Gastronaut Interview with Stefan Gates – Cooking In The Danger Zone!

Hi there people in Travel Tart land. Today I’ve got a foody/offbeat bent with my interview today – it’s Stefan Gates, otherwise known as The Gastronaut. He’s been in a heap of TV series, including one of my favourites, Cooking in The Danger Zone, which involves all sorts of weird foods in places that package tourists would avoid like the plague.

Other shows of his include Food Factory, Feasts, Incredible Edibles, and Eating Insects with Stefan Gates. As you can tell, these shows focus on some of the more unusual foods out there!

Stefan kindly took some time out to chat to me. Check out his Gastronaut website. You can also follow @StefanGates on Twitter. Anyway, here it is!

The Gastronaut (Stefan Gates) Chats about Weird Food!

The Travel Tart: Hi Stefan, thanks for the opportunity to chat. First of all, for the newcomers out there, how would you describe yourself and your shows in a paragraph?

Stefan Gates: I’m a foodhead: I write and present programmes about food adventures (14 TV series at the last count). Why? Well, we spend around 20% or our entire lives on food (eating, cooking, shopping, queuing, washing up, earning money to buy it) and I don’t want a single moment of that precious time wasted on mundanity. I’m not much of a comfort food fan – I like food that rattles your trousers and shakes your world – food that has a story, that means something or reveals secrets about the human condition. So I explore food science, war, history and travel the world talking to people about how they eat and cook, and what it means to them – in Chernobyl, in refugee camps, in war zones, farms and soup kitchens. Food is an extraordinary tool for exploring the world.

The Travel Tart: Some of the food I’ve seen you eat on your shows has left me dry reaching and almost running to the toilet. Some of those dishes almost make Bear Grylls look like he’s having a fine class dining experience when he’s in survival mode. Out of all of the weird, unusual, and bizarre things you have ever tried, what is the one dish that has been the most disgusting you’ve ever tried? Bonus points if it’s left you on the toilet for a week!

Stefan Gates: Do you know what: I’ve never been ill on all my travels, although I do – inexplicably – get the shits every time I visit France (which is about four times a year). However, the worst food on earth is WITHOUT QUESTION surstromming – a rotten herring dish from Scandinavia. It tastes like vomit mixed with fox excrement and it’s viciously strong. Worse: once you’ve eaten it, you burp the stench up for the next 6 hours. Nothing on earth has made me want to puke more. Bizarrely, there are several companies who sell it in cans – the cans buckle under the pressure of the fermentation inside, and they inevitably spurt vomity fish all over your face when you open the can.

The Travel Tart: Yummo! You are noted for your food stunt shows. I did a bit of chemistry back in the day and managed to not vapourise an entire building. Has there been a food stunt that didn’t go quite to plan, and if so, did you blow up the kitchen?

Stefan Gates: Well, of course we’ve blown a fair amount of stuff up, and that can go awry. But I had liposuction once to prove that many of the food additives we are scared of are actually naturally-occurring in our own bodies. I had to talk through the operation as the fat was removed from my belly. I’m a bit skinny, so the surgeon had to root around a fair bit and after the op I couldn’t bear to have anything touch my stomach – disastrous if you’re trying to film a TV series about food.

The Travel Tart: When I interviewed Simon Reeve, he mentioned that the most dodgiest place he’s ever been to is Mogadishu, in Somalia. He even had to wear reinforced underwear as protective gear in case someone aimed for his crown jewels! You’ve been to places like Afghanistan, but which city or country has left you wanting to make sure you have been wearing the brown underpants, and for what reason?

Stefan Gates: Oddly enough I didn’t feel the fear in Category One conflict zones as I did on the ‘Surviving Hostile Regions’ course the BBC send you on before sending you into the hell-pots of the world. We got blown up, shot, hijacked and were forced to watch videos of people having their fingers sawn off. All I kept thinking was ‘My kids are going to find out that Daddy died making a cookery show’.

The Travel Tart: I’ve been amazed at the huge popularity of cooking shows that involve the elimination of contestants every week. How do you think you would go with your recipes on one of these ‘reality’ cooking shows? I’d love to see the look on some of the judges faces!

Stefan Gates: Fascinating question – the reality is that I’d hate to eat raw kangaroo testicles – those babies are meant to be cooked! Don’t waste that glorious protein by serving it raw and flavourless. All those reality shows have given entomophagy a bad name. I love a deep-fried grasshopper but nobody eats grasshoppers raw – are you insane?

The Travel Tart: Like yourself, I’ve tried Kava in Fiji, which looks like muddy water, and tastes like.. muddy water that makes your tongue tingle. I’m not sure if you’ve come across the cane toad, which is an introduced species in Australia and a massive pest. The cane toad contains a poison called Bufotoxin in it’s skin which kills off a lot of Australian wildlife, but some drug-head desperados boil cane toads up and skim off the residue for use as a hallucinogen. Seriously, the Bufotoxin contains Bufotenin, which is classified as a Class 1 drug under Australian law, alongside heroin and cannabis. Keen to try it out? ;P

Stefan Gates: I’d love to try licking a cane toad – haven’t had the chance so far. I’m always looking for new foods because I’m either searching for the new potato that’ll feed the world, or the new chocolate that will make me rich! That does make the world speed up a bit, and the various moonshines around the world are pretty pokey. One thing I can tell you is that Yak’s penis isn’t a very good aphrodisiac.

The Travel Tart: I’ve done the odd video presentation, which took me out of my comfort zone because it’s not something I do all the time. Put it this way, there were lots of scenes cut! What’s the funniest outtake you’ve produced on your TV shows?

Stefan Gates: Hah! Many of my favourite programmes are shot on very low budgets with just me and a cameraperson who is also the director/producer/soundman. It’s a really tough way to work (for them) although you get great footage and you can change your plans in an instant to follow people who are most interesting. The downside is that the cameraperson doesn’t get someone to watch their back. The best one was when we were filming in the legendary Dharavi slum in Mumbai and my cameraman walked straight into a vast pool of human excrement as I did a piece to camera. All the locals fell about laughing, as did I, I’m afraid to say.

The Travel Tart: Finally, I ask people where they caught the travel bug. For me, it was working in post war Kosovo. Where was the time and place where you thought, “Hell yeah, I love travelling?’

Stefan Gates: Trip to Japan aged 12. Had only been on camping trips until then. The food blew my mind and I realised that eating could be exhilarating, naughty, tactile and celebratory.

The Travel Tart: Thanks so much for your time! Happy eating!

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