Positively Philadelphia: "Bizarre" Local Foods

by KYW's Lauren Lipton

"I'm Andrew Zimmern, and this is Bizarre Foods." And he made a recent trip to Philadelphia.

"Bizarre Foods" is a popular series on the Travel Channel, and coming this fall is an episode about bizarre foods in our area.

I caught up with Andrew Zimmern at the Famous 4th Street Deli.

What did he think of the local cuisine?

"That pastrami sandwich doesn't get any better.  Philly might be the best sandwich town going.  I mean, you have great delis like this one, and you've got the cheesesteak tradition."

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And his favorites?

"It's like trying to decide between your favorite children.  It's always where I just was.  After I was at John's Roast Pork, I said this might be the best thing I've eaten in a long time.  We wandered down Ninth Street, I went to George's.  They have a tongue sandwich at George's that's fantastic."

And, he points out, the notion of "bizarre foods" is relative:

"To anyone who has not grown up in a delicatessen tradition, I think delicatessen food probably strikes them as pretty strange.  Putting a pound and a half of fatty, cured, pickled, smoked, and pepper-dusted meat in between two thin slices of bread and chowing down the whole thing is probably strange to someone somewhere."

And what is the most bizarre food he's tasted so far?

"It has to be the purée in Chile.  You cut it open and inside are hundreds of oystery, corpuscly, iodine-tasting fishy little creatures you dip in lemon juice and eat.  The more we can all talk about, around the world, the things we have in common -- like our love of food -- and not the things that separate us, the better off we are."

And that's Positively Philadelphia!

(Photo by KYW's Lauren Lipton)