Andrew Zimmern Serves Up Food for Thought — and a Favorite Recipe!

What do you get from gas stations?

Well, in the Deep South, when you’re driving through rural Georgia and Alabama, there’s fried chicken livers at gas stations. I get them and hot sauce and a toothpick, and I’m happy as a clam. The best boudin and pork cracklins are in gas stations in central Louisiana. The best Sonoran hot dogs are underneath the highways outside of the big cities in New Mexico and Arizona where people are grilling out of shopping carts.

Is there something you never eat?

Oatmeal. It’s gruel. I can’t. We have fetishized oatmeal somehow in this country. It just boggles my mind.

Zimmern's PBS series, "Hope in the Water," features celebrities such as Martha Stewart highlighting the importance of sustainable fishing methods.

PBS

Are you eating differently in your 60s?

Of course I am. I eat way less meat. I eat way more vegetables. I’m eating less. I mean, all the things that make for better health and wellness because I learned them.

If you could invite any three people over to cook dinner for, living or dead, who would they be?

Well, number one is my grandmother, because she taught me how to cook and never saw me cook professionally or tasted my food. So I’d want to cook for my father’s mother. Teddy Roosevelt is one of my great heroes, a very complicated man. He made a lot of mistakes in his life. I admire him for that. So I’d want to put Teddy Roosevelt there. And then the other person would be whoever is the current president of the United States.

What would you make for them?

I’d put out a big spread. Roast a couple chickens, cut them up, put them on platters, get a lot of salads and beans and grains. We’re in a Mediterranean, Eastern European, sort of Turkish style at home in that we have four, five, six different pickled things — green salads, grilled vegetables, etc. And then we put meat of some kind — fish, poultry, whatever — in the middle of the table and let people share that so that we’re eating less volume of meat and more volume of vegetables, grains, beans, fruits, etc. I would probably serve that group a bunch of my grandmother’s food, because she’s the most important guest. The current president of the United States, whoever that is, and Teddy Roosevelt can eat whatever they like — or not eat. I want to interrogate the two of them while my grandmother just eats and beams.

Classic Roasted Chicken

Everyone should have a classic roasted chicken recipe in their repertoire. For me, this is the ultimate comfort food that hits the spot any time of year.
—Andrew Zimmern

Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients

• 1 naturally raised chicken, about 3 pounds
• 1 sprig parsley tied together with 2 sprigs rosemary and 2 sprigs thyme
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 quartered medium-sized yellow onion
• 1 tablespoon flour mixed with 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 cups chicken stock

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash and dry the bird. Place the herbs and garlic inside the cavity of the bird. Rub the bird with the butter and sprinkle with the paprika. Place the bird in a roasting cradle or in a roasting rack and set in a well-insulated pan to prevent scorching the drippings. Arrange the onion quarters on the rack under the bird. Let the bird come to room temperature and place in the oven on the center rack.

Turn the temperature down to 350° and roast for 90 to 100 minutes and the internal temperature of the deepest part of the thigh muscle reads 160 on a meat thermometer. Remove the chicken from the rack and let it rest on a platter while you make the pan gravy.

Drain away all the liquid from the roasting pan, reserve the fat for another use and separate out the juices. Add the butter/flour mixture to the pan and place the pan over high heat. Swirl the butter and flour for a minute or two. Add the stock to the pan, scraping to deglaze.

Bring the stock to a boil and place the liquid and solids into a saucepan over medium heat to reduce to the sauce consistency, adding the pan drippings pulled from the fat. Season when the texture is up to snuff and serve with the carved chicken.