Over the years, chef and

host

has shown that he's up for trying just about anything, particularly when he travels to Third World countries to feast on all manner of creepy-crawly things. But with his series

he's sampling culinary oddities that are closer to home.

The program brought him to Portland last September, where he sampled some of the city's most unusual dishes and met some of our experimental tastemakers, including a chef who enjoys elk heart tartar with a raw turkey egg on top, and a chocolatier who pairs goose liver with cacao. As he filmed segments for the episode

(airing at 9 p.m. Monday on the Travel Channel)

, he shared many of his impressions of the city and its food on Twitter. He called

chef Gabriel Rucker's unusual pairing of eel and rabbit with peaches and avocado his Dish of the Week, and even declared Portland the "Best small city food scene in America!"

We caught up with him outside Northwest Portland's

, where he'd just sampled the shop's bourbon-smoked cherry and bone marrow ice cream.

I've been reading your tweets as you've been exploring the city. Things like eel-and-rabbit terrine and braised elk tongue may be bizarre by a Portland diner's standards, but compared to some of the things you've eaten over the years, they don't seem that weird. How does Portland stack up to the rest of the adventurous eating world?

Bizarre is a concept that's in the eye of the observer, not the object. We've been trying over the years to take the meaning of the word back to the dictionary definition. Bizarre is not a negative, which it had been for so many years. Bizarre is something that's unusual and interesting. I think Portland is more unusual and interesting than many of the places I've visited in America. There's a greater sense of community here, and a greater appreciation of local culture. There are a ton of great stories for us.



How is this new show different from your international show?

"Bizarre Foods America" has been hard, in some sense, for people to wrap their arms around. When I go to a jungle market in South America or Africa, people assume they're going to see something that's going to gross them out. That was never the intention of the show, nor is that what I enjoy doing. This show is intended to tell stories about other cultures through food, and provide a better understanding of people around the world through food. In a world where we're constantly defining ourselves by the things that separate us -- our sexuality, our religion, our language, our hair color, even our politics -- I thought it would be nice to have a conversation about things we all love.

I could care less about 99 percent of the stuff I see on other food TV shows. I don't see people telling stories about a young guy who has the idea to get into the honey business by putting hives in neighborhood backyards all across the city so that people can literally taste the city. And then restaurants, purveyors, artisans take that honey and put it into their product. So you have a lavender-honey ice cream here that has local honey, local lavender and local cream.

That's the collaborative nature of Portland's food scene in a nutshell.

It's the sort of thing you read about in magazine articles but people don't really believe it's happening around them. Here in Portland, that's happening at every street corner --at

,

,

and

. This is a food community that supports itself by spreading information and encouragement and by providing an outlet for product in a way that doesn't exist in other places. I think it's extraordinary, and the people of Portland are very lucky. I think they're also kind of used to it and think that's the way it works everywhere else, and it just doesn't. And it happens in a very classy, lovely, non ego-based reality that is not pretentious or over-hyped.

Of the dishes you've had here, what's really stood out?

I was stunned when I tasted Le Pigeon's eel and rabbit terrine. That's as beautiful of a dish as I've ever had. It's a gorgeous piece of cookery. Do I think it's any different than the type of excellence that's expressed by Jenn Louis' gnocchi with braised elk tongue that I had at

? No. Was it better than the whole-cured hog at Olympic Provisions? No. Or the bone marrow and smoked cherry ice cream that I just ate here? No. Those were all extremely worthy demonstrations of excellence that are very much what Portland is all about today. It's thrilling.



When you're on the road going to so many different places, is it jarring or invigorating to go from one type of food culture to another?

Both. You know the way some people eat a piece of bread between courses to clear their palate? I have to go through a pretty serious mind-wash in order to do what I do on camera. I really have to be breathing the air of a place. I have to go through a meditative process to go into a place with eyes wide open.

Have you ever been made sick by some of the strange things you've eaten?

Surprisingly, I've never been made sick. I wish I could tell you a different story, because the network is sort of irritated that I haven't thrown up at least once on camera. But I've never missed a day on the road. It's really this simple: Eat hot food hot, eat cold food cold, and make sure someone's grandma is doing the cooking.

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