Blogging TCA: A More Edible Lunch?

Critics were expecting the worst for today’s sponsored lunch from Travel Channel, what with the talent being chef Andrew Zimmern, host of Travel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern (Mon, 9pm). Yesterday’s lunch (click here) was entirely edible, but host Nat Geo presented shows about the insides of the human body during the meal, as well as a show about taboos that included young boys, as a rite de passage, having to put their hands in boxes filled with red ants for 10 minutes. Critics needn’t have worried.

While Travel offered freeze-dried crickets (in several flavors, including sour cream & onion), dried worms coated with cheddar cheese and chicken feet (which looked like a perfectly delicious Chinese chicken dish), a huge buffet line featured tacos, chicken breast, salmon, fruit and dessert. Still, Travel GM Pat Younge insisted your reporter try a scorpion sucker, a lollipop with a scorpion inside.

"I don't have a sweet tooth," I told Younge. "Oh, then take one for someone you love," was his correct retort. Of course, nearby Zimmern scoffed at the traditional buffet. "There's nothing more boring than breast of chicken or fillet of salmon," he said. It's a test of a chef's mettle to be able to work with chicken feet, he said. "And we’re the only country in the world that throws away the head of the shrimp and just eats the body." The abomination.

• EARLIER: Blogging TCA: HBO Curbs Its Critics