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

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

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.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/food-science-and-culture-with-anthony-bourdain/(Clips of this interview originally aired January 4, 2019) Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

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. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. So, Anthony, thanks for coming back to StarTalk. You were one of our earliest guests like five years ago. Yes. Thanks for helping us out back then. Happy to do it. 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?

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. I noticed as well that people were very proud of their food,

often people very different than me, often people who had no particular reason culturally or politically to like Americans, yet at the table, given the opportunity to feed me 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. So, you know, we all have food and it's the consequence of whatever, but generally we don't think about it. And so what happens when you're in a place where there's more going on than just what came out of the kitchen? Well, I think the most extreme and maybe the most important example in the trajectory of my show was Beirut in 2006.

When we were doing what was ostensibly still a food and travel show, we'd finished shooting. Very travel show. We'd finished shooting... Very travelogue. Yeah. Well, we'd finished shooting another, you know, sort of upbeat, snarky maybe, restaurant scene. And the crew joined me in my room for beers in the mini bar. And we're looking lazily out the window and, you know, rockets and gunships attacked the airport, blowing into smithereens.

Our local crew disappears from the border, and we found ourselves in a war, blockaded, unable to leave, and trapped in Beirut for the next week or so, waiting to be evacuated. By the U.S. military? for the next week or so waiting to be evacuated. By the U.S. military? Yeah, the Marine Corps, the Navy and Marines took us off the beach in an LCU. Dramatic. In an LCU filled with wailing, crying 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 the well neighborhoods were vaporized around us, it just struck me as obscene to contemplate ever doing an upbeat food show in a world that allows things like this to happen regularly.

So this was a pivot point for you and your programming. Everything changed at that moment, and I started looking around. 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'm going to 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 going to tell me, well, I wasn't alive for the secret war here, but your military was's going to tell me, well, I wasn't alive for the secret war here, but your military was kind enough to leave behind a few million tons of unexploded ordnance that 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 later. You're sure CNN just didn't need another correspondent? I have the luxury of not being a reporter. I have the luxury of not being a reporter.

I joke that it's a stealth food show because I think people open up to me and tell me about their lives, often in places where 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. 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 do you like to eat? What makes you happy? What would you like for your children? And asking those simple questions, I often get very, very complicated, very revealing answers. Tell me about Antarctica. What's going on there? Oh, man.

What are you up to? I got people in Antarctica. I was so fortunate to spend time there. I had the most incredible time. It's another planet. It feels like another planet. On one hand, 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. Every drop of urine goes into bottles, then into 55-gallon drums,

and shipped back to America or elsewhere with every little bit of waste Not allowed to bring the people down there. We stayed at McMurdo a station the former military base now the National Science NSF National Science Foundation. Yeah, we were we were guests of the NSF 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. Just to be clear, at least in my field, it's a ripe place for research. It is. Because first, the sky conditions are spectacular when they're clear, and though you are on level ground, it actually very high elevation yeah 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 they're also interesting air circling circulation patterns for balloons where you can ascend detectors to measure the cosmic microwave background for example incredible because you have all these people working at McMurdo Base and the dishwashers are all like former professors of Russian lit or smart, smart, curious outcasts from all over the world who've come to work in maintenance and physical jobs so that they could be living under incredibly difficult conditions. But you'll see astrophysicists sitting at the table talking to guys who work in waste disposal,

engaged in a conversation about neutrinos. They do 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. So we met with the guys with a 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 under know I don't understand that all but they sound really cool Oh, just a quick thing because in Antarctica you get 24 hours of sunlight for six months. Oh, yeah continuously monitor the Sun Yeah, 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 uh people who love it down there who've been going for 26 seasons to a 30 seasons so what do they eat they got to ship in the steaks well and the vegetables what everything comes in uh but mostly by ship but all some stuff by plane there's a cafeteria uh both at McMurdo and at the South Pole,

where everything is essentially processed, frozen. Frozen, really? 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 deadins 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 months drinking allowance pet a puppy you just just hold a puppy for a little bit because there's no dogs no pets of course were allowed there because they might bring you know some kind of bacteria or viruses that would affect the Penguins and the alright right you don't mix this or no no foreign species

or plant and 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. And so that was, was that your first sort of baptism into a community of scientists? 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. So do they eat penguins?

No. I mean, why not? It's a bird. Amundsen and Scott did. It was not their first choice. Okay. I mean, it has been done, but they do not. You're not supposed to pick up rocks, interfere with the terrain, or what life there is there in any way.

There's not a single cigarette butt on McMurdo Base on the ground. 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 who'd come down to help out and intern, I guess. We'd go out and hug the penguin day. They were all excited that they'd go out and get to tag penguins and, you know, hold one.

You know, penguins are cute. You know, you know. In all the movies? 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. Hello, I'm Vicki Brooke Allen, and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

This is StarTalk with Nailed Grass 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? 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 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, that 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, 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. 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. So this would affect cuisine directly? Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt about it.

Fish populations are changing, disappearing. fish populations are changing, disappearing. The whole inter, the whole relationship between species. The ecosystem. Altering in small ways so that, you know, some species are thriving, others disappearing. You know, that changes what we eat. We, you know, chefs and cooks and, you know, anybody who needs to feed their family responds to what's available. That's always been the engine of cooking. Your experience in Antarctica, that's the closest thing we have on Earth to the surface of

Mars. Yes. In fact, I went to the Dry Valleys, which are an 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 stayed in a tent out there for a while, and there was even a beach. So, does this make you more or less interested in possibly being on a mission to Mars? I don't know if I have the time. I'm a busy guy. The travel time to Mars is what? Nine months on a good orbit trajectory. That's a long trip.

You need a good movie account on the internet. And I did an episode of Top Chef at NASA headquarters once. And we were talking about food in space. And, of course, your entire taste perception, I was told, I was talking to, I think Chuck Yeager, actually. The Chuck Yeager. Yes. And talking about 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. And he talked about how your ability to perceive flavors changes at altitude.

People experience this in planes, of course. Plane food is altered so that it makes up for the effects of altitude. But astronauts get it really bad, and the stuff they crave more than anything. So Mr. Yeager told me is a hot sauce Like, you know Tabasco or anything spicy because they're up there everything tastes bland So you're telling me those those bulky areas and their spacesuits. They're smuggling bottles of hot sauce on the way up To bring to their food the astronauts I I've spoken to, they say this without hesitation, that they eagerly want spicy foods. And they find themselves visiting other national modules of the space station where their food tends to be spicier than their American food.

Yeah, so that would be tough for me, bland food for nine months. Yeah. It would be tough for me. Bland food for nine months. Yeah. I went, I trained in jiu-jitsu, and I foolishly decided I was going to 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. So you don't retain the water.

Yeah. It's horrible. It is horrible. It is horrible. No matter how much I'd eat, 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 just just one lick that is fascinatingly gross but but a measure of how desperate i was all right so So we won't put you on the Mars trip. Yeah, too much. 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? Yeah, for sure. If you ranked it, give me the top five cuisines or national dishes. Well, Trinidad.

Food from Trinidad. that would go over real well. That would go far. That's nice and spicy, some good scotch bonnets. That'll get you at least halfway to Mars. Yeah. You know, Thai food, good nuclear hot Thai food would be a good choice. Chengdu, the Sichuan, the real Sichuan food. Now, I don't know, a big wok filled with boiling oil laced with Sichuan peppers and 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, and there is the, that tends to inspire some digestive anomalies, but that would satisfy, I assure you. So I ate at an authentic Szechuan restaurant in San Francisco recently. And I was waiting for the next dish to be some reprieve from the previous dish, and that did not happen. Yeah. Every single dish was hotter than the previous one. Even in Chengdu, the major city in Sichuan province, where I've been a few times, you'll

see locals at their favorite Sichuan hot pot place, literally doubled over, holding their stomachs, mopping their necks, faces beet red. It can be excruciatingly painful. And this is an interesting scientific phenomenon that's always intrigued me. A lot of people suggest that their favorite Sichuan hot pot has, that they secretly lace it with opium because what happens is they eat this scorchingly hot food, very uncomfortable to eat, but intensely pleasurable. And the next day they wake up with a craving. And I find this as well 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 experiencing really painful, painfully hot food. And I guess that happens while you're eating it. And the next morning, it's not there. And you feel this sudden withdrawal. You feel the absence. The absence of that endorphin rush that you had the night before. And this immediately compels you to get more. I've had this experience after tattoos as well.

I've had a lot of people who've gotten tattooed 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. So I'd be interested in knowing the science on that. Yeah, we'll get to the bottom of that. It's a real craving. No matter how scorching the experience, you wake up the next day, I want more. scorching the experience.

You wake up the next day, I want more. 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 cuisine. Molecular gastronomy, yes. Am I correct in characterizing that as, how can I bring as much science as I possibly can to the protein molecules and the freezing and the cooking times? Does this subtract the experience from you or add to it? It depends.

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

Also, I'm sorry, I would have never in my whole life, that is a not, I'm sorry, I would never thought that. Once he figured out how to deep fry mayonnaise, he figured out how he could fry other sauces, how to cause them to stay essentially solid. Solid and not explode when you throw it to hot fat. a Wiley Dufresne, and a very few other chefs make this experience intensely pleasurable and exciting and fun. Many other imitators, it is a long, painful slog through one of their meals, where it's a science class for its own sake. You know, look what I can do. 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. They're asking themselves constantly, what's possible? What can we do with that mayonnaise? Somebody figured out you could put ice cream batter

mixed with liquid nitrogen and have put ice cream batter in mixed with liquid nitrogen and have instant ice cream. Yes. And that was one of my early thoughts. I just didn't have access to liquid nitrogen

at the time. Or expand foie gras into, I don't know how it's done, but into a fluffy sponge-like texture. I've seen so many amazing, amazing things done. Meat glue, which they don't even ask me to explain. They can really make food behave in ways that you wouldn't think it would or maybe even should.

Who would have thought that it would behave would ever should, but often to delicious effect. Who would have thought that the word behave would ever appear in a sentence on food? Well, you know, what is it? You know, when you scramble an egg, I forget what it's called, a coagulation of proteins. I'm not sure about the specific processes, but we're all, 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. There's a science reason for it.

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. So even something as simple as scrambling an egg is essentially a scientific manipulation of an ingredient by exposing it to both heat and movement and incorporating air, you're making it behave and egg behave in the desired way. It reminds me, this is an obscure analogy, but it reminds me of 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 got rid of your headache? So you find out what's in the bark. Right. And there's this molecule that becomes what we today call aspirin. And so you extract the active ingredient. Right. And then you can exploit that to great gain. And so it seems to me, if you knew exactly the moment and why a sautéed onion becomes

sweet, you can possibly hone in on that and exploit that fact with other foods. And that's what chefs are doing, some chefs are doing every day. I have friends who are rotting all varieties of things in some dark corner of their cellar, experimenting, talking to microbiologists from major universities, talking to them late at night, working with them in kitchens, 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? I love miso. I love miso.

So much 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 comes and tells you that, you know, oh, I went to a sushi bar last night. It was the best. The fish was so fresh. I have no understanding at all of sushi. Sushi is not about freshness at all.

First of all, even the best places deliberately cure their fish by freezing it, sometimes out of necessity to kill the critters, others because it makes it better. But it's almost never about the freshest fish. Fresh fish is right out of the water, is still in rigor, and it's rubbery, often rough, most fish, often rubbery and unpleasant and without much flavor, which is why in Iceland they rot it sometimes

because you get more fung. 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. I never knew. Thank you. 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. Well, you talk about bark. And, you know, I was in a jungle in Peru, and I tried ayahuasca with the shaman there, the so-known, I guess it's like a yaje, they also call it. It's a psychedelic jungle root used as a curative in traditional medicine. How do you ingest it?

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

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I believe it's a legal form of therapy in some states. I know there are organized groups who do it. It's a rather extraordinary thing. therapy in some states. I know there are organized groups who do it. It's a rather extraordinary thing. It's an odd fact that in the history of our relationship with plant life, people have either tried to eat it, smoke it, extract it, drink it. I'm just intrigued that we feel this urge. I think primitive man had a lot of free time You know and and they were hungry also

They didn't have the internet or anything right? Yeah, you know when you're hungry and living in harsh conditions I mean to some extent Chinese food is an extension of this When you don't have the luxury of you know fat steaks at the supermarket you know fat steaks uh at the supermarket you really have to make the most of everything you've got and and if anything 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. So chicken feet or pig's tails might not seem like they're good,

but in the hands of a great cook, they certainly can be. The fact that the very phrase, it's a matter of taste, 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? It is completely subjective. I mean, they say that all food tastes are acquired or learned, that they are not, I mean, babies will eat rotten food if their mothers say this is good.

I think bitter babies, at least in this country, react to negatively. Hence, no vegetables. Yeah. I never say, 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 say, wow, this is really good. Or I'd say, sure about that. 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 one out of a small group of people will not detect certain flavors at all, at all, or certain elements of popular commonly eaten foods. 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. I think one of the things that's prevented 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 appreciated.

Sichuan food, as spicy as it is. But I think Filipino food has been less quick to spread. And I think that's because, my guess, they like an element of bitterness. And in fact, in the Philippines, they will use bile to add that, you know, very important note to some of their traditional dishes. And that's a taste that Americans, I think, instinctively recoil from in a way that they just simply do not. That's a treasured component. We have textural predilections and aversions that seem innate or at least are so deep in our culture.

We love anything crispy. Anything covered in batter and crispy, we're going to so deep in our culture. America, we love anything crispy. You know, anything covered in batter and crispy, we're going to love. It's 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, fish skin, abalone, a lot of things that they really love in, you know, tendon

in China and Japan. Tendon. Beef tendon's great. It's fantastic. But look, I mean, that's, most Americans go, oh, dude, no. Tendon. 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 were-who right away, I'm not sure, no. Just a quick excursion here. We joke a lot in America about some countries that eat dog or things that we otherwise identify as pets. Do you have any insights into such aversions, psychologically, culturally? I mean, I know that pigs are, I think pigs are smarter than dogs, right? But I grew up with 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 will try to do so for the rest of my life. But it is a completely arbitrary thing. It is hypocritical of me. eat and love pig on one hand and spare poochie, where they are eaten in parts of the world. And I'm instinctively appalled, but it is a random culturally imperialistic feeling on my part. But I mean, it's a very deeply felt one. 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? Yeah. I mean, I think a laboratory grown meat, the thought horrifies me as a chef, as a cook, as a, as a, somebody who's passionate, you still get to cook it. You just want to kill the animal. 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 and muscle and fat. What makes meat interesting is the degree of exercise, its diet, meat interesting is the degree of exercise, its diet, how the, you know, what you, 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. Um, but I suspect given, it's out of pasture now, given the way, uh, given the way, uh, the world is going, we might well have to eat laboratory-grown meat soon, if not our neighbors. I think the first round of it will be ground meat.

Yeah. It might replace hamburger meat, which you're not in search of the marbling and the textures and the... Well, not as much as the T-bone or the ribeye. Well, not as much. Right, right. That's all I'm saying. That might be its first foray. But that could completely transform your world.

Yes, and look, a lot of the world... Not only your world, the world. Look, there are a lot of hungry people in this world for whom a single chicken is a life or death thing. They need protein, and I guess laboratory-grown meat would be a solution. But we've given up on something really fundamental that goes, when we move to laboratory-grown meat, when any culture does, it's a surrender. 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, 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, according to some scientists. Do you have any question you might have of me? I as an astrophysicist. Any questions you've harbored in your life about the universe?

This would be the time to ask. Well, it's a global warming question. If I was thinking of buying some, like, waterfront real estate, beachfront property in Uruguay, I've been told that it would be okay for me and probably for my daughter, but I'd advise against my granddaughter buying beachfront property in Uruguay.

Would you concur? No. I would say it's not a good thing at all. Really? 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've got 20 years before the sea levels to rise, and you'll say, all right, I'll put my house here, and I've got, you know, 20 years before the sea level goes up four inches.

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.

So if I hear you correctly, you're advising against the purchase of beachfront property anywhere. I'm saying get the hell out. I'm just saying. Unless you have no descendants or you don't care about your descendants. Yeah, 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. Wow, what a Debbie Downer. Really harsh mind buzz. So that's how you first experience the effects of the global warming. It's the simple storm that is now a few inches higher than it once was.

And the town or the municipality had built the flood wall. They built the, you know, for the once in 100 year storm. And now it's once in 10 years. And then you have a storm that's now the once in 1,000 year storm. You don't even know that existed because you didn't have a town there 1,000 years ago. So, yeah. I don't know. I had a Nazi cyborg question.

But I think I'll save that for the next time around. What haven't you eaten yet, and where haven't you been to do so? Wow. You know, there's 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 want to go there, 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 look like I'm going to make 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. Really? But I will tell you, that is by choice. I have a deep, psychological, inexplicable terror of all things Swiss. I don't know why, but I'm afraid of Switzerland.

I think it was 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 to well over... Is that why you're wearing a Timex watch and not a Swiss watch? I mean, I've been to well over, I think, 120 countries, well over, I've been to like 120 countries. And I haven't been to Switzerland. Because I'm afraid.

Wow. Okay, we all have phobias, I guess. You're Swiss-phobic. Yodeling. That is the sound of terror. And is Ricola the throat candy? I can't watch those. Oh, dude.

I'm going to start twitching. Congratulations at 23 Emmy nominations over the life of the show. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Peabody. I mean, this is what anyone who creates TV for love and for art, that's what anybody wants. And so just congratulations on that. Thank you very much. who creates TV for love and for art. That's what anybody wants.

And so just congratulations on that. Thank you very much. And may you have many, many more seasons 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. Thank you.