Eater - Everyone’s got a travel show now

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Eugene Levy traveling reluctantly. | YouTube/AppleTV

Welcome to Eater’s Weekend Special, an inside look at what our staff was buzzing about this week

On the first episode of A Cook’s Tour, which aired in 2002, Anthony Bourdain toured the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. He compared the tuna to fine jewelry and mentioned dreaming of sushi the night before. Part of his curiosity came from his being a chef — in a way, you could tell this was shoptalk to him. But in that moment, he set the tone for how travel TV should be: focused on the food.

I’ve thought a lot about what we want out of travel television ever since hearing about The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy on Apple TV+. Levy is a masterful comedian, but he is not a travel or culinary expert. More than that, he doesn’t want to be. But that’s what producers apparently found so funny — the idea of a guy who doesn’t want to be traveling having to do it anyway. He makes piri piri sauce in Lisbon and eats reindeer in Lapland. By all accounts, the reluctance is a bit of an act; he’s charming and curious and game to try new things. 

Levy’s is of course the latest in a slew of recent travel shows, like Somebody Feed Phil, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, and Alison Roman’s (More Than) A Cooking Show. But something about the “reluctant” conceit still rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because, after talking to travel expert Rick Steves recently, I was reminded of just why the intertwining of food and travel is so important. 

As Steves wrote in his new book, Italy for Food Lovers, the best souvenir you get when traveling “will be the strands of different cultures you choose to knit into your own character.” And perhaps no other part of culture is easier to knit into yourself than food. You do not need expertise, only curiosity, to appreciate good gelato. That’s why travel television with a focus on food has taken off — even though you can’t taste through the TV, food is the fastest way to experience a new culture. What a shame it is to approach that experience with irony, or for one’s curiosity to only be borne out of contractual obligations.

In the eighth episode of The Reluctant Traveler, Levy, too, goes to Tokyo. He eats sushi, which before then he had never tried. He still doesn’t like it. Isn’t that funny? — Jaya Saxena

Your weekend reading:

• Speaking of travel shows, for the love of god, please stop making them take place in Italy.
• For the sushi-averse, food scientists have been trying to master making a vegan version of fish. It’s remarkably difficult.
• Here’s a look at the growth of West African food in the fine dining world, and how chefs are connecting West Africa and America’s food history.

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