Follow Friday: The Travel Channel

Photo Credit: AnthonyBourdain.net

I'm a huge fan of various food shows, be it on Food Network or the Travel Channel. I like watching cooking shows, but I far prefer the ones where people go to different places and eat the various foods there. I feel like Travel Channel does that better than Food does, as they have three really cool shows with three really cool hosts, all of whom are on Twitter.

The first is Anthony Bourdain (@NoReservations), whose show No Reservations, takes him all around the globe to places domestic and foreign to try out the different cuisines and take in the different cultures. He's not just going to the big restaurants, but he's going to holes in the wall and into people's houses. He's brash and a bit rough around the edges, but that's what his appeal is. On Twitter, some of that attitude rubs off, as in the past he's gotten into verbal spats with food critics and pretended like he was the guy who stole Guy Fieri's car a few months back.

Secondly is Andrew Zimmern (@andrewzimmern), host of Bizarre Foods. As his show title suggests, Zimmern eats the weirdest, vilest or just most unconventional foods he can find. He doesn't just eat gross stuff, although if you've seen the Minnesota or Sardinia episodes where he ate lutefisk and maggot cheese respectively, you know he does go for the most reprehensible sounding stuff out there. He's very bold, and I wouldn't go near some of the stuff he's ingested, but he comes off as affable and adventurous all at the same time. On Twitter, you can find him posting about all the foods he eats, normal or otherwise, and posting about his son. Fun fact about Zimmern: he likes Ugandan swamp rat but HATES walnuts. Strange, I know.

Lastly, there's Adam Richman (@AdamRichman), whose shows Man vs. Food and Man vs. Food Nation are among the rowdiest and most popular on the network. Richman is all about chowing down on the nation's most challenging food tasks, whether it's quantity or spiciness. He once ate a 48 oz. porterhouse steak in 20 minutes on live television. That, my friends, is precision gluttony. He's mostly active nowadays live-Tweeting MvF Nation, which is where he's given up the challenges himself (doctor's orders?) to coach regular joes like you and me to take them. As noted on here before, he coached Jerry Sags on eating a plate of super hot wings. Then again, was there any doubt that Sags could do it?

Jerry Sags vs. Davey Jones Locker Wings

Adam Richman coaching the Nasty Boy through his challenge
Photo Credit: Tampa Bay.com

If you didn't watch tonight, Man vs. Food Nation, a spin-off/next evolution of the popular Travel Channel series where Adam Richman goes around to different eateries and takes MASSIVELY ABSURD food challenges, featured Jerry Sags of the Nasty Boys. The new twist on MvF features Richman, instead of taking challenges himself, coaching other people to take them. There were two episodes tonight. The second one, based in the Nasties hometown of Tampa, was the one where Sags did battle with food.

His challenge was to eat 10 "Davey Jones' Locker" wings in under a half-hour and then have five minutes of "afterburn" time (read, sit there and marinate in the spice without relieving the burn at all). What made this wings so intense was the sauce. It was made with not only roasted habanero peppers, which will make your anus shoot sparks for days after consumption, but extracted capsaicin oil from said habaneros. Yes, the guy making these wings pretty much took the thing that makes habaneros spicy and took away what makes them tasty, and then put it in the sauce.

Unsurprisingly, Sags aced the challenge, with his partner Brian Knobbs to his left and Richman to his right. Sags has spent a career taking bumps and dealing with his own and Knobbs' gimmicked body odor. Plus, he was in TNA in the last two years. I think that last fact alone gave him the endurance to make the Davey Jones wings do the job. What's next for Sags? I dunno, but I think I want to see him eat a ghost chili. Then, we'll see if he REALLY has the chops and can hang in the main event of hot pepper consumption.

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