World Hum has got a lock on the extreme-cooking beat this week. Yesterday they posted about a new BBC TV show from chef and food writer Stefan Gates called Cooking in the Danger Zone about odd delicacies and crisis-zone cuisine the world over. Today, they have an update on Anthony Bourdain’s travails after getting stuck behind the blockade in Beirut last week.

The first episode of Danger Zone, ‘Afghanistan: food & reconstruction. Guns, kebabs and lambs’ testicles’ aired last night, and there are four more to come, focusing on topics such as the Korean dog meat industry, and how refugees in Uganda survive on UN food rations. There’s certainly a high shock-TV factor – an episode on food and cultural change in China has requisite “ewwwwww, gross!” moments of Gates eating scorpion kebabs and yak penis – but I think the idea of a show that goes beyond food stunts into what people eat, and how and why, especially in places where the kind of choice Westerners have is an unimaginable luxury, could be a real eye-opener. So far, the reviews concur. There are clips from the show in the dangerzonetv stream on YouTube, and Gates’ blog. Here’s one of the host munching on some freshly fried bugs in China:




In other daredevil-chef news, Anthony Bourdain was still in Beirut as of Monday. One of World Hum’s crafty posters picked up on a raging discussion on eGullet about Bourdain’s report to the NY Post on Friday. Bourdain, himself, ultimately weighed in from Beirut to apologize for any seeming glibness about the situation in Lebanon:

“I’m very aware of how flip my response to the Post was (made last Wednesday, very early in the crisis) as I sought to reassure family and friends that we were safe and okay and in good cheer. It was – at the time – very representative of the (outward) attitude of Beirutis themselves, who pride themselves on their resilience and their determination to “keep the party going.”

“A few days ago, this was a place where people were bursting with pride for the relative tolerance, progressive attitudes, and lack of conflict between groups. I was standing with a group: a Sunni, a Christian, and a Shiite, by the Hariri memorial when the gunfire started and the Hezbollah people appeared driving through city center and honking their horns in “celebration” for the capture/kidnappings. The look of dismay and embarrasment [sic] on all three faces…and the grim look of resignation as they all—instantly—recognized what would inevitably come next…it’s something I will never forget.”