Food, Science, and Culture with Anthony Bourdain [Extended Cut]

How do food, science, and culture collide? For the first time on podcast, we’re airing Neil deGrasse Tyson’s 2018 interview with author and food expert Anthony Bourdain in its entirety. We reflect back on our differences in taste, what food is like in Antarctica, and the importance and universality of food in our lives. (Clips of this interview originally aired January 4, 2019)

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On this episode of StarTalk, we have a one-on-one interview between me and chef and TV host, Anthony Bourdain. I had the privilege of sitting down with Anthony before his untimely death in 2018 to talk about Antarctica, food, culture, and so much more. You can hear pieces of this conversation in a different episode from our archives, but never before have we released that conversation in its entirety. Until now, check it out.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Anthony, thanks for coming back to StarTalk. You were one of our earliest guests, like five years ago.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Indeed, yes.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for helping us out back then.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Happy to do it.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me how you came to think about food and culture. Most people think of food as simply sustenance, and we don't even spend any, generally, any thought at all that what we're eating is a function of our own culture. It's just the food that's on the table. And so for you to rise up above that, see the world, and say this food is that culture, that food is that culture, when did that begin?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  I think that was a process. I mean, I started out making a show about food in places around the world, but it was essentially one scene after another of me shoving food in my face. I guess it became fairly quickly apparent that food was intensely personal, that it was a reflection of a place, of a culture, of a history, often a very painful history, you know, of war, migration, intermarriage, the clash of cultures, also a very personal expression. People, I noticed as well that people were very proud of their food, often

• 2:09Speaker 01

  people very different than me, often people who had no particular reason culturally or politically to like Americans, yet...

• 2:18Speaker 01

  At the table, given the opportunity to feed me, uh, and the fact that I received that food gratefully and with an open mind, I noticed that people opened up to me and told me other things about their lives.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, we all have food, and it's the consequence of whatever, but generally, we don't think about it.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, um, what happens when you're in a place where there's more going on than just what came out of the kitchen?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Well, I think the most extreme and maybe the most important example in the trajectory of my show is Beirut in 2006, when we were doing what was ostensibly still a food and travel show. Uh, we'd finished shooting-

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very catalog.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we'd finished shooting another, you know, sort of upbeat, snarky, maybe, uh, uh, restaurant scene. Uh, and the crew joined me in my room, uh, for beers in the minibar. And we're looking, uh, lazily out the window and, uh, you know, rockets and, uh, uh, gunships, uh, attacked the airport, blowing into smithereens. Uh, our local crew disappears for the border, and we found ourselves in a war, uh, blockaded, unable to leave, and trapped in Beirut for, uh, for the next week or so, waiting to be evacuated, and, uh-

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the US military?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Marine Corps, uh, the Navy Marines took us off the beach in a, in an LCU. Dramatic. Uh, in an LCU filled with wailing, crying, uh, refugees, most Lebanese who had left the country during the civil war and only just returned to rebuild, to rebuild. And now, their hopes and dreams smashed again. And just looking out at the water as we pulled away from the beach and thinking- Do we have a show? Because we really just sort of filmed ourselves sweating it out, you know, in quarantine while neighborhoods were vaporized around us.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  It just struck me as obscene to contemplate ever doing a upbeat food show in a world that allows things like this to happen regularly. So this is a pivot point for you. Absolutely, everything changed. Everything changed at that moment. And I started looking around. And I was determined, you know, if I'm sitting in the hills of Laos, you know, I would ask the obvious question when my host is missing a limb. Where'd you lose a limb? And we're eating, true, but chances are he's gonna tell me, well, I wasn't alive for the secret war here, but your military was kind enough to leave behind, you know, a few million tons of unexploded ordnance,

• 5:10Speaker 01

  and I happened to step on one of those. CNN fortunately has allowed me to wander completely away from the table. And so we've done shows in places like Congo, where there was never any expectation of much in the way of food scenes. I went there entirely because I was obsessed with the history of the Belgian Congo and... You're sure CNN just didn't need another correspondent? I have the luxury of not being a reporter. And, you know, I joke that it's a stealth food show because I think people open up to me and tell me about their lives,

• 5:53Speaker 01

  often in places where they're... They have to be careful about what they say. And I think they do that, or I've noticed that they do that, because I'm asking simple questions. We're just eating. We're just eating. I'm not pressing them for, what do you think of your government? Or your government's policy on this or that? I'm asking them simple things. What? What do you like to eat? What makes you happy? What would you like for your children?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  And asking those simple questions, I often get very, very complicated, very revealing answers.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me about Antarctica. What's going on there?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you up to? I got people in Antarctica.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  I was so fortunate to

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got people.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Spend time there. I had the most incredible time.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  It's another planet. It feels like another planet.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  On one hand, you know, everyone should go and see it. On the other hand, it kind of defeats a purpose. It is the last un-effed up place on Earth. It's pristine. You know, every drop of urine goes into bottles, then into 55 gallon drums and shipped back to America along with or elsewhere with every little bit of waste. Not allowed to bring. The people down there, we stayed at McMurdo Station, the former military base now of the National Science NSF.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, National Science Foundation.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Research Center.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  We were guests of the NSF.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  And very grateful ones at that. It's very difficult to get to do, even people who work there. It's very difficult to do what we did.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, at least in my field, it's a ripe place for research.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  It is.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because first, the sky conditions are spectacular when they're clear. And it, though you are on level ground, it's actually very high elevation.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Relative to sea level. And so for telescopes, you're above a lot of the muck and mire that can interfere with your observations. And there are also interesting air circulation patterns for balloons where you can ascend detectors to measure the cosmic microwave background, for example.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  It's incredible because you have all these people working at McMurdo Base and like the dishwashers are all like, you know, former professors of Russian Lit or, you know.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Smart, smart, curious outcasts from all over the world who've come to work in maintenance and physical jobs so that they could be in Antarctica, living under incredibly difficult conditions. But you'll see like astrophysicists sitting at the table, talking to guys who work in, you know, waste disposal, engaged in a conversation about neutrinos. They do lectures, science lectures, every Sunday that the whole base, everyone goes to. It is the most incredible spot, a place of pure science and pure learning, where people are incrementally seeking answers to questions they might never answer in their life. They're just looking to move things forward.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  So we met with the guys with the super telescope, part of an array, I guess, that goes around the entire globe. It's looking at the sun, some people collecting neutrinos, which I don't really fully underst... no, I don't understand at all, but they sound really cool.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, just a quick thing, because in Antarctica, you get 24 hours of sunlight for six months.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You continuously monitor the sun.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't set for you and you have to wait. Oh, my gosh, did something happen to the sun in the last 12 hours? You will know.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  People who love it down there, who've been going for 26 seasons to 30 seasons.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do they eat? They got to ship in the steaks?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Well...

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the vegetables?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Everything comes in, mostly by ship, but also some stuff by plane. There's a cafeteria both at McMurdo and at the South Pole, where everything is essentially processed, frozen.

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Frozen, really?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, one of the refrains when you arrive from the people who spent months there is, "Do you have any freshies?" It's like the living dead. They're like, "Do you have brains?" They're like, "Do you have any freshies?" You could sell an avocado down there, a fresh avocado, for some big bucks. Along with, I asked everybody, "What do you want the most? What do you miss the most?" And they said, "If I could just pet a puppy for a minute, I'd give you my month's drinking allowance."

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pet a puppy?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  You just, just hold a puppy for a little bit, because there are no dogs, no pets, of course, are allowed there, because they might bring, you know, some kind of bacteria or viruses that would affect the penguins and the...

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right, right.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  The seals. No, no foreign species or anything like that. So, there's a real premium on the rare arrival of lettuce or avocados or anything fresh. But they do a lot with a little.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so that was... Was that your first sort of baptism into a community of scientists?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yes, for sure. The things people were looking at were really interesting. I mean, one guy had been studying penguin populations for decades, living with one particular group.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they eat penguins?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 11:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, why not?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Amundsen and Scott did, but it was not their first choice, but...

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  I mean, it has been done, but they do not. You don't, you don't even... You're not supposed to pick up rocks, interfere with the terrain, or what life is there in any way. And they don't. There's not a single cigarette butt on McMurdo Base on the ground. I mean, it's, everything is separated, very strict living conditions. I found it interesting when going out to visit the penguin colonies, though, we were on a helicopter out to the site. And a bunch of fresh-faced, very enthusiastic kids had come down to, you know, help out. An intern, I guess, you know, was go out and hug the penguin day. You know, they were all excited that they go out and get to tag penguins and, you know,

• 12:07Speaker 01

  hold one, you know, penguins are cute, you know.

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And all the movies?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, they didn't tell them that, you know, when you pick up a penguin, they spray you with, you know, a horrifying array of, you know, wet diarrhea. They all came back rather downcast-looking and smelling a bit ripe.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Hello, I'm Vinky Brook Allen and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Nailed Grass Tyson.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your world travels, have you seen any consequences or concerns that local populations have about the effect of climate change on their crops, their foodstuffs, their supply chain?

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Well, many places. First, I want to mention that the climate change discussion is no more acutely felt, at least in people's minds, or observed, than in Antarctica where they're really looking at it and talk about it a lot. But of course, it's perilous now to talk about it because everyone is fully aware that their data is being deleted from government computers, and if they find themselves on a blacklist of people who might possibly be interested in the subject, that they could find themselves suddenly not needed. These are not good times for science or scientists, and they felt very much under threat down there, and for good reason.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Particularly when you're pursuing subjects that aren't going to have a useful monetary application anytime soon, tough argument to make in this political climate. But I see it, look, I see it everywhere. Madagascar, where timbering and the smoke of burning fires is causing huge, huge, huge problems, completely changing the landscape. The fishing industry is everywhere affected. The Caribbean, where I've seen in my own lifetime, you know, not just whole reefs, all the reefs bleached and lifeless now.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm seeing the physical changes, but the people who really seem to feel it most and notice it are farmers, fishermen, they're feeling it.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this would affect cuisine directly?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt about it.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Um, fish populations are changing, disappearing.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  The whole inter, uh, the whole relationship between species.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The ecosystem.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Alter, altering in, in, in small ways. So that, you know, some, some species are thriving, others disappearing. Um, you know, that changes what we eat. We, we, you know, chefs and cooks and, you know, anybody who needs to feed their family responds to what's available. It's, uh, that's always been the engine of, of cooking.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, your experience in Antarctica, that, that's the closest thing we have on earth to the surface of Mars.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yes, in fact, I went to the dry valleys, uh, which, uh, incredible area of Antarctica where there's no snow and no ice. And it looks like Mars and they in fact test the Mars rover there. I, I stayed in a tent out there for a while and there was even a beach.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, does this make you more or less interested in possibly being on a mission to Mars?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know if I have the time.

• 16:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a busy guy.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  The travel, the travel time to Mars is what?

• 16:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nine months on a good orbit.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a long, that's a long, it's a long trip.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need a good, a good movie account on, on the internet.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  And, um, I, I did a, an episode of Top Chef at, uh, NASA headquarters once. And, um, we were talking about food in space. And of course, your entire taste perception, I was told, I was talking to, uh, I think Chuck Yeager, uh, actually.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Chuck Yeager.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yes. And, uh, talking about, uh, what you crave, you know, when you've been away from, you know, your favorite restaurants for, or any restaurants for a considerable amount of time. Um, and he talked about how your, your ability to perceive flavors changes at altitude. People experience this in planes, of course. Uh, plane food is, is altered so that it, it makes up for the effects of altitude. But astronauts get it really bad and the stuff they crave more than anything. So, uh, Mr. Yeager told me is, uh, hot sauce. Like, you know, Tabasco or anything spicy because up there, everything tastes bland.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're telling me those, those bulky areas in their spacesuits, they're smuggling bottles of hot sauce on the way up?

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To bring to their food. The astronauts I've spoken to, they say this without hesitation, that they eagerly want spicy foods.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they find themselves visiting other national modules of the space station where their food tends to be spicier than their American food.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that would be tough for me, bland food for nine months.

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  I went, I trained in jujitsu and I foolishly decided I was gonna compete a few times. And in the run up to the competition, I had to cut weight to make my weight category, which meant doing without salt at all for a week.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't retain the water?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  It's horrible. It is horrible. No matter how much I'd eat, I mean, I'd boil a whole chicken loaded with herb and pepper and everything I could, but never satisfied. And I would just get crazier and crazier from the lack of salt to the point that I found myself sitting on the subway in the summer, looking at a particularly sweaty homeless dude and thinking, oh, I'd like to lick his neck.

• 18:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just one lick.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is fascinatingly grossed.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  But, but a measure of how desperate I was.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we won't put you on the Mars, on the Mars.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, Mars, yeah, too much.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll keep you here. So, for those who do take these missions, is there some food category around the world where you would highly recommend that's what they should take with them?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you ranked it, well, give me the top five cuisines or national dishes.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Trinidad, food from Trinidad, that would go over real well.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would go far.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Nice and spicy, some good Scotch.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll get you to these halfway to Mars.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, Thai food, good, good nuclear hot Thai food would be a good choice.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Chengdu, the Sichuan, the real Sichuan food. Now, I don't know.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  A big wok filled with boiling, uh, boiling oil laced with Sichuan peppers and uh, the long chili pods. I don't know how that would behave without gravity, probably not the best thing in a gravity-free environment, scalding oil, beating up and floating around freely. But, um, and there is the... that tends to inspire some digestive anomalies, but that would satisfy.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you're sure you... So I, I ate at an authentic Sichuan restaurant in San Francisco recently. And I was waiting for the next dish to be some reprieve from the previous dish.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that did not happen.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every single dish was hotter than the previous one.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Even in Chengdu, the, the major city in, in Sichuan province, or where I've been a few times, uh, you'll see locals at their favorite Sichuan hot pot place, literally doubled over, holding their stomachs, mopping, mopping their necks, faces beet red. Um, it is, it can be excruciatingly painful, and this is an interesting, uh, uh, scientific phenomenon that, that's always intrigued me. Um, a lot of people suggest that their favorite Sichuan hot pot has, that they secretly lace it with opium, because, uh, what happens is they eat this scorchingly hot food, and very uncomfortable to eat, but intensely pleasurable.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Um, and the next day they wake up with a craving. And I find this as well, uh, when I'm eating really, really, really spicy food. And some have suggested that this is due to there's this flood of endorphins that your brain releases when, uh, experiencing really painful, painfully hot food. And that... That, I guess that happens while you're eating it. And the next morning, it's not there. And you're, you feel this sudden withdrawal. You feel the absence. The absence of that endorphin rush that you had the, the night before. And this immediately compels you to get more. I've had this experience after tattoos as well.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  I've had a lot of people who've gotten tattooed.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  And like me, say that right afterwards, they always want another, which seems counterintuitive. This is good, because I don't have any, so maybe if I should stay that way.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  So I'd be interested in knowing the science on that, if this is a... Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll get to the bottom of that one. It's a real craving, no matter how scorching the experience. You wake up the next day, I want more.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your, your modern professional life is so committed to food and culture. Yet, there's a branch of the culinary universe that seems to focus on molecular?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Molecular gastronomy, yes.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, am I correct in characterizing that as, how can I bring as much science as I possibly can to the protein molecules and the, and the freezing and the cooking times? Does this subtract the, the, the experience from you or add to it?

• 22:41Speaker 01

  It depends. I, I know a few chefs who are really, really great at this. And they're like scientists. I was just talking to Wiley Dufrain, one of, one of the real masters of this area of cooking. And he says, look, in my restaurant, we ask questions. We're, we're, we're asking questions about food and the dining experience. They're not necessarily looking to dazzle or to challenge their, their diners. They're asking questions like, can I deep fry mayonnaise? Answer, yes.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also, I'm sorry, I would have never, in my whole life, there is a not that I'm sorry, I would never thought that.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Once he figured out how to deep fry mayonnaise, he figured out how he could fry other sauces, how to cause them to uh stay essentially

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Solid.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Solid and not explode when you throw into hot fat. Um Ferran Adria, Wiley Dufresne, and a very few other chefs make this experience intensely pleasurable and exciting and fun.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Many other imitators, it is, it is a long painful slog through one of their meals where it's a science class for its own sake, you know, look, I can, look, look what I can do.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so um so you're comfortable thinking, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're, that seems like you're comfortable thinking of it as there is this virtual country called science. And here's food that natives of that country might eat because they're simply curious about the chemistry of what they dine upon. And that would be their story relative to some invading army or some food shortage or something else.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  They're asking themselves constantly, what's, what's possible? What can we do with that mayonnaise?

• 24:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody figured out you could put ice cream batter in mixed with liquid nitrogen.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And have instant ice cream.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that was one of my early thoughts, I just didn't have access to liquid nitrogen at the time.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Or expand foie gras into, by, by, I don't know how it's done, but into a fluffy sponge-like uh uh texture. Um I've, I've seen so many amazing, amazing things done. Uh meat glue, uh which they're even asked me to explain. Uh they can really make food behave in ways that you wouldn't think it would, or maybe even should, uh to delicious effect.

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who would have thought that there would behave would ever appear in a sentence on food?

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Well.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  You know, what is it, uh, you know, when you scramble an egg, uh, I forget what it's called, a coagulation of proteins? I'm not sure about the specific processes. But we're, we're all, uh, you know, caramelization. You know, why does your steak get brown as you cook it and develop the sugars on the outside? All of these things are essential scientific techniques or processes.

• 25:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a science reason for it.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Every cook understands instinctively. They may not be able to name what's happening, but they understand very, very, very well when, you know, the effect you want, how to get there, when it's going wrong, when it's going right. Um, so even something as simple as scrambling an egg is essentially a scientific manipulation of an ingredient. Uh, by exposing it to both heat and movement and incorporating air, you're making it behave, an egg behave in a, in a desired way.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, it reminds me, this is an obscure analogy, but it reminds me of, uh, when medicine became modern. It did so because, in part, it looked to see what sort of folk remedies existed around the world and cultures. Oh, you chew on this bark and that gets rid of your headache. Well, what, what got rid of your headache? So you find out what's in the bark.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's this molecule that becomes what we today call aspirin.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you extract the active ingredient.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you can exploit that to great gain. And so it seems to me, if you knew exactly the moment and why a sauteed onion becomes sweet,

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  you can possibly hone in on that and exploit that fact with other foods.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  And, and that's what chefs are doing, uh, some chefs are doing every day. I have friends who are rotting all varieties of things in some dark corner of their cellar, experimenting, uh, talking to, uh, microbiologists, uh, from major universities, talking to them late at night, working with them in kitchens, uh, discussing, you know, the wonders of fermentation. What can you ferment? What can you, what's going on in miso? How can I apply that to something else?

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love miso.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  You know, so much of, so much of, of, of food is not about freshness. It's what's called that sweet spot. The precise moment in its decay where it is best. Sushi being the best example. Anyone who goes and tells you that, you know, "Oh, I went to a sushi bar last night. It was the best, the fish was so fresh." Have no understanding at all of sushi. It's not, sushi is not about freshness at all. First of all, even the best places deliberately cure their fish by freezing it. Some out of, sometimes out of necessity to kill the critters, others because it makes it better. But it's almost never about the freshest fish.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Fresh fish is right out of the water, is still in rigor and it's rubbery, often, most fish. Often rubbery and unpleasant and without much flavor. Which is why in Iceland they rot it sometimes because you get more funk. You're looking for the perfect point in the decay of the fish. Same with meat. Almost everything we eat and like, cheese, meat, fish. They're all aged, just wine. So it's really about decay and rot and death. As cheerful as that sounds. Damn, this, I never knew, thank you.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I mean, fresh tuna, right out of the water, no self-respecting Japanese wants that. They want it just right after more days than you probably want to know.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Well, you're talking about bark. And, you know, I was in the jungle in Peru and I tried ayahuasca with the shaman there. The also known as, I guess it's like a yahay, they also call it.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Psychedelic jungle root used as a curative in traditional medicine.

• 30:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you ingest it?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Uh, the, uh, the, the, the doctor, so to speak, uh, brews a, uh, a liquid out of it. Uh, this one particular root, often mixed with others, and administers it, often drinking it, almost always in my experience, drinking it himself. Um, and you're supposed to get in touch with your spirit animal. And it's supposed to cure any variety of, of, of ills, both psychological and physical. And, uh, it's a, you know, uh, I have friends who claim it's, uh, solved a lot of personal problems for them, uh, through repeated controlled use, uh, in groups.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Emphasis on controlled use.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Um, and I, I, I believe it's a legal, uh, form of therapy in, in, in some states. I know there are organized groups who do it. It's rather an extraordinary thing.

• 31:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an odd fact that in the history of our relationship with plant life, people have either tried to eat it, smoke it,

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  extract it, drink it. I'm just intrigued that we just, we feel this urge.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  I think primitive man had a lot of free time. You know, and, and they were hungry also.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't have the internet or anything, right? Yeah.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  You know, when you're hungry and living in harsh conditions, um, I mean, to some extent, Chinese food is an extension of this. Um, when you don't have the luxury of, you know, fat steaks, uh, at the supermarket, you really have to make the most of everything you've got. And, and I think Chinese food is the story of people figuring out, relentlessly, over thousands of years, figuring out not just everything that could possibly be good, uh, and how to cook it, as well as how to take things that aren't particularly good, and through application of heat and time and technique, making that good. You know, so, you know, chicken feet or pig's tails might not seem like they're good.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  But in the hands of a of a great cook, uh, they certainly can be.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fact that the very phrase, it's a matter of taste.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Means I might like something that you don't and vice versa. So what does it even mean for you to have a show? To talk about what's good and what isn't? How does that work?

• 32:38Speaker 01

  It is completely subjective. I mean, they say that that all all food tastes are acquired or are are are learned, that they are not, uh, I mean, babies will eat rotten food if their if their mothers say this is good. Uh, I think bitter, we babies, at least in this country, react to, uh, negatively.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hence, no vegetables. Yeah, yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  I never say, uh, I never evaluate food on the show anymore. I don't use adjectives anymore. I never say, well, I have no toast, you know, background notes of minerality. Does this help anyone in any way? I I I say, wow, this is really good, or I'm not so sure about that. Um, but it's entirely subjective. Are there certain regions of the world where the taste buds genetically don't taste some things versus others? And so the food reflects this? I'm not sure. I know that it it it one out of a certain, one out of a small group of people will not

• 33:42Speaker 01

  detect certain flavors at all, at all, um, or or certain elements of popular, uh, commonly eaten foods.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if they become a colony, they could end up creating dishes that would be offensive to those who taste that. Who have the capacity to taste it, and they don't, and therefore it's just fine to them.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I think one of the things that's prevented, uh, the Philippines from taking their rightful place as a major world cuisine beloved by everybody on every corner. I mean, Thai food is widely loved and and and appreciated. Um, Sichuan food, as spicy as it is, but, uh, I think Filipino food has been less quick to spread. And I think that's because, my guess, uh, they like an element of bitterness. And in fact, in the Philippines, they will use bile, um, to add that.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  You know, very important note to some of their traditional dishes. And that's a, that's a taste that Americans, I think instinctively recoil from in a way that they just simply do not. That's a, that's a treasured component. We have textural predilections and aversions that seem innate, or at least are so deep in our culture. America, we love anything crispy. You know, anything covered in batter and crispy, we're gonna love. We'd love it better. We don't even need anything inside the batter. We'll eat the batter. But when you get into that chewy, rubbery, gelatinous, you know, boiled chicken skin,

• 35:20Speaker 01

  fish skin, abalone, a lot of things that they really love in, you know, tendon in China and Japan.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tendon.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Beef tendon's great. It's fantastic. But look, I mean, that's, that's, most Americans go, oh dude, no.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tendon.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  That, you know, those are major ingredients in, you know, Vietnam, China, Japan, and those are textures that they're very comfortable with. And in fact, they prize them. Whereas we're who, right away, I'm not sure, no.

• 35:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just a quick excursion here. We joke a lot in America about some countries that like eat dog, or things that we otherwise identify as pets. Could you, do you have any, any insights into such aversions psychologically?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I know that pigs are, I think pigs are smarter than dogs, right? But, but I grew up with, you know, dogs as pets and I think of them as pets. And so it's something I've managed to gracefully avoid eating for my entire career, 17 years traveling around the world, eating. I've managed to avoid offers of dog at every turn and, and, and will try, will, will try to do so for the rest of my life. But it is a completely arbitrary. Thing. It is hypocritical of me. I grant you to eat and love pig on one hand and spare spare poochy, where, you know, they are eaten in parts of the world.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  And I'm instinctively appalled, but it is a random culturally imperialistic feeling on my part, you know, but I mean, it's a very deeply felt one.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Any thoughts on the future of sort of laboratory grown proteins to simulate meat? So that you don't ever have to kill an animal?

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think laboratory grown meat, the thought horrifies me as a chef, as a cook, as a somebody who's passionate.

• 37:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You still get to cook it. You just don't have to kill the animal.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, we're talking meat like, aren't we? I mean, so much of meat is textural. It is the interconnected viscera, muscle and, you know, fat and, you know, what makes meat interesting is the degree of exercise, its diet, how the, you know, what you prize in beef is the marbling, the ripple of fat through lean that comes from movement. Presumably, your laboratory grown meat will not have moved at any point. But I suspect given-

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's out of pasture now.

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a cube.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Given the way, given the way the world is going, we might well have to eat laboratory grown meat soon, if not our neighbors.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the first round of it will be ground meat.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Might replace hamburger meat, which you're not in search of the marbling and the textures and the-

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, not as much as the T-bone or the goodbye.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I, well, not as much.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. That's all I'm saying. That's, it might be its first foray, but that could completely transform- Your world.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Um, yes, and look, a lot of the world.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not your world, not only your world, not the world.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  The world, look, there are a lot of hungry people in this world.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  For whom a single chicken is a life or death thing. It's a, um, they need protein. Um, and I guess laboratory grown meat would be a solution. Uh, but we, you know, we've given up on something really fundamental. It goes, when we move to laboratory grown meat, when any culture does, it's a surrender. Uh, we're, we're, we're shutting ourselves off to something that goes back to the beginning of human civilization. In fact, it's likely it was the beginning of human civilization, the fire and a hunk of meat. You know, it was the first time people probably cooperated, you know? I'll kill the animal.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  You'll, you'll, you drag it back to the fire, you build the fire, and then we're all sitting around figuring out how we're going to divide up this thing. That's kind of the beginning of any kind of organized society, uh, according to some scientists.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you have any question you might have of me, I as an astrophysicist? Any, any questions you've harbored in your life about the universe? This would be the time to ask.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Well, it's a global warming question. If I was thinking of buying, uh, some like waterfront real estate, uh, beachfront property in Uruguay, um, I've been told that it would be okay for me and, and probably for my daughter, but, but I'd advise against like my granddaughter buying beachfront property in Uruguay. Would you concur?

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, uh, I would say it's not a good thing at all.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll tell you why. Because it's one thing for the sea levels to rise and you'll say, all right, I'll put my house here and I got, you know, 20 years before the sea level goes up four inches.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? That's one way to think about it. Another way to think about it is. The storm that used to come only once a century now comes once a decade. And that storm involves a tide surge. And so that four inches that you're just comparing to sea level is now four inches on a tide surge and you completely flood your house. So on that one storm, just as what happened in Lower Manhattan here with Hurricane Sandy.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  So if I hear you correctly, you're advising against the purchase of beachfront property anywhere.

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying get the hell out. Unless you have no descendants and you don't, or you don't care about your descendants. Yeah, it's, it's a matter of not just will the water level inch its way up and one day you'll just pack up and leave. It's the storm that previously didn't breach your property and then does. And when it breaches, it's catastrophic to everything you own.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Wow, what a Debbie Downer. Really harsh my buzz.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's how you first experience the effects of the, the global warming. It's the simple storm that is now a few inches higher than it once was. And, and the town or the municipality had built the flood wall. They built the, you know, for the once in a hundred year storm. And now it's once in 10 years and then you have a storm that's now the once in a thousand year storm. You didn't even know that existed because you didn't have, you didn't have a town there a thousand years ago. So, yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. I had a Nazi cyborg question. I think I'll save that for the next time around.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What haven't you eaten yet and where haven't you been to do so?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Well, uh, you know, there's, there is nothing on my bucket list as far as food off the top of my head. There are countries I haven't been to, but at this point, really, if I haven't been there and, and want to go there, um, it's for security reasons. I mean, I've wanted to go to Yemen for a long time. That's obviously not a safe option at this point. Syria doesn't recommend making that anytime soon. Afghanistan, we come close every year, but insurance companies are a little uncomfortable. Kashmir, I'd like to go very much. I've never been to Switzerland.

• 42:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  But I will tell you, I have, that is, that is my choice. I have a deep.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Psychological inexplicable terror of all things Swiss. I don't know why, but I'm afraid of Switzerland. I think it was a some forgotten childhood incident. Repeated viewings of Sound of Music. I'm not kidding you, I really creeped out by chalet architecture. Snow-covered peaks, cuckoo clocks, lederhosen, Alpine vistas. No joke, I mean, I know it sounds funny and it is kind of a joke, but I've been well over...

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that why you're wearing a Timex watch and not a Swiss watch?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I've been, you know, well over, I've been to like 120 countries and I haven't been to Switzerland. Because I'm afraid.

• 43:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Okay, we all have phobias, I guess. You're Swiss phobic.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yodeling.

• 43:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the sound of terror.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's Ricola, the throat candy?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I can't watch those.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Oh dude, I'm gonna start twitching.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Congratulations, 23 Emmy nominations over the life of the show. Oh my gosh. Peabody, I mean, that's, that's, this is what anyone who, who creates TV for love and for art, that's what anybody wants. And so just congratulations on that.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 44:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And may you have many, many more seasons.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 44:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doing this. Hope you enjoyed that one-on-one conversation with Anthony Bourdain. Neil deGrasse Tyson here for StarTalk. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.