Third Coast: Stingrays, Swamp and Swine; an insight into the Gulf Coast and its bizarre foods.
Chasing chickens and shooting your dinner is just a normal day filled with heavenly food.
Andrew Zimmern starts out fishing for skates which looks like a stingray but is only a distant cousin. It involves dark nights, cleaning a fish that pees through its skin and lots of time and patience on the windy water.
Can anyone say skate and stingray tacos?? Can these be purchased at the nearest Surf Taco? Most likely no.
A bow and arrow is used to shoot and catch the stingrays that are in the shallow water at night feasting. But the stingers are removed so no one can be harmed, especially Zimmern who worries about his safety.
A taste of Vietnam in Alabama? Book me one plane ticket please! But it’s no restaurant; it’s a small town of 3,000 in a small kitchen where most origins can be traced back to southeast Asia.
Salted fish that is fermented in the sun for months is completely normal but these foods won’t be found in any restaurants as the FDA is against serving fermented food in restaurants.
Fermented fishbowls are a huge hit and in the heart of Alabama, the best foods come from the swamp.
Hurricane Landing, Alabama is filled with friendly folk, cold beer and feral hogs that have disrupt the land and are fair game.
Hog hunting is both a sport and a hobby. Some are even life, long hunters.
Lots of waiting and waiting and eventually it’s too dark and it’s time to go back home. Have no fear, tomorrow is another day.
The meat is so fresh, that it’s been skinned and the meat is still twitching. But a few hours of soaking and smoking has the whole town out for a town feast.
Next Zimmern travels to Louisiana.
Zimmern teams up with a man named John whose goal is to make sure that the food in the city is slaughtered within 50 miles of the city. He is preserving the food for future generation and localizing the food supply in New Orleans.
It’s all about chasing larger than life chickens and eating right even if it's from the swamp, farm or gulf.