Bestill My Beating Frog Heart

The popularity of Anthony Bourdain’s envelope-pushing TV show No Reservations led to a weird-world-eats programming boomlet. On the Travel Channel: Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, a shock-focused visual gross-out that manages to be both playful investigation and rubbernecker’s delight. We saw Zimmern down poultry embryos, beating frog’s hearts, and pulp-eating mangrove ribbon worms. The Food Network answered back with Have Fork, Will Travel, a sappy knockoff hosted by comedian and Three Sheets star Zane Lamprey, though Lamprey lacks Zimmern’s genuine curiosity and Bourdain’s cool intelligence. Even the National Geographic Channel got in on it, with a special “Gross Food” Halloween episode of Taboo. What’s next, Cooking with Cannibals? —Aaron Gilbreath