The five meals Andrew Zimmern will never forget

The celebrity chef and lifelong traveller has eaten it all, but these are the five meals that he'll remember for the rest of his life.

Just by looking at a plate of food, Andrew Zimmern believes you can see a place's history.

"Food is the way to understand another culture," says the chef, TV personality, author and lifelong traveller. "If someone from outer space came down and said, 'Show me your hometown', I wouldn't take Mr Spaceman to the museum. If you want to understand a human being, sit down and have a meal with them."

Andrew Zimmern is a television host and food system advocate who has won four James Beard awards and an Emmy. The creator of the Bizarre Foods franchise, he now hosts Curated Journeys, intimate travel experiences focusing on hyper-local food cultures and rare culinary traditions.

We asked Zimmern to choose the five meals that have shaped him – no small feat for a man who has been everywhere and eaten literally everything; no organ ever unturned. The result is less a list than an  autobiography, tracing a life savoured through food.

From the savoury French bite that cemented his destiny, to meeting a culinary hero, here are the five meals Andrew Zimmern will remember for the rest of his life. 

1. Liver pâté at Restaurant Paul Bocuse, Lyon, France

It was 1976. I was 14 years old, [skiing in Val-d'Isère] with my father's best friend and his family. It snowed for six days straight and we were stuck in the hotel for seven days. The last meal we had before we could leave town was stale bread and sardines. So the seven of us drove to Lyon and I had my first meal at Restaurant Paul Bocuse.

I ordered the largest tasting menu: 15 courses. There was chicken cooked inside a pig's bladder, truffle soup with a beautiful puff pastry dome. The fourth or fifth course was a tiny timbale (mould) of liver pâté; warm, with a sauce of wine and liver. To this day it's one of the 10 best things I've ever put in my mouth.

The staff was intrigued that a young person would order this. I was asked if I liked it: "Yes, very much. Can I have another?" About two minutes later, Paul Bocuse himself came to the table. "You want another one?" "Yes, please. That's the best thing I've ever eaten in my life."

Within seconds, another was at the table. My family just stared at me. [But] I'd never seen a restaurant run that way. It had a garden; you could see women picking vegetables throughout the dinner. They were baking bread during the meal service. The restaurant made its own butter. It convinced me that food had no limits… that there was a sense of craft bigger than I had even imagined. I walked into that meal, knowing that I was going to be in the food business, but I left that meal convinced.

2. Grilled aubergine and corn soup at Hokusai Fine Dining on the Mitsui Fuji Princess, Japan

I have been obsessed with chef Kiyomi Mikuni since the early 80s. He started the French-Japanese food mashup. His first cookbook was called the Food Fantasy of Hotel Mikuni. I was a young cook, had spent seven months cooking in Paris, and the book blew my mind. The idea that these two cuisines could be married so perfectly, and that there was a guy only a few years older than me talented enough to pull that off… I fell in love with him, professionally.

Every time I went to Japan, I never met him. But I just got back from Japan yesterday, and........

© BBC