Emeril Lagasse's new Amazon series: Eat the World

[blue_dolphin]

Emeril Lagasse has a new six-episode series, Eat the World, streaming on Amazon.  I watched the first few episodes and generally enjoyed it. In each episode, Emeril and a guest chef travel to different country and explore some facet of its cuisine.

For example,  Emeril travels with Marcus Samuelsson to Sweden for an episode on New Nordic cuisine.  José Andrés exuberantly leads Emeril on an exploration of modernist cuisine in Spain including visits to Ferran Adrià's El Bulli Lab and Albert Adrià's Enigma and Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese food accompanies Emeril to South Korea.  Oddly, Mario Batali shows up for an old buddy boondoggle episode on Xiaolongbao in Shanghai.  That was the weakest of the episodes I watched.  It still had some goofy appeal but I kept wondering if another guest chef or location had fallen through.

 

For an out-sized personality, Emeril manages to keep the focus on the topic and seems to sincerely convey his interest and curiosity, playing the host role without taking over the spotlight entirely.   Production values are high, with artful landscapes and city views and colorful market visits to provide background and gorgeous "beauty shots" of the food, all of which were stunning on my big TV.   Each episode runs 30 minutes and is either fast-paced or rushed (particularly the cooking segments), depending on your perspective.  I'm going to have to re-watch parts of the New Nordic episode to get a better sense of the dishes.  My preference would be to expand the cooking segments to a full 30 min as I'm sure they must have the footage but that's surely an old-person's perspective - I could also do without the background music !  It's not horrible but I found it distracting at times and I didn't think it added a lot.  Maybe I just need to dial down the subwoofer .

 

Has anyone else watched?  What did you think? 

[MattyC]

I started to, lost interest. Seems fine-ish, really just seemed like a weaker answer to something like A Chef's Table or Mind of a Chef or any of that ilk. I agree with what I saw that it was rushed, I think an hour would be have been better - I found myself thinking Emeril didn't do a terrible job either, so maybe more time would have helped.

 

I'll finish watching it when I can't think of anything else to watch as a filler, I don't see it as something I'd hurry to go finish. Not saying it's bad, it just didn't seem to catch me like some of the other high-quality food shows as of late. Maybe it's just me, it seems to have a really high rating?

[robirdstx]

blue_dolphin, thank you for bringing this series to my attention. I binge watched all of the episodes this morning, although I did pause it quite often to go to the kitchen to work on my Labor Day menu items.

Edited September 5, 2016 by robirdstx (log)

[Rudy Foodie]

I just watched a few episodes, I think they do visit the very best places out there (not just 'gimmicky' places or tourist traps) , such as when they taste pizza at Pepe in Grani in Naples. Quite enjoyed how the chefs bond over truly amazing food, sheer joy to watch. Do agree that the episodes are somewhat short to really go into detail. 

[HungryChris]

I have recently gotten the Amazon fire stick, in an effort to "cut the cable", or in my case satellite dish  (right now we are using it with Kodi) and stumbled on this show and binged watched half of it this past weekend. I look forward to the others, as we both enjoyed the ones we saw. 

HC