If you want to get Andrew Zimmern talking, ask him where he likes to travel in the South. On a recent call, the chef and TV star rattled off haunts in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, Tennessee, both Carolinas, and Texas before realizing he was on track to name-check every Southern state. “It’s like choosing your favorite child,” he says.
Zimmern isn’t a Southerner, but he feels a special connection to the region where his German ancestors first set foot in the United States, landing in Charleston, South Carolina, and working as meatcutters in Atlanta before moving to New York after the Civil War. “When I’m in the South, I feel like a raindrop entering a river,” he says. “It’s probably just because I know the family history, but I choose to believe in the romantic idea that it’s in my DNA.”
On his new Food Network competition show, Pitmasters, Zimmern is celebrating an art that we consider particularly Southern: barbecue. After catching up with him about the show and his strong opinions on barbecue (some of which may surprise you), we asked him to share a few tips from his decades of near-constant travel.
Define your travel style in one word.
Overpacking. I get looks from people in baggage claim when they see my three bags come rolling out. Are you making a TV show? No, I’m just here for a couple days. Traveling with ten pairs of sneakers. I like choice. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but it works for me.
Best travel advice you’ve received?
Don’t pick an end date. I’m very grateful to have a busy life, but I long for the days when I had the freedom to say, I’m going to Thailand, and it really doesn’t matter if I stay ten days, twelve days, or two weeks.
I love the kind of road trip where you can follow an interesting sign that says “Good Eats” or whatever—in a part of the country that you know the Sysco truck can’t reach—because you don’t have an itinerary that’s measured in minutes or hours.
Favorite road trip snack?
If you want just one, you’re asking the wrong guy. I’m a huge fan of gas station food. I go for the pickle-flavored cheese balls every day and twice on Sunday. I have to have those orange circus peanuts and my other favorite candies. Necco Wafers, Lemonheads—bring them all on. I’m a gas station pizza geek. The worse for you it is and the longer it’s been sitting in the little turnstile going around, the happier I am. I’m a big fan of the pizza at Casey’s. And you know, when you’re going through central Louisiana, all that great smoked meat? The best chicharrones I’ve ever had are pork cracklings in central Louisiana, in the middle of Cajun country. In Mississippi I’ll get gas station fried chicken livers—pounds of them. My cardiologist can yell at me later. Every place in the country has stuff like that.
What destination do you return to again and again?
Costa Rica.
Why’s that?
Because it has everything. I can visit volcanoes and hot springs and gorgeous rivers, go hot-air ballooning and zip-lining through the jungle canopy, ride horses through ancient orchards with monkeys and sloths.
I go to a tiny fishing village on the Pacific side that I will gatekeep, thank you very much. It still has a dirt road in the middle of town. In the morning, the fishermen will take you out sportfishing for four or five hours, and you’ll come home with a boatload of fish.
I adore Costa Rica, and parts of it are some of the most breathtaking places on earth.
“Notes from the Road” is a regular feature in our Due South newsletter. Read previous Notes here and sign up for Due South to explore Southern destinations and get inspiration for your next trip.