Andrew Zimmern

The host of the popular Travel Channel show “Bizarre Foods” is in central Iowa this weekend to taunt us with tales of gastronomic anomalies he’s downed in big cities and remote villages around the planet. In his global excursions, Andrew Zimmern has had the chance to chow down on a wide array of oddball foods and he’d love to have seconds on some of them, but knows he’ll likely never taste them again.

“A great example would be palolo, a small worm that lives inside the coral reefs around Samoa and once a year, they float up to the surface, they’re scooped off the top, they’re pan-fried and schmeered on bread and they’re just delicious,” Zimmern says. “They taste like a briny, salty caviar, except it’s free.” He may return to the South Pacific island of Samoa someday, but it likely wouldn’t be on that one day of the year when the delectable worms rise to ride the waves — and be gobbled.

While Zimmern says he’s annoyed by everyone asking what he doesn’t like to eat, he says his favorite dishes include — donkey. “I’m not talking about an old, crusty work burro, I’m talking about the smaller black donkeys that are used as a protein source all over China,” Zimmern says. He says there are hundreds of restaurants in Beijing that specialize in donkey, adding, “It’s some of the tastiest, most delicious meat I’ve ever had in my life.” If that donkey meat was available and accepted in the U-S, he says he’d guarantee we’d all be eating it two or three times a week.

The roving chef says he also craves sinking his teeth into another steak from a kudu, a small type of antelope, something that’s extremely hard to find outside of southern Africa. While he’s in Iowa, the New York native expects he’ll come across something bizarre to eat, though don’t try to wow him with things like lefse, lutefisk or deep-fried Oreo cookies.

“People forget that I live in Minnesota so I’ve gotten my share of lefse on every holiday table that I go to all during the winter holiday season,” Zimmern says. “And deep-fried Oreos are something I eat at every state fair. I think I’m up to about 22 state fairs that I’ve attended.” He says he recently went to the Arizona State Fair where the novelty was deep-fried Moonpies.

While the show “Bizarre Foods” is seen in 70 countries, he says you don’t have to circumnavigate the earth to find weird edibles. People in the U-S have plenty of out-there favorities, including opossum, squirrel and raccoon.

The town of Shelby, North Carolina, hosts an annual Livermush Festival. The namesake dish is pureed head cheese mixed with corn and it’s made meatloaf-style, chilled, sliced and fried in a pan, then served on white bread with mustard and jelly. Zimmern says, “It makes all the strangest, craziest, blood sausagey, head cheesey-type things I’ve ever eaten pale in comparison.”

Zimmern is appearing today and tomorrow at the Wine and Food Expo underway at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. For more information, visit www.iowaeventscenter.com or www.andrewzimmern.com.

 Listen to Matt Kelley’s full interview. Zimmern 7:20 MP3

For many Iowans, it’s time to prep the snowblower and retire the lawn mower for the winter. Jeff Bartos runs a repair shop for small engines in Omaha/Council Bluffs and says Iowans should follow a few guidelines when winterizing their equipment. Bartos says to clean up the lawn mower before storing it.

“Make sure the mower deck is all cleaned out at the bottom,” he says. “We recommend using stabilizer in the fuel. Once you put that stabilizer in there, run it for about 15 minutes so the stabilizer is in the carburetor and it should be good for the wintertime after that.” Bartos says it’s not a good idea to empty the gas tank before putting your mower in the shed for winter.

He says, “If the gas tank is empty and it’s metal, it can condensate and get water in there, so by leaving it with a full tank of gas with the stabilizer, you should be good for all winter that way.” Once the warm weather returns, Bartos says there are a few things to do before using the mower for the first time.

Now in the spring, you should drain the old gas out and put fresh gas in before trying to start the mower, but he says, that’s all you really have to do on trimmers, chainsaws and leaf blowers. If your machine is a four-cycle mower, Bartos says there’s no need to drain the oil before storing it. He says it can cause big problems if you forget to add new oil in the spring.

“I’ve seen people make the mistake, they drain it out and forget to put oil back in it in the springtime and they ruin their machines,” Bartos says. “The best thing to do is leave the oil alone and in the springtime start it up and let it run for a few minutes, then change it. Then you are good for the summertime.” When spring arrives, check the filters and spark plug to make sure your equipment is in good running condition for the season ahead.