"Delicious or Fatal? Travel Channel Goes Dining With Death" -- uh, thanks but no thanks, TC!

Don't let me stop you, but I have no intention of watching this tasty Travel Channel promo for tonight's "Dining With Death" episode of Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods. The show airs first at 9pm ET/PT, and then at who knows how many other times in the weeks and months to come.

by Ken

That was the subject head of an e-update I got earlier this evening from the Travel Channel: "Delicious or Fatal? Travel Channel Goes Dining With Death." Now if this is your, er, cup of tea, and you're reading this just as it's posted, which is just as the show is beginning in the Eastern Time Zone (and, I assume the Central), then don't let me keep you from it.

And if you haven't been that fortunate schedule-wise with your blog reading, feel free to check your TV listings to see if there isn't a repeat scheduled later tonight. If not, of course, there's bound to be a repeat or 12 scheduled in the days to come. Normally I might run that schedule check for you, but I think I'm going to sit this "culinary adventure to the dark side" out from the sidelines.

But let's back up a little. Here's how the even was blurbed in Travel Channel's e-mail:

Fatal Foodies
How far would you go for your favorite food delicacies? Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods takes a culinary adventure to the dark side of dinner. From poisonous snakes that can choke you, to sea creatures that can paralyze you, and spiders whose venom can make your heart stop, meet the people who risk it all for dinner. See how they do it on Dining with Death, tonight at 9 E/P, only on Travel Channel.

[There's also a link for a slide show, though the slide show in question is headed "Rodents, Reptiles and Toads." Is this the right slide show? The lead photo, by the way, is a closeup of a crocodile's snout with the caption: "A crocodile's bite is 10 times more deadly than the bite of a great white shark." Now that really shouts "Come 'n' get it" to me! That would make, what?, a lovely terrine?]

Now far be it from me to suggest that there shouldn't be such a show for people who want to watch it. But that doesn't stop me from wondering about the people who want to watch it.

Okay, I admit, I get a little jazzed when there's the prospect of watching someone eat fugu, the pufferfish so beloved of gonzo Japanese epicures, knowing that parts of the fish are so toxic that if it's even slightly incorrectly prepared, the "diner" stands a good chance of dying. But even with fugu, there's an at least ostensible gastronomic justification. At least in theory, the appeal of fugu isn't its potential deadliness but its unique deliciousness. As Wikipedia notes:

Some consider the liver the tastiest part but it is also the most poisonous, and serving the fugu liver in restaurants was banned in Japan in 1984. Fugu has become one of the most celebrated and notorious dishes in Japanese cuisine.

I do wonder, though, how I would feel if a TV fugu-taster keeled over dead. I suspect I don't really believe in the possibility, because I don't believe that, much as certain TV executives would love to show a fugu fatality, they really would. I suspect that this spares me having to worry about how I would feel about such an eventuality. Of course it also messes with the thrill of wondering: Will he or won't he drop dead?

When it comes to "poisonous snakes that can choke you," and "sea creatures that can paralyze you," and "spiders whose venom can make your heart stop," I realize I'm not especially interested to "meet the people who risk it all for dinner." It's not usually hard to interest me in the question, about some foodstuff or other, is it good to eat? But this question will it kill you?, not so much.

I realize it marks me as a fuddy-duddy to be such a stickler for the "foodness" of food. I might add that I have nevertheless taken to Ace of Cakes and even Cake Boss, partly because I enjoy the people (Duff and the gang at Charm City Bakery in Baltimore, and Buddy and the gang at Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken), but also because it's hard not to appreciate the amazing things both teams create out of their chosen materials.

At the same time, I do wonder whether these shows reflect a lack of interest in the true miracle of cake: its deliciousness. It's a wonder I wish desperately, for caloric reasons, I could begin to tire of. And I have to say, I doubt that I would watch either Ace of Cakes or Cake Boss if the respective bakers didn't insist, and everyone didn't seem agreed, that the cakes really are delicious.

I don't know, maybe the rattlesnakes and sea creatures and spiders are delicious. Or maybe they taste like chicken. Feel free to check it out for yourself -- and no need to fill me in on the details.

Now a tasty, tender, juicy pot roast -- that would get my interest. Heck, I'd settle for two out of those three qualities, or in a pinch even one. That's about the extent of my food deviltry.

Oh, and if there were a slice of a really tasty chocolate layer cake to go with it, I could be tempted. I once had a coworker who for special occasions made what are still the most delicious chocolate cakes I've ever eaten. She insisted it was just this really good mixer she had. When I mentioned this to my friend Richard, who's an "out of this world"-caliber baker, and whom I consider an authority on chocolate cakes (in the interest of chocolate-cake science, he once test-drove every chocolate-cake recipe he found online which looked interesting to him), he said it made sense to him.

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