Travel Channel's 'Bizarre Foods' focuses on R.I. cuisine

The state's cuisine is featured, from seafood to Italian and Portuguese specialties.

Journal Food Editor

Rhode Island's iconic foods and its history of ethnic specialties will be celebrated on television Tuesday night when Andrew Zimmern hosts "Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations" on the Travel Channel at 9 p.m.

Producers for the badly named show came calling back in September to film hot wieners, coffee milk, quahogs, jonnycakes, snail salad, chowder, stuffies and salt cod. Though the show's "Delicious Destination" is billed as Providence, food was featured from around the state. The show was available for screening by critics.

It's a wonderfully produced melange of the delicious and the quirky. It begins with a burger at the Haven Brothers food truck. It includes that famous pizza at Al Forno being made by chef David Reynoso, the thick ice cream drinks Awful Awfuls from Newport Creamery, and wieners all the way at Olneyville New York System.

There's a big focus on seafood, clams on the half shell and other preparations that bring with them flavors that reflect a sea-to-table cuisine. Hemenway's Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar plates some lovely clams early on in the hourlong show. Perry Raso makes stuffies at his Matunuck Oyster Bar in South Kingstown.

Don't watch this show on an empty stomach, by the way.

Portuguese soul food, salt cod or bacalhau, is given plenty of screen time, both at O Dinis in East Providence and at North American Salt and Fresh Fish Corp. in Pawtucket, where fish is turned into dry, salted cod.

In his commentary, which was filmed after production in Rhode Island wrapped up, Zimmern talks about how the state attracted seafaring people from Europe, and with them came many traditions.

To show one of those traditions, a production team arrived at O Dinis to film second-generation restaurateur Natalia Paiva-Neves, who works with her father, Dinis Paiva. Producers had seen YouTube videos of her cooking and called. Since she's dreamed of stepping up to the granite counter in a TV kitchen, she was on board.

They filmed her talking about how cod is soul food here in New England and of the importance of sharing her Portuguese traditions with her children. Those two passions intersect when she heads into the kitchen to cook Bacalhau ne Brasa, a taste of Portugal on a plate, with accompanying boiled potatoes and onion and garlic sautéed in olive oil.

The visit to the salt cod production facility is fascinating. It reveals how whole cods caught in cold sea waters are butterflied before salt is shoveled over them to remove all liquid and moisture. That's why they have to be de-salted to make cod dishes.

Italian traditions are shared from Champlin's in Galilee, where they make a scungilli, or snail, salad.

Native Americans are credited with their role in local foods, not just with johnnycakes, which are featured from Jigger's Diner in East Greenwich, but also for their role in creating Rhode Island's clear broth chowder. If you didn't know or remember that local quahogs have purple in the shell, you will now because you'll learn they were used for wampum due to their color.

Throughout the hour, regular Rhode Islanders star in "Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations" as they are interviewed while they sip, slurp and savor all the treasured foods of their home.

— gciampa@providencejournal.com