. And then there's a lot of fundamentals that other folks will jump in there on. So I mean twenty minutes a day and then the constant reinforcement of just the normal good behavior set stay come yep, I mean it's not asking that much of your time, and she wants when I say natural is I've never done this before, but I'm starting to study it. And and she will

go anything that moves in the backgroud. She doesn't go right after it right away, but she kind of stays and watches it. And if if you see her watching something, it's an animal. When we live way out in the country in Minnesota, and so there's tons of stuff out there for her, and the only thing that she's obsessed

right now with actually going after that. We've taught her very quickly not to eat our frogs because they come up out of the lake and they're breeding, and she sees these little things in the grass, especially at night when it's hot, and they come out, and she's just like going nuts. It's like, stop eating the frogs. But she's she's got that down. So I'm like, I have I have faith in her. I just you know, we my life there in terms of local you know, hunting

is you know, duck, geese, pheasants, and grouse. That's it. And well, you know, if that's all you have, that's all we have. Just yet the things I love too, hopefully I can because to share that with the dog is THEO. I was getting back to your point about that moment where in the field, and it's an important moment, and it happens and it works out is an unbelievable symbiotic relationship. And shut up. Very fulfilling, keeps us going on.

I got a hot tip for parents. You know, Brody, we should have put this in the Outdoor Kids in an Inside World book. You know, I was gonna mention that book when he was talking about eight to twelve year old. So we're writing a book for those kids too. We wrote a book about kids, and now I write aboot four kids, the book about kids, Outdoor Kids in an Inside World, which is great. I wish we had

I redecked my snowbill trailer. So I took the old rot and plywood off and putting new plywood down and found some good leaned him up against the garden fence. And that inspired me to go dig out the ninja throwing stars, which we hadn't used in a while. Man, if you got kids, give him some ninja throwing stars, teach them how to makes ninja. Yeah, well, the Chinese throwing stars. I have no idea why they must have said China stamped in market, but let me give you

a tip when you go to buy one. Yeah, I was showing my kid how a real ninja holds him last night. I ad, it's hard to throw a real ninja. He's like, are the real ninjas. I'm like, yeah, dude, they were like assassins and burglars years ago. So it's starting to really doubt Karen's martial arts credit. I mean, you don't know what's throwing stars na accent. My wife calls it that multi prong throwing. So all. They're fun, but I don't like Amazon doesn't sell them. I think

like safety concerns. We used to make them in shop, I know, but they're no good. You know. That's that's what's up next for him. The gaslene powered sharp thing. Good for your kids. These dude, they love throwing stars. Uh. But there's a couple of things you gotta go to. You gotta go to ninja supply houses. You can't you can't get them go to a ninja supply ninja supply get suckered into the four prongs. That's that's no. You

need like a six P seven. And then I took I took an angle grinder and finally honed the prongs on those throwing stars. And then I took blaze orange paint because they go yeah off never never Land. So I blaze orange painted him, honed him up with an angle grinder, and then you know those old rotten sheets apply would do hours of fun, hours of fun. Sounds pretty good. I remember from a ninja movie they did like a train. The ninjas. They take like a string and tie like a washer on it and let it

swing in front of the target. And you gotta get so good that you can flop pin the string to the board. You know what I never bought in those movies, even as a kid, was like a ninja would he would throw your brain paint like hit you in the chest and the guy would just fall over dead, stone cold. If you more like you were like for because more what you would say? If ye just my ninja star? Are you? Are you nuts? So much fun? Um? Oh the James Webb. This stuff is like I can't be

looking at James Webb telescope. We'll put that on my radar the other day. I can't we looked this morning at the one. It ruins your whole day. So well, those those first deep space ones from Hubble. However, many years ago, the first time I saw that, I had like my first real existential moment, like dizzy and almost passed out, just like I didn't think of the vastness of the universe. I woke up being proud that I remember it was my anniversary. So I'm just laying there,

my wife still sleeping. I was laying there being like, I am gonna rap by saying happy anniversary. Then I'm like, God, I hope you don't forget it sleeps much longer. You're like, just but I missed her birthday twice, which just still haunts me. So I don't know if I've ever forgotten

that anniversary. One day, we got the day wrong, went out to dinner, didn't realize until later that was the wrong day, but I remembered anyways, And then when she woke up, we're looking at the James Web Space telescope things, and there's that like deep field photo thousands of galaxies. Okay, so that like some of them being like the Sun's light takes is eight or thirteen minutes to get here. The Sun's light takes eight minutes to get here. Galaxies

that are two hundred and ninety light years away. So if you turned on a flashlight on one of them planets, the light would get here in two hundred and ninety years. If you turned on the light at the Sun, it would be here in eight minutes. There are I'm not saying there's dude sitting around writing books and whatnot. There are definitely things more planets than there are grains of sand on Earth. And then what is all that ship doing out there? That's what I don't like to think of. Yeah,

it's just too much. Gasoline is expensive, and then you see that picture. It doesn't matter. There are many different types of measuring contests in this world, and the uh the headline that made me laugh thinking about this measuring contest that we put ourselves in is uh first pictures with web telescope, like deepest view of space ever recorded,

like very first ones. And I just imagined that there was somebody sitting around being like I told you, so, I told you there's no way, no way that we are in aimless rock hurdling nowhere, doing nothing, circling an average of the Our son is a G two star, right, the most average of all types of stars. So to think that of all these billions trillions of we just don't. The vastness is unbelievable, right, because that's more that we're the only one that is supporting life is ludicrous. Yeah,

you're right, but ludicrous. I think I've sewn this up for and I don't want to take too much time on it. But you know the physiologists Jared Diamond, it's kind of a white whale for this podcast never did get him on do we No, I should circle back. I just bought a bunch of his books, The New White Whales Ron. I've tried to go through high level, high level contacts and can't get a call back from

Ron to santis and then Jared Jared Diamond. So in his book about human history, he in the and he talks about what about other people coming and hanging out? And he gets to this interesting idea, uh that like if you imagine the Earth's the way he describes it, if you imagine the Earth timeline as your arms spread out. Okay, so the Earth timeline is fingertip a fingertip, you could remove human history with one stroke of a nail file.

That's actually John McPhee observation. But that's what human history is so as long as the Earth's been here, human history is a stroke of a nail file, and then you can take that off the timeline. So when he gets into is this idea that like, if you have a four billion year old planet, okay, and you have a human history, that's the stroke of a nail file, and then those people can transmit electronic signals for a

couple hundred years. You're talking about a tremendous coincidence for other planets to sort of like launch a life form that becomes where it has aspiration similar to ours. Then it's particular timeline and it's aspirations and it's technological capabilities somehow coincide with ours. It's not like is it out there, but it's like where is it in their time? Like where is it? And and does all things go in

this direction? That's where it becomes even more fascinating, and that's where it starts to narrow itself down a little bit. But in so many zillions quadrillions of opportunities, right, but just the idea of life on another planet, even a life form that may not be able to communicate with us because of their timeline, Because it's like the most advancing is the earthworm. There's stuff or whatever. There's stuff

out there. There is stuff out there well. And then also going back to your original point, like consider that maybe there does come the day that we do finally get that transmission, but it came from so far away that that civilization they don't exist anymore, that's right there,

long since gone. So they sent it, and then it's to send it at their height, and then they're gone, yeah, we're gonna be like, and we think so highly of ourselves that transmission will come in with like a word misspelled, and we'll be like, that might be that's a that's a future show for you, man. Planet. We're still trying to figure out. We're still trying to figure out how to feed our populations, whether it's for people for astronauts or you know, feeding people for deep space exploration is

now the really big question mark. And it's fascinating being around scientists down in in Houston or Florida at our Space Centers California, at the different jet propulsion laboratory facilities. And I've had the opportunity to be with some of these food scientists who are so insanely smart and just just the the engineering to feed people for a deep space trip nutritive food that stays nutritive, right, because the current way we feed our astronauts it becomes non nutritive.

And so you know, how do you grow sustain our own life on these deep space voyages is something that my brain just starts to fizzle out on. But it's fascinating to me. Have they watched that Matt Damon movie, Well, that's the whole figure out, that's the big jo, right that was I saw it and it was like, you know, it was like, yeah, we've all heard that. Our kids tell us that I was. I can't member who was

with us? Oh you were? Yeah, Cridinal was there. Um when we went a few months ago, we went to we had dinner with Rogan and want to watch his like I hope not like blowing something for him because he's like developing a news show because anyways he's talking about someone was he's with someone who's explaining like the intricacies of getting people to Mars and all this ship and he says, but the whole time the person's explained,

the man he's just thinking how there's three people. He's like, what if one of those guys brings a pistol and shoots the other two. It was like it was like one off one has a pistol and shoots one of them and then himself, and then you're like after they launched, So he's like some nomatters check them for guns. Oh, here's a good one. We've covered this bunch, but I want to talk about again Mountain Lions in Connecticut. Speaking

of mysteries, this is mysterious. You think other planets are mysterious. This guy's riled up. So he's got he's got people broken into two kinds of people. It's it's it's actually not a dude, it's a it's a gal. He's maybe one of ten audience members. So one of the ten women listens to the show wrote in and she uh um this time about there's two kinds of people on this planet. I think there's two kinds of people. There's people that divide people into two kinds of people. Uh.

But she's got it that there's two distinct camps. There's mountain lion believers, Mountain lion deniers, two kinds of Connecticut. That's it. There's no one in the middle. It's like I think It's like that everywhere to the Mississippi's people who do not know what a mountain lion is, people who don't give a ship like the category they fall in.

So there's mountain lion truthers, those that believe mountain lions have an established breeding population statewide, but listen to the terminology, because I want the listener to listen to the terminology that she is using. Okay, those that believe mountain lions have an established breeding population state wide in Connecticut. I think that, like, I'm gonna get into the primary question, but I'm asking her to listen to what she's saying,

established breeding population statewide. And mountain lion deniers those that believe there is no established breeding population and the annual lion sightings are a result of people's inability to distinguish a bobcat from a lion. Goes on to state there's a recent high profile sighting and a face post Facebook post made by the Woodbridge p D acknowledging the sighting.

So it's police department hasn't happened a while. It's called it's quite a stir based on the fact I'm quoting and summarizing in a mix of quotes and summarizations based on the fact that these sightings have never been substantiated by any photos or tracks. Our Wildlife Division insists that

there is no established breeding population. With so many sightings and so many locals of all kinds of lion stories, you think that in the age of the smartphone eighty by thousands trailer This is more from the non people saying smartphones trail cams. You'd catch one um every hunting and agriculture facebook pages talking about this new sighting. One look through the comments section will show how divided we

are on this issue. Goes on to say, my main question for the lion truthers is if lions really are breeding here, why does the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection deny their presence. What kind of secret, hidden agenda does our underfunded, understaffed, and disorganized little Wildlife division have. She's saying, maybe they just want to keep all the lions of themselves. Maybe they respond to sightings by going out at night, trapping the lions and bringing them to

their secret underground lion facility for secret testing. I would love to hear you discussion. I love how that took a hard turn into conspiracy theory. No, No, I think she's saying, like, what if it's a common thing, you'll commonly like in all these states where this happens, you'll commonly here that like like all the time, Oh, fishing game knows they're here. They don't want to admit it. There's a lit like I want to tackle that from it because there is a little bit of of a

validity too. Um. There are issues at play for states to deny they have populations because and this is not conspiracy, just like a thing, there's a there's a there's a chance where remember recently, there was a there was a bill to try to declare um it was it was an e s a deal. It was like it would be that if there was a Eastern cougar, if there was an Eastern cougar, um, it would be a it

would be a dead ringer for Endangered Species Act protection. Okay, so there is a little like not quite conspiracy theory at for state agencies to come out and say, yes, we have a very small um at risk breeding population of a native large cat, there would probably be a conversation about, well, what are you going to do to protect that naturally recovered naturally occurring populations and that has it would have all kinds of implications that has to

manage land and other animals. They're gonna be like, what's your management plan, right, what's your recovery plan? Okay, so there is a foot there is a understandable foot dragging on the part of people just to come out and a mountain lane gets hit on the side of the road and for them to be like, Okay, we're gonna have a management plan and a recovery plan and there naturally right, is that he typt dollars and resources and

all the rest. That's what they'd rather just sweeping under the rugs that the point reads look the other direction or not like or it's what I here's my take on it. I take on it is that, yeah, man, there are mountain lions running around, but you have to ask yourself, what does it mean to say that you have an established breeding population. When lions turned up crazy places, they're often able to be the you know, through genetic testing.

They'll be like, it's from a South Dakota Black Hills population, which which is what happened what several years ago got hit on the road, one struck out and did some crazy ship just like in Missouri. Um, you know, I remember that high profile, somewhat high profile case. A guy came home from ball hunting and there was a coyote trying to get into his chicken coop. He shoots the coyote. Nope, he shot a wolf. From Michigan's up they wander around

in Missouri. So then does the state of Missouri then say, oh, well, let's have a management plan for gray wolves, and then five years agoes by. No one ever lays eyes on another gray wolf. Oh we we had a case of black bear that hopped on a grain barge yep and ended up in some place that does not have a black bear population. I don't care that, yeah, which apparently is like not totally uncommon brutal the bear, right, Yeah, they're notorious for wanting to catch free ride somewhere bears exactly.

That bear gradually almost made his way he wanted to get hit, right, but almost made his way to like almost ship lucked into a population of black bears in Arkansas, which would been cool. So it's like, no one. I don't know if any serious individual who looks at like wildlife politics and wildlife trends. I don't know any serious individual who doesn't think that legitimate wild born mountain lions are making their way into the eastern US and showing

up an unexpected places. And I remember one there was one that was hit that had been uh. She had lactated and had like there was evidence that she had read produced. She hadn't been de claude right, And no doubt in places two of these things are coming together and reproducing. But um, that isn't the same thing as an established breeding population that a state would then go in and have a management plan for. UH said on behalf of the folks at deep over there in Connecticut.

I gotta work with with these folks, UH tagging um or replacing radio colors on on black bears through the NSSF one year and that was super awesome. And these are just like you find I would say the majority of in wildlife agencies and the majority of states that

they're very dedicated in carrying people. My observation is in the state of Connecticut, your wildlife agency people get very little time to deal with wildlife because you people that have over people the state of Connecticut just keep calling it for random crap and they just they don't have any time to deal with the animals, but that's what they want to do. So but they are dedicated wildlife folks.

And to Steve's point, you know, we had last year, the year before, grizz sighting on the Clearwater River drainage in Idaho. Now we know for a fact there's grizz that trapes through the Panhandle of Idaho often, but there is no evidence of an established grizzly population in that area. We know there's established grizzly bears in southern Idaho on the you know, the g y e population, greater Yellowstone

ecosystem population. And I remember Idaho Fishing Game was getting some some crap because they said, yes, we're we're acknowledging that there was a sighting of like what is believed to be a grizzly air in this drainage. Happened to

be the second year in a row. They were able to find tracks that definitely looked like grizzly tracks, and they were able to find hair, and then they were not going to say this is a grizzly bear until they did a DNA analysis on that hair, because as Steve just said, there's implement there's larger implications for a state agency to say yep, you're right, because then they have to change their management to say that this does exist here, and it has implications on a bunch of

stuff that you know, you're John Q. Fisher folk don't have to worry about when they say, yeah, I saw Grizzy the other day, like almost guaranteed immediate lawsuits too, to be like suits like why is it not listed? Why have you not fulfilled your management plan? You know, yep, there should be no bear hunting here because there's a chance that a black bear is going to get grizz is gonna get mistaken for a black bear, which does happen. So I want to tell this Connecticut and what do

they call people from Connecticut? Not Connecticut? Can we can we push for that for the Connecticut person. Though, here's just the last thing I'll say on this subject. Clay had an interesting observation with mountain lions showing up in Arkansas, Okay, where it got to be like more trail camp pictures, more stuff. Event Arkansas used to have a black bear biologist one day. One day that biologists became the large the state's large carnivore biologists or some such thing like that.

It was like a very subtle like his per view. Suddenly his purview expanded right, and it was sort of a Clay took it to be a subtle acknowledgement. Clay Brice took it to be a subtle acknowledgement of the existence of black panthers, like not just mountain lions, but black panthers too. Uh on um marching along toward our getting back to our conversation with our esteem guest Andrew Zimmer and Sean hit Us with the first Case of

Homosexual Necrophelian Mallards. That'd great title for a movie. That was a band, Oh, that would be a good band. Name is the name of one of Carl's bans exactly. It will be by the end of the day. First case of homosexual necrophilia and Mallards, which is an actual paper in the what journal was it? Shaan, Okay, Well,

I don't even know what journal it was in. This guy, so this guy C. W. Molliker back in recorded Drake Mallard running into the glass of the what must be like the Natural History Museum, and he's even gotten pictures of it. Here oh yeah he did. He did full fledge documentation taking pictures of Cornelius Mullicker. Yeah, he's got a heck of name. Uh. Drake Mallard clides into the glass, being chased by another Drake Mallard, falls dead and proceeds

to get bread. Practically for seventy five minutes. Du documents the whole thing, takes pictures, collects the carcasses, the whole bit. That's an interesting type of academic journal um and there's like a there's like people will get journal journal articles off just like a crazy observation, yeah, you know, and you'll publish like people will publish an observation. And he took six years to publish it because he was like, I don't know if this is something I really want

to deal with. And he ended up winning like a satirical science award. It's called the ig Nobel Prize. That's for weird science. The ig Nobel. Oh you know who won that? Metten as well for his poop knife. It seems to me to to add a new definition to the term screwed the life out of you. I mean, that's as now he was. There's a speculation that when

it collided with the glass. It was engaged in an attempted rape flight that resulted in the collision because it was running away from this other drake, is what he supposed this ad. Yeah, anybody's watched prison movies knows that this all makes sense. Well, prison movies lack barbed penises. Yeah, that's true. Mallard does not. What I like is now that it's become like a holiday. It's Dead Duck Day on June five, and he like him and a bunch

of people go back to the Natural History Museum. Yes, yes, and then they pretty much host a vigil and then walk to a local Chinese restaurant for a six course for a six course duck dinner. Wow, yeah, I'm going to that. I need that. I'd want to get it on the meal part, but I might sit the vigil out, depends on the restaurant. Yeah. He even has like a there's pictures of him like giving a speech with a podium, the whole bit. He's leave you close at the door.

I have the vigil now. Yeah. Uh. Fell named Cody wrote in on my way home from work, you'll see that we're near. We're closing in on your terrain. Attention pay attention, get ready we start wide. I mean the feeling, I don't know, maybe that was I felt super dialed in when we started talking with the Necrophiliam Mallard. He thought we were like started the interview. Um, what happened here? Oh God named Cody writes my way home from work.

I was listening to podcast episode three to one Yate test my meat, and part of the conversation raised a question for me. In your conversation about brining, you guys discuss how adding other ingredients into a brine will not make the cut of meat take on those flavors. What I was just saying is when you're mixing up a brine and you get into just like things, you're like, come on, like three peppercorns, I was like, just put

the pepper on, Like it's not you're not. No one's gonna taste the one and be like, is there a hint of peppercorn? It's just like pepercorn. Yeah, Like it looks cool on the brine. The Brian looks cool with stuff floating in it. But I'm just like, at a point there's some things that like there's no way on planet Earth even the most finest palette on the World Taste that there were peppercorns in that brine. The example

this is Cody talking. The example in the podcast was including a bay leaf in the Brian My question is how is dried one? My question is how is marinading meat different? Unless I'm mistaken, soaking meat and the marinade will make that meat soak up the flavors of the marinade, not the leaf. But based on the brining discussion, I'm not wondering if my outlook on marinading meat is wrong. Can meat actually soak up a marinade? He is wrong? Yeah,

because it's just explained it. We're talking about you very different things, all right. So without going into the minut shift this because I know I'm the one who throughout the whole Baileaf thing. Kevin GILLASTI here, Yeah, Hey, hello everyone. I know you thought I was Randy Savage earlier, but the whole time, um man, you're going that Bailey is gonna work, can't stay off drugs. Let me tell you something, this is excellent. I'm doing the rest of the podcast

in my pseudo Randy Savage. I won't be able to talk later. That just grinds your Yeah, um okay, So we talked about this. Brining is is a water based solution. Not a lot of a lot of the things that people throw in brine's are not water soluble, so they won't ever break down in a water based Onions and garlic are So that's one of the times when it

actually will work. If you pure up an onion and you added into your brine, you will get an onion flavor that penetrates into the meat because your piggyback on you travel with the water in the osmotic reaction. Ever looked up water in your dictionary, No I have. It describes it describes that. One of the parts of the description is it describes it as an almost universal solvent and grab a dictionary stat um. So here here's the deal with the marinating of brinie. There are two different things.

In modern parlance. Marinades imply in acidic liquid, whereas brine implies a water based liquid. Good, nice and clean is the that's the clean answer for you until you start to put acids care into their right and there's and there is, there's there's a lot of fine subtlety. What acid based brian water based brian's are very effective because scientifically, because the way the chemistry of it works, they work. Marinades on the other hands, on the other hand, don't

really work. Now, it's not to say they won't make things taste like something. That's a whole different subjective conversation, because well, right, because ship gets on the outside and you cook it and and of course it's still going

to be there. But they didn't test. A few years ago, Cook's Illustrated actually did this, which is a great magazine for folks who don't subscribe to it, and they marinated meat for eighteen hours and then they tested to see what the penetration level of the marinade was, and it's it's a fraction, it's millimeters. Well not if you took

a fork and stabbed a million times. So what they did, right, So there's mechanical ways that you can, of course inject something into something, but if you just drop it into a liquid, which is what people do, they then took it and shaved off like down to the level that they could see that the marinade penetrated, cooked them, and then blind tasted and people could absolutely not taste the difference between something marinated and something not Marka. Here's where

I'm calling a little bit of bullshit. Okay, here we go. Steve likes to call bulls, but I think you should factor this in. Okay, making cevich by your definition, you're marinating little teensy pieces of fish. Yeah, we haven't gotten there yet. There's more to this, So there's levels. Right, So marinades and brine with enough concentration and time will both transition into curing and pickling the same liquid. And

that's a whole different thing. So an end pressure, right, because you can do it under pressure in a in a vacuum sealed bag. So when you take something like sevich at a high enough acid level, you do, in fact cause the d naturing of protein. It's sat long enough. You've manually made it small enough so that the absorption level will break, so that little one eighth inch of penetration coming from four sides is meeting in the middle. Correct.

There you go, Especially on a small cut of fish. Again, you have to consider that the protein structure of fish is different than land mammals, than than than meat. It is different than vegetables. Marinating vegetables is very effective because the cellular structure of a vegetable is very different than than a piece of protein. And so when you go in and you say it works versus it doesn't work, that's where you get into the slippery slope, because they

all work. It's just are they doing what you think they are doing. And so most people marinate for two reasons, either to make something more tender or to make something taste different. And if you're talking tenderness, it doesn't really work because the acid really just d natures the protein on the outside. It makes it mushy, but it doesn't really make it more tender. Like in the objective using the Werner Ratzler machine, we wouldn't have a more tender

piece of meat. If you're talking taste, of course it can, but does it get to the center of the meat? Does it penetrate all the way down? Absolutely not. It does count the outside with something, and if that something is viscous enough that it will stay put on the outside,

then of course it can affect. And let me just jump in here and say what confuses a lot of people is the fact that then after those processes happen, what the the cook does with it then also affects the outcome and I'll give the most simple explanation in the whole world when you talk when you talk about actually changing texture and flavor, uh live culture, yogurt marinades on tan dourry chicken, if you're eating it in India or somewhere where someone actually has the expertise to have

done this. I have friends who have come back and said, I have experienced the taste and texture breakdown, and that is the because of the way they butcher, for example, their poultry. They will butterfly chicken legs right cut down to the bone on one end, flap the pieces open, thereby making it a half inch thick piece of meat instead of a three or four inch in circumference piece

of meat right with me. And therefore that yogurt and those spices will because they do it for twenty four thirty six hours, will penetrate it, and the turmeric that's in there will change the color, and on and on and on, and then they fire roast it. But because it's a smaller width of chicken, it's only in that nine degree tandor for seven eight minutes. So consequently a

lot of that yogurt marinade is left behind. But the yogurt actually does its job denaturing that protein, and so there are outliers like that that confuse the piss at it right, like something like the one that I always used for people that they might not know this dishes shash leek, the like the Eastern European kebab. You see it in Russia, Ukram in places like that. So there are people that don't write um, but it's a perfect

example of sash leek. It's where marinade and brine kind of crossover because you end up with a watery, onion based like you blend up onions to make the liquid. Then you add some sort of dairy it's usually what we would call sour cream. It's not exactly sour cream, but a dairy based liquid that has then acid in it. But it does actually affect it because you will get that osmotic water transfer so to pull the onion into it while simultaneously getting a little bit of tenderizing effect

from that lactic acid on the outside. And again the meat is cut very small. It's not only cut small, it's cut in a manner that exposes that internal muscle structure, so it's taking away some of the effort that the marinade would actually have to go through Kosh or either no, no, it's not. I don't think that's ever been factored in, particularly based on my historical knowledge of the region. Well rabbinical traditions, states um, So to answer that dude's question,

and actually, you know what we are filming tomorrow. We are filming a brining one oh one video for the Meat Eater website that we're gonna because of how many people right in with these questions. We're not gonna go ultra deep. If people watch it and we get good response, I'll do a one oh two. We'll keep going gallant.

But we're gonna help people understand why you would do it, how you do it, and really in this one, it's just generalized to meet and fish and what parts of silly yeah, and what doesn't make any sense, and stop wasting your time and money. Frankly, because I've watched people make elaborate turkey Brian's for Thanksgiving that include ingredients. Look like I've brined mine with a little bit of shaved truffle. You're like, we could have just taken it outside and

thrown it in on the ground. Martha Stewart on very popular recipes. Is the twenty dollar turkey Brian, Yeah, that has a you know, fifteen dollar bottle of the worst demeanor, you know. Yeah, And it's just like people are wasting their time and money. If you want those flavors, you can accomplish it. But as you said to your points to three, malvar peppercorns are not going to make their way.

After Martha Stewart got in trouble for Inside of Trading Um, she was profiled in the New Yorker and there's always something that broke my heart. And the end the writer is there was you know, people like really jumped on Martha Stewart. She went like, just people are always kind of looking for like a chink in the armor. So also every like hated Mark Stewart. And she's eating lunch.

She cooked the chicken dish. She's eating lunch with the journalist and they're eating it with chopsticks, and the journalist comments on the chopstick, and Martha Stewart said, I read somewhere that thinner chopsticks, the thinner the chopstick, the more elegant the chopstick is, right, senmy use like silverware for us to demonstrate elegan, so she said, So I went out and bought the thinnest chopsticks I could find, And

I think that's why people hate me. It's an incredible comment on her and I've I've had the I've known her since I was a teenager, and uh, the phases of her life are incredible. The thing that impresses me the most about Martha, all the food stuff aside, is to be a single mom. Uh, to realize that you that you are not going to get any support from

your ex, the father of your your child. You were going to then establish a catering company out of your home, and then that morphs into everything that she had built up into the point of the insider trading situation. She has then removed as the head of her company. Right,

still owns a piece of it. Blah blah. I mean, you know, don't cry for me, Argentina, Right, I mean she but but essentially removed does her time in the stir without saying anything about anyone like does does the time And I do not care if it's a country club, prison or not. You were in you were in a prison environment. I don't want to be I'm sorry. Nobody wants to having been in those plays, nobody wants to

be there. And then she comes out and over the course of the last twenty three years since that happened, twenty years since that happened, has now come back bigger, stronger, and better than ever. The woman is an incredible force, and at eighty years old, the most recent interview that I just saw here is still complaining about what What did she say? Most recently, the men that I want to date, who are the most attractive to me are usually already taken, and they're the husbands of my friends.

Is it bad to wish them dead? Ah? I she was trying to make a joke about about it, But I mean this, this woman, I haven't I have a lot of it is I have a lot of respect for Mark Chopstick comments aside, because that is why people came there. There was a time in her life where she was creating tablescapes that no one in the world would ever consider reasonable or have the time to do except her three or four friends and my stepmom. Correct, And that was that was her audience, and there was

nothing It was aspirational. It was an aspirational time, and it was the world so tiny post prison. Martha Stewart is like Universal and and Giant Age Range and she's roasting. She hangs out, I'm a Martha Stewart and Kevin Kevin is, and Kevin will back me up on this when when when people come to me and say, what are the I'm just learning to cook? But the how two books bore me. I want something that's simple recipes that are like tested and retested five thousand times and are guaranteed

to work. And I refer them to a line of small magazine booklets that you can still get online and find on her website, and it's Martha Stewart every Day. And it's that those recipes for a first time cook, not only you're delicious and contemporary and use good ingredients, they're simple, efficient, They take forty five minutes to get

on the table. It is I've recommended those two more people with more success because she has them tested and retested and I don't know also like just the method that she uses, like tested by people who could make mistakes, Like so it's they've already they've already done all the work for you, Like they wouldn't have published if they hadn't been full proof. Yep, she's a baller. You pay attention, chrimp, She's a ball So Martha Stewart as a guest oh

man on the same show, preferably with Jared Diamond. Mike cons has like the pandemic. Mike is winding down. No, Mike and I are talking. He's yeah, it's gonna happen. Can we bring Snoop Dogg along with because Macho Man still around, No, he's not. We can xum his remains and bring him in for there as still pretty small. Yeah. If you go back in time, what was the first what was the first moment you became aware of the

disciplines of hunting and fishing? Uh? With my father, we didn't call it foraging, but we went out and went around in the woods, well the woods, the beaches, the ponds that I mean. We we gathered rose My mom would gather rose hips with me in the in the morning. You had to do it the at the very earliest hours of the day when they were still moist with the dew, before they dried out. This is a little little kid where Long Island we we we you know,

we went clamming. We uh fish for striped bass. Every night on the beach. Um we uh took old rotted chicken legs and threw them out on the string in the water and pulled slowly and would gather, I'm looking at a bushel basket of blue crabs here in the studio, and we pull that up and do a crab right there. Fantastic exactly. We would we would hand line for eels in the harbor and nail them to trees, run a little pen knife around their neck and strip matter their

skin and just put them on the grill. Which is people identify as out as outdoors, not at all, men and women, not just life. Absolutely and and this is what's fantastic. If you had said to them, if if you had said of them, oh, you're living an outdoors lifestyle, they would look at you and say, you're ridiculous. We're just living a lifestyle. Now. This is in the sixties. Um. And you know both of them grew up in the depression, uh a little bit, but they weren't super cris My

dad was. My dad ran a big advertising agency. My mom was a free and loose like sixties housewife. You know, it was. It was an interesting time, a free and loose sixties housewife that she would, uh my father did

well enough that uh in her apartment. I don't know how many of you have read some of the Tom Wolf books about New York City in the sixties when Park Avenue housewives were raising money for the Black Panther Party in there, you would I mean, Huey Lewis would you know some of those people would show up to, you know, raise money in living rooms where you know, wealthy, free and loose Park Avenue house So she was like she was like had ruined to be a common cultural

six super utopian socialist and all the rest that, but at the same time enjoyed the privileges that came with, you know, a a booming one per center class that has kept growing going forward. Don't use the word loose about your own, moll. Now, that's that's different because one of the things that I loved the most about her was that, and I mean this is the most respectful way possible. When she divorced my father because of certain things within our family, she went on a run for

like eight or nine years. We're looking back at it. I was like, way to go up, Way to go mom, and and it included I mean some pretty well. I was like, like, way to go, mom, Uh, parents sound like it was fun to be a kid. Oh the best, because my father would take me traveling all around the world. And it's interesting that you caught onto that right away. He actually took me places and taught me ship and said you will need to know this later in life.

And it was an incredible education. Um. And some of my friends who when I got to college were into uh hunting and fishing. I already had experience a lot of experience fishing. I'd gone, I'd raised a gun to my shoulder once, and by the time you hit college. By the time I hit college, and then one of my uh the very close friends, his family had thousands of acres near O Sable Falls in uh northwestern New York, and he said, you gotta come up deer hunting sometime,

and I went up. I had a fantastic time, harvested two animals, and I was hooked because I was already cooking at the time, and I was eating all these things with my dad. So when I was traveling with my father and Kevin and I were talking before we started recording about how much game meat is eaten overseas and because it's you can bring it into restaurants, right. It's it's a different situation than we have here. Um. I was eating wild foods that were hunted and I

I was threatened, But come back home. Why can't we have this? It tastes better than uh, you know, beef? Right? For example, There's certain animals that I tasted and have gone back and hunted and tasted and continue to go back and taste, especially African uh hoofed animal species that I would eat instead of beef every day of the week. Um. And there are species of of hoofed animal in in Italy like donkey and horse that are eating regularly not hunted,

but but but sustainably farmed that you know. I mean, look, I'm the person who stood up loud and clear and said we need to diversify our food resources and and made a show for thirteen years that sort of preached that out the wazoo. I mean, so, I mean, you know where what stands I come from? Uh, But that's that's kind of how I got hooked. And then the pleasure of all of the learning that took place, because for me it was new. I grew up in an

apartment in New York City. Right. So, through my television work and through some experiences with friends before that, I was able to go places and do things that very few people are actually able to do. And as everyone is at this table knows, because I'm preaching to the converted.

Once you experience that, you never go back. I don't know anyone who's ever gone out, uh, fly fishing in a place where you can actually take a fish if there's a slot limit for it, or or or gone out duck hunting or or goose hunting and then experienced what it's like to actually eat the food that you've taken, and to do it in a responsible way, and to learn about what are ancestors did with bones and feathers, and to start to get into the the fun part

of it, which is not necessarily pulling their trigger letting an arrow fly, but is actually being in tune with nature. We're so out of tune with nature. It's why I love that book, uh that you wrote the Outside, because it's it's so it's it's of such vital importance. And it changed my life, changed my perspective on things, and gave me a respect for other cultures. And other people

that we desperately need today. We desperately need it. We have become a nation so divided we can't even talk to one another about civic issues that are for our national betterment for everyone. Right, Um, and I'm not talking about left right or red or but I'm just about forward as a as a society. And to go back and to look at my life and say, hey, where did I learn that? Where did I become more accepting of other people and other traditions and things like that.

It's all. It all goes back to how I I'll just call it gathered food. And I think that's a I think it's a vital importance today. Do you do you feel that the difference there, Like, do you feel it's beneficial? Like trying to think how you put this? Do you advise people to be like, you know, what you ought to do for your own betterment is go out and like eat a hand secured meal, yes, and not just okay, tell me about that. Ye. Well, there's two sides to this point. So let's let's talk about

diminishing uh resources in our human created, finite world. Um, if everybody took uh a meal replacement meal and a can once a week, and everybody took a meal from the wild once a week, which by the way, could be vegetarian. I'm just saying a meal from the wild, right, and we skipped one meal a week. And I'm not talking about children or seniors or people with with health issues. So don't at me with a million you know, ridiculous comments on Twitter, right, I mean, we all know what

I'm talking about. A meal, not a day, but a meal, a meal, just a meal. So one meal in a can, yep, and skip one. We eliminate one seventh of our reliance on factory farms and factory produced food and big ad produce food, etcetera, etcetera. Right, It radically reshapes our dependence on these places and will help us decentralize our food system.

I still believe in a world it We can't do it everywhere, but I visited enough places where people still hunt at night for their breakfast and hunt during the day for their dinner. And the connection to the natural world that I take from those experiences is to me of vital importance. And if human beings can, I mean, look, I it's coming out next When does this air? This podcast? Okay? So by by this time it will have been announced that I've I'm a co founder of a sustainable UH

seafood alliance. I'm obviously a a very UH active social justice UM proponent, and I work with a lot of different food groups across the country and across the world UH in trying to provide UH help for those who need it, for those who are able to the wisdom that comes with taking. And it's not just about how to harvest an animal. I'm talking about spiritual wisdom. I'm talking about personal growth. I'm talking about a a connection

to other people and the world around you. You become people who live a lifestyle that incorporates even casually being in the outdoors and harvesting meals from there. To me, are the most in the majority, the most open minded, forward thinking. I was just I mean, just the bullshitting we were doing before the microphones you know, went on. All I was I was listening. All have to do that would really with making the world a better place, right, You have to understand the world if you're going to

do anything about it. I famously said, and well I shouldn't say well, sure, I'll say it because it was quoted everywhere. But in What's in America one of our episodes, I I was sitting on a John Dear tractor and I and I looked at the camera and I said, you know, if you want to understand what's happening on American farms, I suggest you visit one. People who are talking about the outdoors with never having spent time in it.

You know, how about fuck you if you're talking about, you know, farming in America and you've never spent time on a farm, big or small, you know, I get I get outraged at it. Where do you learn that scrabble dictionary? I mean, get out there and live it, just just for a day, experience it so you can develop Because everyone is entitled to opinion unless you're pulling it out of your ass. It absolutely drives me crazy.

And and and by the way, you know, my personal stance, my civic stance, my political stance is vastly, vastly one sided. But I still learned all of that in the outdoors. You take what you want from a develop your opinions by actually being there right regardless of where they may fall. But if you do not get out there, how do you I'll give you a really great example. Um, I believe everybody has to have a relationship with the power

greater than themselves. If you think you're the be all and end all, and you're living totally an ego, you will not be successful in life. I gotta I don't want to bore people with two hours of stories about it, but you know, flat out, you have to believe in something. I don't care what it is, but believe in something bigger than yourself. It could be nature, it could be family, it could be other human beings, it could be believe in something bigger than yourself. Right, So i'm i'm I'm

hunting elk. Out with the leaders of the Taos Pueblo and we go up to one of their sacred mountains. Um, we heard elk, We we called elk, we saw elk. It was it got too dark and we were too far away. Never put the gun to my shoulder. Still

one of the greatest, greatest nights of my life. And then we sat around a fire for five hours with their ward chief, with their tribal leader, with people, and they started teaching me about the mountain we were on, and about the history of their of their people, and they just told stories, because that's how they communicate and pass on traditions by telling stories. Uh. And we we put it in the show as best we can. You know,

we got forty four minutes with commercials um. But it was afterwards when one of them said to me, came here and we we we walked around about I don't know, a quarter mile down this this hill to this place that was just like two acres of six inch deep moss. That's all it was was moss, this huge field of moss. But it happened to they They called it a very sacred ground because it faced a certain constellation of stars.

And I lay down there and he started to talk to me about, you know, some of their spiritual practice and what other people might call godly belief and wisdom. And it absolutely I have never forgotten that moment. I remember every word that was spoken to me, and it was really all about what we do for other people and being in service to other people, that that's our

purpose with being here on planet. That they believe that we are meant to love each other and be of service to other human beings full stop, which was identical to what the shaman of the Juntawaisi and Botswana had said to me after a trans dance where he he and he pulled me out of myself and we floated above my body and shared an out of body experience and we documented the show. I burst into tears. I sat outside his his hut after he passed out and

slept for twelve hours. I wouldn't leave. I wouldn't shoot because I needed to be the first one to talk to him with the translator to say, to make sure what he experienced was what I experienced. And um, if it hadn't happened to me, I would call bullshit on it. But I I had the same transcendent experience with him, and not to be I'm not making a Bill Murray joke here, but I knew I was in the presence of someone very special. And I asked him, what are

what's our purpose on life here on this planet? And he said he laughed at me. He laughed at me because I was a modern Western person and he started to walk away, and I insisted in the the tribal management, like you're gonna want to hear about it. It was so simple. He laughed at me because he thought I would just ignore it. But it's stuck with me forever.

The the tribal management officer that was with us, who was the grandson of one of the other shamans, asked him to please answered, if you would answer the question, I didn't want to push too much, and he turned around and basically said, in his language, you're an idiot. It's to love each other and take care of each other, which is exactly what the tribal elder of the Taos Pueblo people said. These are these are spiritual truths that go back to the very beginning of time of how

we're supposed to treat each other and our planet. And I have yet to learn any of that from a book. I've yet to learn any of that from from other experiences other than being out in the world with people who are living in harmony with nature, which means take food from their natural surroundings. So I believe very strongly, to get back to your question, that taking food from our natural surroundings is a very very very important part of what should be an everyday lifestyle for everyone. And

that includes concerts. I mean, look, I'm preaching to the converter your listeners understand this. That includes conservation, that includes how we care for each other, how we feed each other, it includes how we make laws, it includes how we think about our ecosystems. And I think it's vitally important. I can't imagine. I feel sorry for the people that don't get to experience that and your and your wanderings.

What culture or indigenous group or tribal group, um kind of had the lifestyle the wild foods pattern where you thought, like, these guys gotta figured out, Well, it's all the protected tribes. I mean, I've been very lucky. I think we're up to now fifty seven tribal groups that are the governments of those countries don't allow contact outsiders with them. I've lived with I think fourteen of them. Uh. And yeah,

it's it's an incredible experience. UM. And I didn't realize it at the time I I went to I went to a teaching university, UH University of India, big school, and UH the anthropology department there was was they teach a course on using bizarre foods at and they wanted me to come down and give a talk. And I found myself with the anthropology department at night at a little private meet and greet at at the Dean's home.

And Uh, I was introduced to other people as an anthropologist, and I laughed at my I said, I'm a TV I'm a fat white guy that goes around the world meets bugs. Um, this was if my anthropologist. And Uh, he said, oh, no, no, no, he says, we have we have tenured professors here that have maybe spent time with two tribes of the type that you have spent weeks and weeks and weeks with many. And maybe the first inkling I got about how special the experience was.

And and now they don't really make TV like that anymore. Um. And the one thing that I found is all those protected groups live in in concert with their natural surroundings. So the ones in Amazonia right um, in in the deepest parts of Amazonia where there are no seasons, where it's give or take a degree or two, the same temperature every day, the same weather system. Every day, they constantly are are hunting and fishing, the same animals, gathering

the same fruits, gathering the same vegetables. That's much different, say, than the Juntoasi, who live in a place that has seasons. Uh. Even though it's the high desert in Botswana outside about five four or five hours outside the hills um they have seasons. So when we got there, they were eating beetles roasted and mashed with marula nuts because marula fruit was fault. They'd eat the fruit, they'd roast the nuts, mash them with these bugs that they roasted, and they

would make this paste and dry it. And it reminded me of those old tigers milk power bars, about the old breasting the world's first power bar. They stank and they were chewy there, just like bad taffy, and that's what that food was. But they ate that for eight nine days until those bugs were gone and the marula fruit had fallen from the trees and was all gone, right, and then they moved on to Kudu right blew my

mind absolutely blew my mind. Uh. And I was like, oh okay, and they're like no, because now usually after the season and the younger animals are old enough, so it's at that point that are pushing older males out of the out of the herd. And that's what we harvest, is the older males that are pushed out of the herd. And we only do it and and just every week had a different you know, food or two or three to it, And I think those are the those are

the places that I was most impressed with. Any other group has access to things all the time and is trading with people in towns or cities, and modernism has crept in and it's more of a convenience lifestyle. Um, I think I would be okay with with living the the pure seasonal structure that I viewed with a with a couple of other tribe. It really is, it really is absolutely unbelievable. That's really it's an interesting observation that

you made. I hadn't really thought of that equatorial hunter gathers are, Um, they're not dealing with that correct, right, Like, but you probably have trees, Like if you have an array of date trees all the time, there's probably some day tree at any given time. It is probably fruiting anytime anytime. And the and the fish that they like are always there. The animals that they like are always there. Um, you know, I mean the skill set of those people.

You know, wild chickens kind of like a grouse popping up out of the ferns in a forest. So there's trees in your way. I'm talking about a dense rainforest. Okay, you talk about hard shots, and they take off moving let's say, from right to left, and they have these these people are hunting with tiny flightless arrows, and they don't miss featherless arrows. They don't miss the the with the with the juntasi, a black mamba. You know, the

five steps snake bites you, you're dead. And five steps came into the camp while we were there, an actual rare occurrence. But those animals hunt and they will come back for the same scent and the same smell. So the entire tribe drops, i mean drops everything. One person and they have an emergency protocol system for this. One

person kicks out the fire. Everyone else gathers the belongings, which by the way, our group owned, not an individual loan, and they all thirty of them, little kids, grandpas and everyone in between, starts chasing the snake. But they all gather sticks and stones as they're running, and they keep throwing it. The idea is they want to chase the

snake up a tree. And so eventually after about a mile of this, by the way, our instinct, because it's been drilled into us, where you see a five steps snake, you run the other way. So we all took like eight steps back, and then your your TV sense kicks in and you're like, oh no, no no, we have to document this. And then we start running behind them, and

we put it in our show. We got the snake shot of it climbing up the tree, and you know, a twelve year old kid literally comes running up with a sling shot by the way, not the kind that you know, has a fork sling with a rock in it, and from thirty feet out from the tree, because you can't be you have to be out from the tree to get it. He waited for the snake to come to an edge and look out at everyone spends his thing. But I mean no, he didn't take time to tee

it up. He didn't, you know, like the traditional you know, like take your time, get your breathing down. He just hucked this thing bang, hits it on the head and it starts to drop, and he throws through three more times total of four hit it, three times, missed once. Snake is almost dead on the ground, and then everyone in the tribe takes turned stomping it and then they throw it into a crucifixion bush, which is a bush that has so many big thorns on it. That's the

Western name for it. That's where they throw it because if you step on the bones, it can kill you even a year later. So they wanted to rot and die in the heat and in that and no one's gonna bump into it if it's on the top of a crucifixion bush. Um Uh, the most incredible thing I've ever seen. But you you start to get the protocol

an appreciation for that. Those seasonal tribal people are absolutely believable with with skill sets, by the way, and I know that there's people here at this table who've experienced this with skill sets that far outweigh anything. I mean, the jun Twasi, this was the funny part. The Kudoos. They have these little arrows. They have this poison that there's no antidote for, and they keep the poison. They

make it a couple of times a year. We put it in the show, and they keep it in a shell inside a leather bag on this tree hanging so that no one touches it. And uh, you know, they don't have a concept of certain things about when to use it because everything that um, well, the kudoo. For example, I'm like, oh, are you gonna use the poison arrows or or you're gonna use your little flightless arrows with no poison on it? Or how do you hunt the kudu?

Because they said we're going kudu hunting tomorrow and they said, oh, you're not gonna be able to go, and this is through our translator, and it's like, well, no, well we'll be stealthy and quiet and just send Andrew in one cameraman. The usual conversation we have with everyone about this. And they're like, no, you won't be able to keep up running with us, and you'll you'll die of exhaustion and you'll get lost. And we're like like, what do you

mean running? And it's like well, and they don't have a term that we have for sporting, but it was essentially the idea was they run and throw rocks and sticks until the animal is exhausted, and they get it to a place where it's in a canyon against a wall, and then they walk up to it and strangle it and then bleed it out. That's how they hunt kudu. Right, Okay, they don't notoriously athletic and they run after it until it's exhausted. So think about that, right, we were not

allowed to our insurance coming. We weren't allowed to leave camp with less than six liters of water on our bodies. Had to carry six for each person. Someone has to have the medical I mean just I mean, the precautions were insane. And these people are just walking out. They eat these little berries that helps their body retain moisture. They drink in the morning, then they come back and drink a lot at night, but they're they're fine during

the day, including run. You know, it's a hundred and twenty degrees, you know, in the middle of the desert, in the hot sun, and they're chasing kudu, chasing kudu. Okay, that's new for me. I just sat there and I was like, you know, and everyone at least the one thing all of those protected tribes have in common, and you you, you know, you hit on one of the differences with where they are in the world. But all of them are doctors, lawyers, engineers, farmers, hunters, soldiers, right, builders.

I mean that that we we have lost so much across training. It's insane. It's insane, And and that the young people in these tribes are taught all this and from starting at a very early age. I mean, they're all pharmacists. I mean, you know, someone gets I mean, here's the thing you look at. I'm sitting there at one point, you know. And I only come back to the Genoaisi because the one of the first second protected tribe I was ever with. And I'm like, God, there's

a lot of old people here. Don't they get sick? And the the folks who were with us uh from the their parks department UH and tribal Management office were like, sure, they get sick all the time. They take medicine. They looked at me like I'm an idiot, Like, of course they get sick. They have their diseases. One of the reasons we keep them away from you people is we don't want other diseases brought in. Right. But I was like, oh, yeah, they get sick and then they use their own uh

you know, medicine to heal themselves. And people break bones and they they splint them and they know and they rehab them. And there's all these eighty year olds walking around.

They live a healthy, happy, long life. And I'm like, we're doing something wrong, or there's maybe not only we're doing something wrong, but the biggest mistake we make is not learning from these people somehow minimizing their experience and saying to ourselves they have less to offer me than this book, this school, this other thinker, philosopher, whatever it's like. It's like, no, go spend some time with some of those people. Study those people, and you will learn. Number One,

it's extremely emasculating. I mean, as a modern man with with some skill set, you hang out with these folks and it is you know, I'm a useless I am an appendage um. And uh, their lifestyle is is not boring. The the happiness quotients is very high. We so what's called a honey bird. If they see it, this bird has a long bill and it eats the honey the b larva. So whenever they see the bird, which is rare, it only happens two or three times a year. Uh,

they all run and follow it. The whole tribe just gets up and moves camp some and they leave market. They leave markers to eventually the bird will leave them to a a natural hide. Now, these are wild African bees, the worst of the worst. They can make fire faster than any I mean I'm talking. I mean two sticks, a thong, you know, from an old from a deer tendon, and they're making fire. I mean three seconds, four seconds

is nothing. Uh. They whip up the fire, they grow a bigger fire, and they hold it in this piece of hide, smoke them out so they're all just asleep. Then they reach in, grab all the honey, put it into this bigger hide, and then carry it home. And then they gorge on it. And they the way some people have the meat sweats and eat too much at a steakhouse and pass out. They all pass out from

this sugar high. There was. There was another tribe I was with on the other side of Africa, that's southwestern Africa, in central eastern Africa, the Chaga. Uh. They make beer, well, they make a mead beer thing with it, and they get hammered and they find it two or three times a year and do the same thing, but they do a different thing uh with it. Uh. It's it's incredible what we learned from if you're open minded. So what did it teach me? It taught me that regardless of me.

There's how many of us at this table, fourteen it's unfrecking believable. Um, but what it taught me was there's no one out there who can't teach me something, right, So to think that, I know, it's it's it taught me to be a better People say, well, how did that trip transform you? It's like, well, I I became an instant recycler. I listened to people more. That trip would visit the gun Choasi in in Botswana change my

life irrevocably. Uh. I mean, let's talking about immediate, immediate because it was so humbling to see how these people operated for two weeks and you know, every night at midnight because the times of the thing. I took the satellite phone and walked to a clearing out of this jungle with like three guides, three tribes people around me with spears because they're like, you won't see the animal coming, that's gonna kill you. And I'm like, come on, you know,

I'll call bullshit on that one, right. I mean, your tribe, you're making lots of noise and they're just shaking their head at me and they're all standing around me. And I would talk to my wife and kid and you know, spend my five minutes on the SAT phone and then I'd walk back, I'd go to sleep. Second morning, I wake up and the guy who was with me when I called the first night is still standing outside my

tent door and he takes his spear. He didn't speak my language, I didn't speak his, and he points in his eyes, he takes his here, and he just starts pointing out all the different tracks of animals, some of which were massive, right uh. And then he's showing me the slithering of snakes and all the way like the activity outside. And I asked the conservation officer, I said, so what does he do? How does he deal with

those animals? And why aren't they eating him? It's like, well, he hides, he's spiritually and mentally tries to make himself disappear. He slows his breathing, he does all of these things that you learn to do to make yourself as small

as possible in that environment, like a spear fisherman. Not only he's like I'm not here, I'm not here, But it goes back to that that that thing that we were talking before about, you know, human transformation, you know you can you were talking about the throwing stars and Ninja's The reason why I know there are people who have those what we would call supernatural skill sets, is because I've seen it with tribal people around the world.

He actually made himself so small in the middle of the night the animals that he was worried would kill me because I don't know how to make myself small. We're not an issue for him. It was not because he'd been practicing it since he was a baby. It was taught to him. So when people say what's your

you know, what kind of superpower do you want? It's always flight, right, But I've seen real people have super I would love to be able to put a cloak around myself and make myself small where nothing would perceive me. Now we are talking about a night in the middle of an African country, five dred of thousand, seven, fifty miles from the nearest anything, right, But still, what a skill set to have to be that in touch with nature.

So those are the things you learn when you embrace the outdoor lifestyle, the world that's around us, the natural world that's around us. Yeah. One of the things I saw um in South America traveling with the Amerindian group was that, uh, that really stuck with me. We actually tried to do what we call it the Mkushi code of silence, but it's just Kushi code of silence. But they do not do not, will not say anything at the level of volume that we're talking right now. That's correct.

You don't. You don't. If someone's down by the water, anyone would be like, hey, can you grab the it doesn't happen. You walk down. You walk down and say into that person's ears, that's right. Never ever ever make noise. By the way, it's like talking about like being small as no one for any reason makes any noise. And they don't brush against ship. We we were out. When we came back from our first day of shooting with the Genoasi, everyone had burs all over their clothes, scratches

all over their face. Some we looked like we've been run over by a truck. Because everywhere you go, even though we had walking sticks and you learn how to push thorns and all this kind of stuff, ship catches on your clothing. I mean, everything was like nipped up, torn up. I mean, we really looked like we were a mess, all of them completely unmarked. They just laughed at us. They're like, you know because and and you know they have they have the same behavioral system that

you're describing. I mean, all first people's around the world, truly first people's, I think, have the same have that same ability. They don't they don't touch other ship. We just break ship, you know. I mean it's pretty it's pretty embarrassing. So yeah, and the food is great too. I mean the food is giant. If you've never eaten a hundred pound wild freaking porcupine, massive, it's like rodents of an unusual size. They're they're as big as as

you pick. They're massive. Yeah, And they pull them out, they go down in the spear, they crawl into their holes. These are these are uh giant members of the rodent family with quills that they shoot at people, but which, by the way, are big enough on that animal that you can die. And they crawl face first into their burrows. Literally they are literally they can fling the quill the porcupines because you know there are porcupines, don't. Yeah, they can.

It's it's it's defensive because they they there must and and all you'll you'll understand why in the second. So they go down, they kill the thing with the spear. They pull it out. The first thing they do is all the women descend on the thing and they use because the quills are so big, they're hollow, and they use it for jewelry, and they cluster the tips together to make these little poking weapons and and sewing needles

and all this other stuff. Right, So then you're left with this bald porcupine, and it's all white fat because the quills are their hair, right, And it gets cold at night in the desert, so it's really thick and dense with the stuff. And so basically what they are surrounded with and Kevin Steady yourself is a blanket of bacon is all around them. Okay, so it's like an inch and a half thick piece of what I thought

was fat. Well, when they clean the animal, they throw the meat and the bones up into the trees to let them dry. Then the first thing you eat is the blood and the skin. So the blood is beaten with uh animal milk or just beaten so the clots are taken out, and then you can drink the blood for health. And then uh you uh char the fat uh on both sides until it's blackened, and then everyone cuts it up with their knives and everyone gets a

square that's like three or four inches in size. And when I got my cut piece, I looked at it and it was streaked with muscles like very thin finds. It wasn't pure fat. It was streaked with these pink lines. And you know, I realized that that's why that animal can dislodge it because it it essentially will constrict its muscle system and pop them out. Now, it doesn't throw them far, but if another predator, and there are very

few for that animal, but there are. It does have predators um especially in other parts of Africa, ostrich which will eviscerate them from the belly where they don't have that ostriches. Just as a defense mechanism, they'll do it. Yeah, they'll kill the porkupines. No, no, no, the ostrich will will if they're threatened will so if one messes with it,

it could kill it. And if a line, I mean it's the only Ostrich are the only animals that regularly kill desert lines down in southwestern Africa because they have that huge uh we call the dew claw on dogs, but it's it's massive and they literally do like a karate move where they stop. They will let the line chase it until it's tired enough and then turn and flick that leg up and just cut them open from

it's the sharpest claw on the Ostrich's body. Um. But these these porcupines will shoot them, uh, you know, up to a foot two feet so that it by constricting their skin. But the point being that's what makes the fat so delicious when it's charred. It's just that sounds fantastic. It's fantastic. And you know you just sit there and marvel at these people, their animals and how they live in in space, you know, in their space. It's it's

quite quite something. Yeah, those are great experiences. Yeah, they're cool. I'm a little jealous. The takeaway on you know, the eating the bugs and the fruit that lead up to the kudo which is only a nine day fruit and bug season that leads up to and that fruit. Um, you know, my takeaway there is like first in, first out type of like don't spite the food in front of you to get to the food that's still going to be available next week. What was your takeaway there?

Same Sam, It was frustrating as a television crew because we got there and we're like, well, you know, the producer director, you know, Chris is trying to explain to them he had to have a big sit down meeting for three or four hours, and we're like, you're not going to convince them to throw away forty thousand years of their tradition for your work here. Well, we're just gonna have to win. R. Zimmer and would like to

do it. So the phone call his SAT call the first because when we went there, the iPhone iPhone just had its fifteenth birthday, So the the iPhone had birthday and we went there, uh, fourteen years ago, two thousand and eight, two thousand, nine years ago, so iPhones a brand new thing, so there was no faith all the

things that are on the iPhone. Back then it was a phone with a camera, right, and a couple of apps in an app store, right, So there was no We're just relying on paper letters with the government to let us go in there. So there's no scouting, there's no we're going so far away, there was no sending. We didn't have budget to send someone scouted come back and figure out the beach sheet for our stories. We just trusted based on what we're told that we have

eight million stories. We could make forty hours of TV with these people, which we could have. And so we get there and the very first thing we find out is that we're we've we've arrived a week early. There are no one because you know, and we refined shooting

the bug and you know, we shot that. That's that was the story, and then we had to wait and that was actually there's only so much civilian was you know, just a person where I learned the most because we got to go out and do other things with them. We wound up shooting five days worth of b roll.

But the learning. They make snap snares to trap this one bird that they roast um, and they have to walk ten miles in one direction to grab the berries that the animal eats, and they take it, then ten miles in the other direction right, so a twenty mile walk right, and they put them in a place where the birds fly by and are around, but where their favorite food doesn't grow, and they scatter them all over the ground and they make eight or nine little wooden

snap snares, which they make in about four minutes with little knives that are are made out of stone. I mean the craftsmanship and the quick time on this stuff, the skill set, and then no one like hooks up the snap stare and then it goes and you're like, oh, we got gotta be careful, gotta you know. There's just no test and measure. They just make them and they work and they lay these nooses on the ground and then where the berries are, and then we're like, okay,

we'll come back in a couple of days. And we walked back in a couple of days and every single one of them has a bird in it. And I was like, wow. Every one of them worked and they couldn't understood their translator. They couldn't understand the point I was making. They were like, why wouldn't do it if it wouldn't like my My point was that they couldn't even process it well because the question made no sense

to them. We laid ten snaps snares. Of course we get ten birds, right, And I took all these refrigerators of work exactly, I and I pull and I took my knife out. The key to living with these people is to be useful, because they take their cues from the animal world. It's identical and vice versa. Right, So the useless people. Males are pushed out of the try their exiled, or they're just let to die, or they're not healed because they have limited resources. Right, that's how

they deal with these things. It's a very very primitive system for human management. Right. So, um, you try to be useful. You just try to carry ship. You just if you want them to be impressed by you, you have to do ship right. And so I took up my knife and I was like, okay, I'll cut. I'll be useful, I'll cut the snares. And I almost got gang tackled when I took my knife out and moved

towards the rope. And they said to me, we make the rope, and we use the rope until the rope goes back into the ground into dust, and until such a we don't We do not ever take a knife to the rope. The rope is sacred. That's how we get our food. And they carefully spool it up and put in their bags and return it to the community tree where anyone can use rope for something. And several days later we we finally got them to show us how they make rope. All thirty members the tribe sit down.

They start splitting reads into these fine hairs, and they weave it using their toes and fingers so that they have more because instead of using your hands where you can have ten strands at once, if you lay in between your fingers use your toes, you now have twenty. And they make we shot. It's in the show. It's the most incredible thing. And then I'm like, well, how strong I'm thinking my house is my third day there. The rope is not that strong, right, use whatever primitive thing.

And the guy says, show him how. My translator show him how. So he holds on one end of it and I and he literally two guys lift me up holding onto the rope with it around my wrists, you know. And I'm two and thirty pounds at the time, I was two thirty six. It's just incredible. I mean that the stuff that's out there. I guess the point being is that, yeah, yeah, I I wish everyone could go

spend time with them. But I've had similar experiences, not as profound, not as cool in the storytelling mode, you know, and or and sitting around with you guys. But we've all had those experiences out in the sitting by a river or on a boat or in a blind or just walking where you learn something or have a profound experience that changes your life. So if you don't get outdoors, you will never have those experiences ever. Ever, you just won't. And by the way, some of those experiences are testing

yourself as a human being. I mean, I was duck hunting wants people in waiters and a guy had his waiter belt. He would liked to wear his dad's waiters and he used a waiter belt. Um, he wasn't wearing the right so of course he flipped. He's the guy

who winds up in the canoe flipping. Uh in the freezing cold water of Canada in October November, where we're duck hunting, trying to get the last days of the season because as the holes as the ice forms, you know, you get those, you know they're really good hunt because they're just looking for a little bit of water. And um, he tipped in a canoe in a big piece of water, and we thought he died, by the way, in a horrible rain and windstorm that came up out of out

of nowhere. And so you you start talking about testing yourself when you see it and I'm not advocating let's all make a friend be in a dangerous place. But I had never had to go. I had never had to go save someone's life like that, right. I mean I pulled friends out of cars, you know, a car crash or something, or you know, drug overdose or things that.

But I'm talking about like you mother nature, friend in trouble, you know, and you want to learn something about yourself or the other people around you, go through that experience, you know, um, And we saved him and he is okay because we got to them fast enough, because we did the smart stuff going in to that blind where we took I mean, we didn't want to carry it, but common wisdom was don't bring one canoe, right, and

thankfully we had. We had a canoe right with us that we could jump into and go after him, right. And it's you were tested in ways that you will never be tested any other way in your life. You know, twist your ankle and you have to get over that mountain or you have to you know, pack that cheap up after shooting it. I mean I I almost, I mean I almost broke my ankle. That I've never felt as tested as I did in Hawaii hunting wild sheep on the top of a volcano. The ground is uneven,

there's old lava, so plants. Everything looks like it's flat, but it's not. There's an ankle breaking moment every step you take, so you have to proceed very slowly, and so you have to feel dress the animals out there right, because it lowers the amount of weight that you're humping back uh to the camp and uh. You know. I did not think I was up for that, but I turns out I was capable of it. But I had to be pushed by someone else right who said, you can do this, you can do this. Um, I did

not think. I did not think that I could, you know, And and I would have never learned that. It was one of those times where I was like, oh, there's a lot of stuff I bet I can do that. I don't think I can do the The fun hunting part of that one is that the species are so you're shooting from so far away. The sound takes a second or two to travel, So if you're a if you can quickly reposition your rifle, you can take two animals. The only graze for a couple of hours in the morning.

When they do that's there all their water up at the top of this volcano during the warm weather months where it's not snowing, is from the dew on the grass, so they eat all the two. You have to go to certain places where there's the grass set up far enough away. And my guide was like, look, you know, we don't didn't come all this way to take, you know, just one animal. So when you shoot, before you pull the trigger, know where your second animal is going to be.

And I'm like, they're just gonna bolt. He goes they're not gonna bult because they're not going to hear the sound. And we only hunt here like two days a year, he said, So those those sheep, those wild mountain sheep, are the trust me. Just know where your second shot is going to be. And so I just waited and waited, and I had to. They were kind of side by side, dip in their head and eating, and I just went one to and you know then I'm like, oh, now we each have to carry one. And you get down

there and they're really big. Coming in was hard enough for me going out. That's why you mess that, because I'm all like every sheep I mean even even in farmyards or whatever. I'm like, oh, sounds a giant. I don't know, it's like whatever, little like Mary's little lamb. Heavy, heavy, And of course, of course my first my first thought is, you know, how how am I getting this out of here?

And I I didn't put it together that oh, we're going to share the car in the meat, and he's going to make a sled with the skin of one animal, and we're gonna get to a certain point and then we'll carry it when we can't anymore because of the terrain. And we wound up cooking it in a well. He smoked it in a homemade smoking box that he made with sticks and green branches to sort of seal it up with a really low fire underneath. He said, yeah, we got to cook it for five or six hours.

And I'm like, okay, and I'm like, can we take one piece of meat and kind of lower it closer to the rill it up And he's like, no, we have to smoke at all, because this is the meat. We have to give half of it to the tribal pep bull on whose land where you know, there's there's a there's a thing, there's a there's a thing we're doing here, and you know, the network note is, uh, why didn't Andrew eat any of the grilled meat? So that we had two different taste explanations and two different tastes.

It's like, because we're violating ten thousand years of their tribal history and we wouldn't do that, and that they had a hard time understanding that. Tell uh, tell folks what you're working on now, because I know you've got a few handful projects going on. I do. Um. You know, I after years and years and years of telling stories like this at dinner party, well making TV about it, but you know, telling stories about it. I met someone

in Minnesota who invited me ice fishing. Uh. That was you know, one of the people who runs Outdoor Channel and he said you should really do you cook all that stuff? And I'm like, well, of course I do. And he goes, well, I said, look I don't. I don't do stand Inster TV. Uh And he goes, well, our viewers really like Standinster TV. And he saw some of the stuff that my production company was making and they said, do you want to do this show? And I said sure. So you know, Wild Game Kitchen got

birthed from that in Premier September nineteen. Really excited about it. We're gonna try to do some crossover stuff with Kevin, uh, which would be fun because we're full disclosure. Uh, we dated for a long time before he got married and I got We've been friends for a while, and it's it's great to be able to share those kind of things with people and just be a blast. Um. But yes,

that's happening. I'm working on. I've waited to do a cookbook my whole life, to sort of structure it in a certain ways so that the cooking has to deal with the time periods in my life. Um, and it is kind of structured different ways. So I had the ways he got old enough to have enough. That's exactly right, That's exactly right. And I also I'm not a cookbook guy in the sense that some people can you know, have five cookbooks in them where every year they're going

to come out with a cookbook. Um, that's not my thing, right. UM. I tell stories in different ways, but I knew I had one great one. So let's just fire that. Let's use that powder, you know, at the best time possible, right, Um, And when are you releasing that so that I don't release the same time that heads up and be helpful. All right, Well I'll let you know. UM, yeah, it's

gonna be it's gonna be really special. Um. And I can imagine something that's real special that you should do that also going to go on to um be very useful for you would be a compilation of compliments that you've delivered off of Iron Chef. I mean, we're talking about a skill unto itself. It is, it is beyond it's it's tertiary level deepness that you just can't get into. I appreciate that. It's just being old and not dying and having a decent vocabulary and reading a lot and

listening to people. You're bringing chefs to tears, like let me tell you about what you just well I just put in my mouth, you know something that it's you know, I mean, Iron Chef. The ratings were fantastic. It was it's still top ten for kids. It was top ten, you know, past the magic mark of two weeks. So I'm assuming Top Chef, sorry, Iron Chef, will be uh, we'll be picked up again, and I'm assuming I'll be a part of it, you know, for right now, I can't imagine a world in which I'm not the Uh

that's a hard seat to give up. Well, it's not me giving up, it's it's it's networks and stuff sometimes make really crazy decisions like wow, that was great, Andrews incredible, But we're gonna wrote we want to rotate people. I mean, I'm sure there's that conversation gets had. It doesn't mean that that person who says it isn't either applauded or shot down. I don't know which. And and I'd like to think that my um my being on that show helped make it, in a small way, a little bit

of his success. And I've heard from people that they believe that. So I'm going to assume I'm doing it again. Um But the important I mean, the moments occurred to me simply because it goes back to being out in the world and seeing Ship one of the chefs who was on the show. I don't want to ruin it for people, but heav Ang among chefs from Minnesota, his family, among our tribal people. Uh. They live in the several areas where Thailand, Vietnam and Laos all come together. They're

a hill people, their tribal they're an ethnic group. They've never had they've never had their own Hey, what's up, Yeah, Yang, I'm pointing out the thing you sent us to, the embroidery of young of Mong activities. Love it. So the largest population of Moong in America are in the Twin Cities. And so you know, I've gotten to know a lot of these folks really really well. Uh yeah, who's a

chef and restaurateur and a phenomenal culinarian. Was born in a refugee camp and he came on iron chef and instead of cooking like, oh, three Moong dishes and I'm gonna show you that I can cook Italian food too, he made five Mong dishes, knowing, by the way. And I can start crying thinking about it, because I know he knew that that was not necessarily the way to win. In other words, Okay, I'm not doing a dessert. You

don't get knocked for that. But Mung food, for anyone who's eating it, has a limited number of ingredients and flavors. So if you're just cooking that food and someone else is doing more things more ways, based on the judging criteria, you're at risk unless that other person makes a mistake. But he, I think understood the moment, and no one

else was calling it out. And it may be because I live in a place where the mung live, or maybe I've just been out in the world and seeing more marginalized human beings than other people have um and I brought up I just got everyone to stop, and they left in the show, but I essentially got the room to stop and just said, this is the first time mung food has ever been cooked on international television, first time ever, And so what that says about inclusiveness,

and what that says about how we combat those who would not want to celebrate our diversity, what that says about how we accept marginalized people, and how we shouldn't be continuing to do that. Because the food was spectacular and what he showed was spectacular, and he took the heat. He used that opportunity to showcase not himself but his culture's food, and I thought that was just the coolest thing I've seen in a competition cooking show ever. To not have the ego to say I want to win.

He said, I may win because the other person makes a mistake one of their dishes. Doesn't get plated. You're I mean, you're down your point, but right, so, I mean there's no coming back from that. But he's it's more important to cook my culture's food. And I think things like that are are absolutely mind boggedly That's that's the stuff that's important, uh to me. By the way, we were all things because I know we're running out of time. All things for are available at Andrew Zimmer

dot com. My my new sub stack. I think is really cool. The book is gonna be really cool. Iron Chef's gonna be cool. I'm shooting another uh six episodes of Family Dinner starting in a week or two on Magnolia. UM and and probably most important for me at this point in my life because at some point, you know, TV is gonna stop, right. But the the other things that I'm doing, I'm I'm a member of the International Rescue Committee, which Einstein founded in ninety nine, and I'm

the international voice of nutrition UH for them. David miliband, Tony Blair's old Secretary of State runs the i r C. And UM I've been able to work extensively uh with them and going with them to a few African countries. UH. Next year, I was blessed enough to be honored with being the United Nations World Food Program Global Ambassadorship. So

I'm doing a lot of work with them. They're the largest relief organization in the world, um, and they they have the distribution and the people power to make a really, really, really big difference. So I'm I'm excited to be working

with them. And you know, a lot of the other social justice stuff that I'm doing around food is changing and morphing because kind of the older you get, there's that sweet spot window where I've been doing it long enough that now I can like actually talk to congressman and senators and spend more time in d C lobbying, uh and arm twisting for the issues that I think are important, like the ones we talked about getting people to be able to spend time outdoors and preserving our

natural world. So, um, it's a it's a cool thing. It's a great time. I'm not slowing down, I mean, that's that's for sure. I'm the you know, I just turned sixty one, and I'm proud of that because in my mind I'm like thirty, you know, and behaviorally i'm either thirteen or eight, depending on I have some clothes for it because I can be I suffer from infantilism, which you know means I'm extremely immature. Uh just for good solid a couple hours every day, um and uh.

But as I get older, I I've been able to challenge some of my energies away from just the TV book sort of me me me is um and and try to do a little more US US US work. And I think that's I think that's a very natural progression for human beings. That's solid. Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff. Thanks for coming on the show. Oh this was a a bucket list cross off item. Well, I mean, I've

known Kevin for a long time. You and I have have we've met once before, but known each other for a long time and obviously have had a lot of different paths of ours cross and traverse over the years. But I'm I'm such a huge admirer of of people who do the right things with their platform, no matter how bigger, how small, And I've I've publicly said that for those who have been lucky enough to get a slightly larger platform, if they wasted it, to me, there's

nothing sadder. There's nothing sadder than someone wasting their their platform. And from the very beginning, as your career started to get traction and the world started to respond to you the way they've responded to you, you have used your platform for so many incredible good things. I'm such an admirer reviewers, I'm such a big fan of your content. But I'm I'm I'm a bigger more than I like

your content. I like what goes on between your ears because you've made a commitment to to to be yourself and create that platform to inspire other people and shown folks that you can change things with what you do. You can change hearts and minds, and you can educate and have fun at the same I called it adventure learning. I'm a big proponent of adventure learning, and I can't think of anyone who defines that with what they do, not with what they say, but with what they do,

more than you. So this was a big bucketlet that the ask came in. I don't know what about chasing down other people, but when someone mentioned to me that I had the opportunity to do this, I said yes right away because there was zero hesitation. Well, thank you for the very generous compliments. That's what cal was talking about, like that was a perfect example of we all just went time. Is that what you were talking about that? I'm solid, I'm good, but thanks, but it's very kind

of you. It's the truth. It's all I do is tell the truth. And now he's going to be really mean to you during trivia. Yeah, now you get to watch the bloodthirst come in. Said, I hope he doesn't. I think you're gonna do good. No, I don't know. It depends what the questions are. Just here. He's got this theory that being old is an advantage. That's why me and Brody dominate. Okay, um, let me give an oar tip. Okay, most of the answers you don't actually

know the answer. It's a good guess. You just figure what you figure into. Okay, so you got a lot of things. You've got a lot of things to figure from. Okay, we're like, well, it wouldn't be that. That wouldn't make No, that's like any other like the S A T. S that I cheated on. Anyway, Yeah, let's go get Spencer. Ye, everybody, let's listen. Thank you Andrew Zimmer and thank you so much. My pleasure. Check out our check out our channel What's

the Date Again. September at nine o'clock Eastern is the premiere of Wild Game Kitchen Go. Check it out outdoor channel Andrew Zimmer and thanks again. Game on Sucker's Tribune dropping soon