04 JAN 2019: Whether you grew up watching the Galloping Gourmet or Emeril, Julia Child or Martha Stewart, or even Britain’s Two Fat Ladies, cooking shows are certainly nothing new. However, a welcome trend in recent years has been the pairing of travel and the culinary arts into shows that help inspire a hunger for both the food and the destination in which it is prepared.
Channels like The Food Network, Gusto, and the Travel Channel have taken to positioning food, and food preparation, as a cultural marker – and attraction – whether it’s unique new creations from name chefs, or long-standing regional delicacies and local recipes.
Perhaps the best purveyor of the gastro-travel hybrid was the late Anthony Bourdain, who proved a pioneer in the field with his A Cook’s Tour series in 2002-03. The Layover and No Reservations followed, paving the way for his Emmy-award winning show, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, in which the world-renowned chef (until his recent suicide) travelled the planet to discover destinations, culture, and cuisine. The show is about the place and its people, but food plays a critical role and is a prism for his cultural insights. Who else would visit Sichuan, China, and describe a dish as “a game of finding bits of chicken in a mountain of ass-burning goodness?” And then add: “Come on, it’s fun for the whole family!”
So popular had Bourdain become that there are enough imitators to populate entire networks – not surprising given the results of a recent survey conducted by Contiki in which 25 percent of respondents selected him as the celebrity they would have most liked to travel with, “experiencing food in a new light the way he did so masterfully.”
Another popular show style is more food-oriented, in that a host hits the road for the sole purpose of eating at a particular place or places, sometimes famous, sometimes not. In the end, the show isn’t designed to inspire someone to visit the destination, but it sure gives them somewhere to go should they ever find themselves there.
My favourite of this type is the long-running Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, in which charismatic chef Guy Fieri travels across the US in search of locally renowned food joints famous for their time-honoured takes on American comfort food, or unique twists of cultural fusion. Dubbed “the ultimate foodie road trip,” Fieri finds, and sometimes helps prepare, dishes like seafood gumbo in Charlotte, N.C. or short rib tacos in Los Angeles, which is usually enough to send viewers scrambling for their devices to find one of the featured restaurants in their next US destination.
There’s also a Canadian version of the show called You Gotta Eat Here, which similarly inspires those travelling in this country.
And there’s no shortage of shows in which chefs prepare regional dishes, or use local ingredients, in the comfort of their own kitchens.
However, a newer-style show combines the Bourdain-style documentary with a traditional cooking show by having the host chef(s) take time out of their travels to prepare dishes along the way – sometimes in the most unusual locations, such as in street markets, on a dock in Scotland, or in front of a waterfall in the Caribbean.
Here are a just of few of my favourites – in some cases now relegated to streaming services or YouTube until they pop up on TV again – as they always do:
- Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations
The foods aren’t really that bizarre, rather a sampling of “iconic” dishes and “the legendary pleasures that we’ll travel half way around the world to eat.” Episodes span the globe, showcasing cities through their culinary and cultural histories, and present. In Berlin, for example, vignettes range from the history of the traditional German beer garden to the ubiquitous city favourite, currywurst. Perhaps the pork knuckles are a little bizarre; nevertheless, the show follows a mainstream format and is breezy and informative.
- Ginormous/ Man v. Food
Josh Denny isn’t a chef, but a comedian and food fanatic whose mission in life is to find most “ginormous” foods in the US – like a 14-pound bagel and a nine-pound bacon, pork and cheese sandwich – and then eat them. The classic Man v. Food follows the same script, only in search of “the biggest, spiciest, greasiest, most ridiculous food in America.”
- Street Food Around the World
As quirky, cool host Ishai Golan says, “If you really want to know a place, you have to go down to the streets.” And that he does, for 24 hours only, in places as diverse as Lima, Hanoi and New York, where he samples (but doesn’t cook) fare as familiar as hot dogs or as creepy as crickets from restaurants, markets and street trucks. It’s all good fun and a great way to get the real essence of a destination.
- Spice Trip
Dubbed a “vibrant, colourful and spice-filled journey around the world,” British “spice chefs” Stevie Parle and Emma Grazette explore the origins and local uses of some of the spices that influence their dishes. They cook along the way – such as preparing Nutmeg Chicken in Grenada, and Strawberry and Pepper Ice Cream in Cambodia – but not at the expense of showing off the exotic locales they are visiting through stunning filmography and the interesting people they meet. As my son stated after a recent episode, “Now I’m hungry and I want to go there!”
- Luke Nguyen’s United Kingdom
Nguyen is a hip, 30-something Vietnamese-Australian chef whose previous series have included Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam and Luke Nguyen’s France. In his latest, he tours the UK, educating about the destination while pausing for unique and tasty cooking interludes, such as preparing chili salted squid and chorizo salad on the rooftop of the Trafalgar Hilton, complete with amazing views of the city.
- And don’t miss: Booze Traveler, Girl Eat World, Food Porn, Tariq Taylor’s Nordic Cookery, Italy Unpacked (recommended by Trafalgar Canada boss Wolf Paunic), and (occasionally) Globe Trekker.
To be sure, there is a lengthy menu of shows from which to choose. But any way you slice ‘em, they’re enough to really get the travel juices flowing.