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I'm throwing rocks...
Oh!
...at pigeons.
Eating pigeons off of city streets...
...rays out of Chesapeake Bay...
The star of our dinner party has just arrived.
I'm dying to taste it.
...ham that's been hanging around for four years.
Spoilage.
This is Virginia.
People here have always been adamant
about transforming the ways we eat.
Wow.
Even if it means collecting bugs to put in a soup.
Most people think it sounds a little bit disgusting.
I'm Andrew Zimmern, and this is "Bizarre Foods: America."
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
From its beautiful countryside to the waters of Chesapeake Bay
to the laid-back cities and sleepy towns,
Virginians have always been reverent of the past
and hospitable to explorers of the new and unexpected.
This is no walk in the park.
It's a hunting expedition in search of food.
And this is the quarry.
So, if you get one that's kind of flapping,
it's on the ground,
you got to run and tackle it like a football, okay?
This is what my career has come to.
I'm throwing rocks at pigeons on the street.
Oh!
I got so close!
Meet Jackson Landers,
author, hunting guide,
and self-appointed founder
of what he calls the "invasivore movement,"
battling invasive species by eating them.
My day with Jackson began a few hours earlier,
far from the city.
This is not good. We've got white water here.
I mean, this is potentially a life-threatening situation
in order to get over to where the snails
actually are in the water.
This is Totier Creek State Park,
and our prey is plentiful,
easily accessed on most days under a few rocks
in the middle of the creek.
The rainstorms of the past week
have turned ankle-deep still water
into waist-high raging rapids.
Jackson's usual crossing is unnavigable.
Downstream, we can risk it.
Jeans were a bad idea.
A man's got to do what a man's got to --
I hope you got something on under there.
All right.
Okay.
I can't see where the rocks are. I'm gonna feel my way here.
Did we properly rehearse our hand signals?
[ Laughs ]
All right.
Oh!
You all right?
Yeah, it's just a lot of force here.
ZIMMERN: We're going to all this trouble
to collect and eat the invasive Chinese mystery snail.
All right. You made it.
Brought from Asia in the 1890s as a food resource,
they've gotten into the ecosystem
and are spreading fast and crowding out native species.
All right. Well, we are right up
to where we should be able to start finding some snails.
You got one?
You do!
First Chinese mystery snail of the day.
The snails got their name
because they give birth to live young
and reproduce so quickly that people found it a mystery
where they could all be coming from.
What you're not seeing is native snails.
Where these guys become established,
the things that belong start to disappear.
Jackson understands that picking up invaders like these
is not only good for the environment,
it's also good eating.
He's eaten invaders ranging from feral pig to snakehead...
to the common city pigeon.
And much to my surprise,
we're stalking them among the historic monuments
and cobblestone streets of Charlottesville.
The method is prehistoric.
Find a bird, hit it with a rock,
finish it off with a knife.
If a spot is too crowded
and people see you knifing a pigeon,
people are gonna panic.
Someone might start screaming,
they run up to you, they call 911.
What we're doing is legal,
but it might take half an hour
of convincing a police officer of this.
I'd rather not have the conversation.
Absolutely not.
Pigeon is so delicious. It's such a great meat.
The idea that we could regularly take them
probably in cities all over the United States...
You got so many people who are looking for free-range meat,
and a couple squabs, a couple pigeons,
that's a lot of meat.
Yeah, sounds great -- if you can find one.
But it doesn't look like there's a lot here.
Yeah.
Can't get those, can we?
Not this time of year, no. We're gonna walk around.
If we cover enough ground on foot, we're gonna see some.
There's one. I see one right there.
We're gonna move on 'em.
He's just walking around.
Wrong place, wrong time, pigeon.
They're a little bit spooked.
Let's try to cut the distance in half,
and then just throw. You ready?
We should have been a little more aggressive at that point?
Well, if you're too aggressive,
you're too fast, you spook them off.
It depends on how good you are with a rock --
how accurate and how hard can you throw?
No joke, the USDA classifies pigeons as an invasive species.
Do it now. Now. Now. Now. Now.
[ Rock thumps ]
It was close.
Why, you ask?
Because pigeon poop corrodes public buildings
and creates a slew of health hazards.
There's one. Right now. Right now. Right now. Do it.
Oh, too late!
It's pigeon poop,
not pigeon meat that poses the health risk.
He's still up there. Do it.
Get him! Get him! Get him!
I took two here yesterday
that we're gonna cook tonight.
So they might be a little nervous.
The good thing is we have a limitless supply of rocks.
They're laughing at us.
We might as well go back and cook the ones you got yesterday.
We've got pigeons to cook.
At his home in Scottsville,
Jackson brings out yesterday's catch.
Take notice -- city pigeons are not garbage-eating scavengers.
That's the head.
What did I tell you?
Oh, yeah.
Bird seed.
[ Laughs ]
It's a grain-fed pigeon!
After removing the feathers,
we season them with salt, pepper, and tarragon.
It really is amazing
because I'm getting supremely appetizing aromas
of city bench and curb.
And brown them in olive oil and butter
before they go in the oven.
The mystery snails will have to be purged for a week
before Jackson can cook them.
Luckily, Jackson has a batch he collected last week.
We blanch them and pull them from their shells.
One look tells you all you need to know
about why these little critters
are so dangerous to leave unchecked in the ecosystem.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at this.
Oh, yeah. You know what those little things are?
That's right.
Have you ever seen the babies in there like that?
Not to the degree that this --
I mean, every single one of these...
Every single one.
Which makes me feel good about eating this particular batch.
They needed to go.
They needed to go.
Once the snails are cleaned,
I sauté them in butter with garlic cloves
and a touch of chili flake...
finished off with celery leaf and lime juice.
Beautiful.
Fantastic.
It has something that really can only be described
as almost -- I mean, it's amphibious,
but not in the animal sense.
I'm talking --
You dive in the lake, and you get lake water.
It tastes of where it comes from.
We've all had that experience as a child or something.
Eating mystery snails is a first for me.
So is this.
I've eaten farm-raised squab and wild pigeon,
but never a city pigeon picked off an urban lamppost.
I never want to forget this moment.
All right. City pigeon.
It's like milder goose with a finer texture.
Oh.
This is so ridiculously delicious.
Roasted meat.
It tastes like squab,
that light beefy flavor,
Yeah.
...that all good squab has.
My chef friends are just not even gonna believe this.
Here's another first for me.
JADIN: She's the one you want to eat.
Eating cicadas that come along only once in 17 years.
She's got the fat and the protein and all the filling.
But first, on Chesapeake Bay,
fourth-generation bay men are turning these into food.
Hello, darling!
ZIMMERN: For generations,
fishermen on Chesapeake Bay
have made a living bringing fish to market.
Marketing this fish is something new.
The star of our dinner party has just arrived.
Cownose rays, last ones out of the pen.
Hello, darling.
Cownose ray is not most people's idea of seafood.
There's a team of people working to change that,
creating a new managed fishery on the bay
and helping save the older ones in the process.
Ahoy!
These men have worked through the night,
sweeping their nets through the water,
herding all kinds of fish into this narrow pen.
It's a technique dating back thousands of years.
Yep.
A guiding spirit for building this new industry
is Meade Amory.
His family business processes what the bay fishermen bring in.
They've been doing it for many years.
How long has your family been doing
the commercial-fishing thing?
Four generations.
Yes, sir.
So, just a short time.
[ Laughs ] Yeah. Almost a hundred years now.
That's incredible. It's an amazing legacy.
A legacy that's now under threat
from an aquatic chain reaction.
People sadly overfish shark species that eat the rays.
Rays are now filling up the bay
and devouring clams and oyster beds
that are a mainstay of the local fishing industry.
And that's messing up the entire ecosystem.
So, why not start fishing for rays themselves?
Boy, oh, boy.
When these fish do come in the boat,
it's gonna be like popcorn all over the bottom of the pan.
This is gonna be fun.
As the nets start coming, Bob Fisher is watching closely.
He's a marine biologist
working with the developers of this fledgling industry
to help them harvest rays without obliterating them.
A fishery's not gonna happen
if it's not able to be sustainable.
So the younger rays are carefully thrown back.
There's a little baby pup in there.
This pup needs to grow up
and make baby rays of his own someday
before he winds up in our net.
Fishing for cownose ray in the Chesapeake is extra tricky
because they come into the bay to mate
and again to give birth.
Disrupting that cycle can decimate the species.
This morning's other big catch are the croaker fish.
'Cause I always heard that's why they were called that.
Never had the opportunity to hear that.
One of the great sounds in nature.
[ Bubbling ]
It's a good haul for croaker.
For the rays, we've got a dozen
that are mature enough to harvest.
It's a fish you handle with care.
There's a barb at the base of the tail
that can leave a nasty mark, as Bob knows all too well.
From the front end,
you can see how the rays demolish shellfish.
MAN: See the tooth plates.
Their jaws are made of just plates.
They're not conical teeth.
ZIMMERN: So they really do just crush.
They just crush.
What a cool animal.
At LDA Marine Company,
they've perfected a system for preparing the rays for market.
You need some serious equipment to break these things down.
Cut off the wings, remove the edges,
remove the skin...
It's like a shaver.
...filet the wings.
A lot of seafood people are looking for a wide filet
or, you know, they think a fish filet.
It's more like meat.
It's flank steak.
Yeah, and it's got the texture of a veal or a pork.
Almost all protein --
there's very little fat in this at all.
Yeah.
A 3 1/2-inch serving of cownose ray
has 91 calories, 20 grams of protein,
and no measurable fat content.
Marketers have renamed the cownose
with the more appetizing and descriptive moniker
of Chesapeake ray
in a serious attempt to make the other other red meat
more palatable to consumers.
Wegmans Grocery even carries it now,
but only here in Northern Virginia.
In the town of Hampton, at the Conch & Bucket,
Peter Pittman is an early convert.
You can steer it in any direction that you want
flavor-profile-wise.
It absorbs flavor.
You can't really go wrong with it
with any sort of recipe.
I'm dying to taste it on its own and see what it does.
These guys use the ray to make burgers and some other dishes.
But I want to taste the fish itself.
Peter's chef, Sam Garrity, does the cooking.
This is it in its purest form.
It even looks like beef that's resting.
Oh, my. I think I'm gonna love this.
Wow. It's not tough at all.
It's firm.
But it's firm the way a tender veal chop
or a farm-raised, all-natural pork chop.
And you cooked that perfectly.
Thank you.
Don't let it go to your head.
[ Laughs ]
It comes from the bay.
Everything that comes from the bay is delicious.
Oh!
No, but seriously, this thing has a great flavor.
It's not oily, it's not salty,
it's not fishy -- it plays as beef.
And I can't stop eating this.
It's that good.
Virginia is famous for ham.
[ Pig snorts ]
And there are people trying to build an even better one,
starting with how they feed their pigs.
I'm actually hungry smelling the peanuts.
Hamburger? Fantastic.
And later, feeding some of America's best
aboard one of the Navy's newest ships.
ZIMMERN: Virginia and ham go together like coals and Newcastle.
Here at Edwards & Sons,
there is ceaseless curiosity about how to improve
on what some would say is already a perfect product.
EDWARDS: All we're doing is duplicating
what my ancestors knew about curing hams.
ZIMMERN: Sam Edwards is the third generation
of a family business that got its start in 1926
when Jamestown ferry captain S. Wallace Edwards' ham sandwiches
became so popular,
he decided to give up his day job
and cure hams full time.
Sam is experimenting with techniques
from Europe and Colonial Virginia,
in the days when making ham truly tasted of the seasons.
The salting happens here in the Winter room --
32 degrees and 80% humidity.
It's a wet cold.
You want the ham to be soft
so that it's accepting the salt as quickly as possible.
And even though we've been doing this for 87 years,
we're still learning.
[ Grunting ]
One of Sam's newest experiments
begins at Red Barn Berkshire Hog Farm
a few minutes down the road.
Bershire hogs are a tasty heritage breed,
known for their balance of fat and muscle.
Sam and farm owner Tony Seward
are counting on an old Virginia tradition
to make a great-tasting pig even better.
Years ago, they used to let the hogs roam the peanut fields
just as a supplement to their diet
because it was on the ground.
And as it turned out, it imparted a unique flavor.
Sam and Tony have developed a pig feed
made of corn or wheat, soy, and 30% peanuts.
This is food.
Mm-hmm.
We eat this, too.
Every bit of it.
There's no swill.
I mean, this is like -- I don't know -- It smells good.
I'm actually hungry smelling the peanut.
The rich fat in the Berkshire hogs
is what keeps these hams from drying out
through the years-long indoor curing seasons.
They'll stay in here about three weeks,
so it's a short spring,
and then we'll start
to gradually bring the temperature up
to about 85 to duplicate summer.
Summertime.
It may not seem like there's a lot going on here,
but on the microbial level,
it's like the Super Bowl in this room.
It's controlled fermentation. That's what we like to think.
Spoilage.
Good bacteria gives any cured ham its flavor.
In the next room,
European technique meets Virginia tradition.
Oh, my goodness!
This is the Edwards family famous smokehouse room.
We leave them in there till we get that dark mahogany color
that we're looking for.
Some rooms are pit-fired.
Others get smoke piped in
from an old-fashioned hand-cobbled machine out back.
Kind of old-fashioned, but it works.
For the country hams, this is where the story ends.
But there's a new kind of ham under construction here.
All these are surryanos.
I mean, this whole room is dedicated
to these longer-aged hams.
Surryanos are Virginia's answer
to Spain's classic dry-aged jamón ibérico and jamón serrano.
They're made using only handpicked,
humanely raised animals,
salt-cured, dried, hickory-smoked,
then aged 18 months and sometimes beyond
in this temperature-controlled room.
So, once we get to a point
that we think the flavor profile
is getting close to what we're targeting,
we'll take an ice pick
and stick in every ham to check for aroma.
Oh, yeah.
You can almost taste that raw sweetness in it
that eventually will go away
and turn to that faintly fermented aroma
that we're familiar with.
Sam puts a lot of time and energy
into the surryano hams.
But he hasn't given up on old Virginia classics.
These are the dandoodle casings.
Stuff a pig *** with country sausage,
dry and smoke it, and you've got a dandoodle.
You get a little bit of the back-around taste to it.
Is that what you call it? "Background taste"?
Oh, no. I misheard you. You said back-around taste.
The dandoodles hail from a time
when people used every part of the animal
and let nothing go to waste.
[ Sizzling ]
Yeah.
This, to me, tastes of a front porch
and an old hound and a sweet tea.
Tastes of Virginia to me.
The dandoodle honors the past.
These special surryano hams are building the future
with a merging of American and European techniques,
creating something new in the food world.
What is this?
This is the unveiling of Tony's first batch
of Berkshire pigs that he raised
that were peanut-fed with a 30% peanut level.
Wowza, wowza, wowza.
That ham has some killer mouth feel.
Are you kidding me?
The peanut is extraordinary.
It's tart where it should be.
It's sweet where it should be.
It makes your tongue sizzle the way it should be.
Wow.
Ham slices on this tray
represent years of experimenting with aging times,
pig feed, even different salts.
We actually have to import it from the Mediterranean --
Mediterranean sea salt.
It's a granular instead of a flake.
Some of these have aged 18 months,
some for three or four years.
I love guys who have rare collectible Ferraris
who do things in their driveway like say,
"Oh, yeah, it's just a car."
'Cause that's what you're doing right now to me.
'Cause this is amazing. This is even more amazing.
I can taste the difference and the texture.
Now that he's tested the variations,
the next step is combining them.
I think what I'm gonna end up doing
is having the Berkshire pig, peanut-fed,
with sea salt, aged three to four years.
That sounds amazing.
I'll tell you in four years.
"You're in the Navy now, son."
Coming up, a look behind the scenes
at life aboard one of the Navy's newest ships.
That's great cooking right there.
It's great cooking, and, yes, those are bugs in the soup.
ZIMMERN: The world's largest naval base --
Norfolk, Virginia.
This is home court for one of the U.S. Navy's newest ships,
equipped with the latest technology,
operated by a steely and hardened crew,
who all need to be fed.
I'm assuming food service
is a major part of wellness and morale on the boat.
Very much so.
While we're under way, you're working 24 hours a day.
There is no time to go home and relax,
and so the time to relax
is with us when they're on the mess decks.
Right.
I'm aboard the USS Arlington,
the Navy's newest amphibious transport vessel.
Meet food service officer lieutenant Erin Walsh
and culinary specialist second class Donald Banks.
When it comes to diet, what's the most popular stuff?
Today's meal.
What are we having?
Today is Burger Wednesday,
so we will always have burgers on Wednesday.
Always.
Navy-wide, we'll have burgers on Wednesday.
Navy-wide.
ZIMMERN: Best way to see the sights is to start at the top.
This is the Arlington's bridge.
From here, the captain commands and the quartermaster steers.
So, I have a friend. He has a 15-foot sailboat.
It has a wheel -- well, it's that big.
And you kind of spin it like this.
This boat is 684 feet long
and 105 feet wide.
And this is how you steer.
My son has a remote-control car
that has a larger steering wheel than this.
As an amphibious transport ship,
the Arlington's mission is moving marines and equipment
at a moment's notice anywhere in the world.
Lieutenant Commander Eric Lull
shows the ways those marines can be deployed.
All the way down at that end, we've got our well deck.
The large gray panel that you see
and the sort of yellowish one just above it
open up sort of clamshell-style
so we can take landing craft in and out.
We can take hovercraft, we can take displacement vehicles --
all kinds of stuff -- in and out at sea.
We can get about 9 feet of water in there
so we can take in the same kind of stuff you see
like in the beginning of "Saving Private Ryan,"
Oh, yeah, yeah.
They just come in and out of here like a mothership.
The pride and sense of purpose
aboard this ship runs very deep.
The Arlington is one of just three Navy ships
christened in memory of those killed
in the September 11th attacks.
There are 184 stars laid out on the Memorial Deck --
one for every person killed that day at the Pentagon.
That's scrap metal from the wreckage area
of where flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
Commander Darren Nelson is captain of the USS Arlington.
Arlington County is the home of the Pentagon,
and so we are named for Arlington County.
It's important for us to have the strength to fight terrorism,
honor those that died that day,
and we have to have the fortitude
to continue the fight as long as necessary.
The Arlington can be at sea for up to seven months at a time.
There are 400 crew members,
and the ship can take on up to 800 marines for transport.
On board the vessel,
there are the ship's gyms, rec rooms, and tonsorial parlor.
This was always my favorite scene
in every Navy movie is, you know --
The barber?
Well, you know, the recruit comes on all shaggy,
and then there's always that transitional scene.
"You're in the Navy now, son."
[ Laughs ]
"Your hair's gone."
Fantastic.
Whoo! I love it.
See, now I feel like I belong.
Food preparation for crew and marines
happens here in the galley.
ZIMMERN: How many cooks on the team?
About, altogether, I'm gonna say 12.
12?
That's a tight group.
Seriously.
For the kind of numbers that you have to do.
It really is. But we pull it off.
Yeah.
For serving today's lunch, there's a new recruit.
Today's lunch includes chicken soup,
fresh fruit, chicken cutlets, hot dogs.
But there's no question
what's the star attraction on Burger Wednesday.
Burger, sir?
Cheeseburger.
Are you a Hamburger Wednesday devotee?
I am.
It's my favorite day of the week.
Hamburger? Fantastic.
There you go, ma'am.
You're welcome.
I don't want to tell the Navy its business...
but our buns are cold.
Burger, sir?
You got it.
The buns have now frozen to the bottom of the strap pan.
[ Laughs ] Oh, it's my fault!
I accidentally turned on the freezing mechanism
under the strap pan.
The Arlington is willing to be patient
with a blundering volunteer,
but the permanent kitchen staff
is held to the same high standards
as everyone else aboard this ship.
We get meal evals three times a day.
We're critiqued every meal.
Are you kidding me?
They come through and sample every single item.
Wow!
I hope there's not a problem with my bun-freezer accident.
I could bring down your average for Burger Wednesday.
That's a nice burger.
I think there's something very satisfying
about, arguably, America's favorite food
reappearing every single Wednesday on board this ship.
And something humbling about sharing a meal
with these brave servicemen and women.
"Dear U.S. Navy,
"your food is better than I imagined.
"One thought:
"Perhaps we shorten our work days
so we can enjoy more burger time."
There's a shopping mall in suburban Virginia
that's full of surprises...
This is brilliant.
...cooked by a man some consider
to be the best Chinese chef in America.
That's not a showstopper. That's a heart stopper.
Remember cicada mania?
It creates an opportunity for cooking with food
you will only see a handful of times in your life.
I mean, I'd eat them all just like that.
That's delicious.
[ Cicadas chirping ]
[ Woman screams ]
ZIMMERN: Sounds like a plague.
Billions of cicadas emerging after 17 years underground.
The cicadas emerge to mate, lay eggs,
and die within a few weeks --
time enough for a few people to collect and eat them.
You'll see a lot of holes,
and they tend to build little tunnels
coming out of the holes.
Dr. Jenna Jadin is a biologist
trained in the study of cicadas.
As we search these woods near Richmond, Virginia,
the hatching of Brood II is about finished.
You can sometimes find the skins of cicadas
still hanging off of trees.
We've gotten a lot of rain here recently.
Oh, it's been crazy.
Which means that they might be falling
to the ground and be deteriorating.
Studying the bugs is work.
Eating them is a hobby.
ZIMMERN: You like to cook with this stuff.
I do on occasion.
Brood X came out in 2004 when I was a grad student.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
So that's when I started cooking them.
And that's what grad students do is,
they come up with excuses to eat what they've been studying.
And they come up with excuses
to do anything but their research.
By culinary standards,
not all cicadas are created equal.
The males aren't as tasty as the females.
That's because he's hollow.
Mm-hmm.
And the reason he's hollow is --
I'll just lift up his wing a little bit here.
This little white thing --
that's called a timbal,
and that's how he makes his noise.
The female is this one here,
and the reason you can tell she's a female
is because of this thing -- the ovipositor right there.
It's very hard, very sharp,
and it cuts into the branch and lays a lot of eggs.
Jenna is a serious advocate for utilizing insects
as a cheap renewable protein source.
A billion people around the world are eating them.
It's catching on here, slowly.
Were there a lot of people collecting these for food
around this part of Virginia?
I think that most people think
it sounds a little bit disgusting,
and it's probably foodies and specialists
that are collecting them.
But there are people here and there, definitely.
And back, you know, back in the old days,
we know that Native Americans feasted on cicadas
when they came out.
Jenna's passion is shared
by chef and native Virginian Jason Alley.
His restaurant, Pasture, is all about creating a sense of place
and a connection to the land.
People are interested in eating things
that 17 years ago would not have crossed their mind.
That's great for us.
It allows us to play with some things and have fun.
Jason's head chef is Travis Milton.
For him, eating cicada is about rediscovering the regional past.
For me, growing up in Southwestern Virginia,
there were cookbooks all around when I was young
that had recipes for how to cook what we call jar flies...
Right.
...and what everyone else knows as cicadas.
Jenna supplies some of the bugs.
Jason and Travis supply the cooking expertise.
These guys like experimenting with ingredients
long before they're ready to put them on the menu.
You don't want the legs because they do feel a little funny.
So, we break those off.
If the head stays on, I think it looks great.
If it comes off, it's no big deal.
And then we just pull the wings off the back.
Sometimes you find a tasty bonus.
We got a female here, and those are all her eggs.
Lots of fat and protein right there.
After we remove the legs and wings,
we blanch them to remove any bacteria,
soak them in buttermilk,
and dredge them in a combination of rice and wheat flour.
Well, this is very exciting.
Have you ever had cicadas before?
No?
You did a beautiful job with them.
You're like a cicada savant.
Apparently, Jason and I both are.
How are they?
Crunchy?
Ooh, I got a female.
They have a wonderful, earthy mushroom quality to them
They do.
I mean, I'd eat them all just like that.
They're delicious.
Jason sautés carrots, onions,
celery peppers, curry, garlic, and, of course, peanuts.
Then he adds chicken stock and coconut water
and lets it simmer.
Such a good example of how
early American and African cultures
melded here in Virginia.
Peanut soup is a very, very African thing.
And you're adding in a little bit more Native American culture
by putting in the cicadas.
That's exactly right.
ZIMMERN: Once it's pureed and seasoned,
Jason finishes with a spicy tomato relish
and the fried cicadas.
[ Laughter ]
That's -- That's great cooking right there.
Fantastic.
The soup is stellar.
The garnish is smart cooking, and I'll tell you --
the addition of those cicadas is just -- it's killer.
I mean, I'd order that on a menu six ways to Sunday.
I'd look forward to that.
I got to make sure I leave some for my kids.
They're dying to eat one of these things.
We all believe in the need
to convince a new generation of Americans
about the importance of eating these foods.
It's important for our future, and it's delicious.
Those are good. They're like eating French fries.
They're great! They're great!
I think they kind of taste like fried oysters a little bit.
They do taste like fried oysters a little bit!
Kid-tested and approved?
His food is so unique,
people tracked this disappearing chef wherever he went.
There was talk about he'd gone to Ohio somewhere.
There was some talk about Atlanta.
Nobody knew.
Now everyone can taste what all the fuss is about.
It's the lower intestine that they've left fatty,
and the blood cake is absolutely divine.
ZIMMERN: There is a chef with a devoted legion of followers
who many consider to be the greatest Chinese chef
cooking in America.
They follow him like deadheads
used to follow their favorite band.
For years, he's been a phantom,
coming and going without notice.
Three states and eight restaurants in five years.
And there was talk about he'd gone to Ohio somewhere.
There was some talk about Atlanta.
Nobody knew.
Mm-hmm.
Once having tasted his food, you have to get more.
You have to get more.
His name is Peter Chang.
His food is an amazing combination
of masterful techniques combined with flawless ingredients.
Peter Chang came to America as chef for the Chinese embassy.
His first taste of American food is still a favorite.
[ Speaking native language ]
Sure. Sure.
I love that somebody comes from China,
and their first impression of our country
is doughnuts and coffee.
Eating doughnuts in a gas station
is about as American as it gets.
ZIMMERN: From the embassy,
Peter worked in a series of restaurant kitchens,
never finding one that matched his expectations --
until now.
Is this now --
Has he put a root down here in Short Pump?
[ Speaking native language ]
Yes.
He said, "Yes."
Even I understand that.
[ Laughter ]
Peter is now operating three Szechuan restaurants
in Northern Virginia,
working with his wife, Lisa,
and business partners, including Mary Lee.
Every dish painstakingly executed to order.
And then there's Chang's rule
that every plate be prepared in under a minute.
We've tried to explain
that we really need the chef to slow down,
but it's not gonna happen.
So here comes an awful lot of food really, really fast.
Chang is fast.
The food requires it,
and he turns the simplest dish into something extraordinary.
But it's the level of mastery of so many techniques
that helps to define this chef's art,
like the fish filet with pickled vegetables
and an eight-chili paste
that creates a singular and unique flavor.
The levels of flavor,
the different types of chilies,
where the pickled vegetable hits you in the mouth --
it dances across the mouth.
The textures are perfect. Perfect.
Peter and his wife, Lisa, are a culinary partnership.
Famous as a pastry chef in China,
she's responsible for much of the menu,
including the dough Peter uses
to create his scallion bubble cake dipped in curry sauce.
Usually, other Chinese restaurants,
they have the scallion bubble pancake --
they make them flat.
Yeah.
So on the pan fry, right?
But Lisa make this bubbly.
Wow.
The flavors are so clean.
It's very light.
His wife is an immense talent.
This is brilliant. This is brilliant.
The groupies who've spent years chasing down Peter's food
are ecstatic that he's finally come to rest.
MAN: Peter's food is just amazing.
That's why I travel 2 1/2 hours to come here and eat.
Believe me.
ZIMMERN: Five of these self-proclaimed "Changians"
are here for a multi-course meal.
The eggplant is so soft and creamy on the inside.
It's so dry and crusty on the outside,
in the best possible sense.
Peter developed a technique called dry frying
to eliminate any oily-mouth feel,
enhancing flavor by subtraction.
His dry-fried eggplant is a signature dish.
That is just extraordinary.
Here's the bamboo fish.
Every few minutes, out comes a new dish
with its own technique and flavor profile.
Wow.
Crispy pork belly, Szechuan pork sausage --
house-made, of course --
grandmother lobster, a lobster broken-rice porridge.
The lobster is butter-soft.
There's not an ounce of toothiness
or yielding quality to the flesh,
which is extremely hard to do with lobster.
WOMAN: Oh, my God.
Oh, I know what this is.
ZIMMERN: We've traveled back centuries,
into the days of Imperial China.
This is Chang's version of beggar's duck --
roasted, perfumed with sweet spices,
stuffed with sweet Seven Jewel Rice --
an imperial masterpiece prepared so every single flavor note
comes through loud and clear.
That's not a showstopper. That's a heart stopper.
[ Laughter ]
Mala rabbit hot pot
and hot, numbing intestine with pork blood and tripe
showcase Chang's worshipful use of locally grown chilies,
favoring them instead of traditional Chinese chilies
and Szechuan peppercorns.
The tripe is very clean, actually.
It's the lower intestine.
The intestines do taste very much of what they are.
The blood cake is absolutely divine.
The balance is great,
and with the crunch of the intestine,
it's just a really nice pairing.
Chang has finally come home to roost
in this corner of Virginia.
And with Chinese food like this
available in places far from New York or L.A.,
American food may never be quite the same.
It's not just some of the most remarkable Chinese food
being cooked in America.
It's some of the most remarkable food
being cooked in America.
And there's a big difference.
There's plenty of remarkable food cooking here in Virginia.
It's often happening in unexpected places,
made by people with a bold imagination
when it comes to choosing ingredients
and an enthusiasm for rediscovering past treasures
for today's tables.
So anytime you find yourself carried back to Old Virginny...
If it looks good, eat it.