Chef Andrew Zimmern knows that most viewers of his new show “Field to Fire” do not have access to freshly hunted nilgai. Or squirrel. Or deer. Or an open flame to cook these things.
But that’s OK, he said: He has plenty of recipe variations to offer.
“Field to Fire,” airing on the Outdoor Channel, is a new twist on a classic cooking show. The Emmy Award- and James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef and writer is taking viewers up close and into the woods as he hunts and fishes for the very proteins he later cooks over an open fire.
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“‘Field to Fire’ finally allows us to show people how we’re spending our time in the outdoors before we actually get into our outdoor kitchen,” Zimmern told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Showing what happens effectively behind the scenes of a cooking show, Zimmern said, is “a wonderful thing for people to see.”
“They’ll meet incredible characters. I think the people who spend their lives devoted to hunting and fishing are some of our most adamant conservationists,” he said. “And I’m just delighted that this show is off to a rocking start.”
During filming, Zimmern traveled throughout the southern United States and his home state of Minnesota. He harvested everything from sheepshead to squirrels, he said.
Zimmern described himself as “someone who’s predicated their entire life on having an encyclopedia of foods that he’s tried over the years that no one else can touch.”
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Even so, he found himself trying new things during filming – something both delightful and disgusting, he said.
“The real surprises have been [that] some of the species that I’ve been able to hunt and fish for are new for me,” he said.
Among the foods new to him were Texas alligator gar, which he described as “absolutely one of the most worthless pieces of fish” he had ever eaten.
Texas gar, he said, “put up a hell of a fight” but should be “100% catch and release.”
“I can tell you that we have a lot of other ways in which we can feed our hungry planet,” he said, referencing the gar.
It was not all bad, however, he indicated. During his travels, Zimmern was able to harvest a nilgai, a large Eurasian deer species that now calls part of Texas home.
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“When I tell you this meat tastes better than veal, it tastes better than veal. It’s one of the most beautiful, beautiful pieces of meat I’ve ever tasted in my life,” he said.
Nilgai were imported to Texas in the early 20th century but escaped into the wild.
Today, they’re found on game ranches; there is also a feral population, Zimmern said.
The unexpected deliciousness of nilgai, Zimmern said, “goes a long way to prove my point that we have so many different ways we could be feeding people healthy, nutritious meat without going through the commodity agribusiness system that is producing toxic meats that are not serving us very well,” he said.
Zimmern said, however, that he knows most people do not have the means or ability to go out and hunt a wild duck, for instance.
“‘Field to Fire’ is a show that I designed for everyone. So even if you are not into hunting or fishing, that’s the smaller part of the show,” he said.
“We designed the recipes so that everyone can learn something.”
“The bigger part of the show is the cooking,” he continued. “And we designed all of the recipes around the fact that if you don’t have nilgai but want to make the recipe, there’s [other] types of meat in your supermarket you can do it with.”
The recipes he makes on the show, Zimmern told Fox News Digital, “are all designed for anybody to be able to follow along with, and I’m really, really proud of that.”
“You know, [instead of] wild turkey, you use the store-bought turkey or chicken or a little Cornish game hen,” he said.
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“We designed the recipe so that everyone can learn something and do something with the recipes that we have for you.”
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