Chef Richard Blais' latest concoction may make your skin crawl
'I've always been like that. If it sounds a little weird, it's cool for me,' the Top Chef All-Stars winner, restauranteur, James Beard-nominated cookbook author and 'Next Level Chef' judge said with a smile.
But his latest project may make some people's skin crawl.
Blais partnered with Orkin on series of recipes incorporating insects for a video called 'Bug Bites' debuting on Orkin's website on Aug. 18.
'One of our best recipes was a mealworm pesto, which was great because Orkin is the best in pests and I'm the best in pesto, so it was a match made in heaven,' he joked.
However, it wasn't all easy to stomach, even for himself. He spoke with USA TODAY about facing his fears, why It's important for chefs to travel, the surprising thing he's done on planes and more.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
Question: What inspired your involvement in this particular project?
Richard Blais: Just up for the challenge.
Also for me, if you would have asked me a question a couple years ago: what are some foods that you might not like? I would say insects, to be fair.
I got to eat some on different shows, etc., so it was sort of overcoming my own mental hurdle to do this.
And I'm so glad I did because I learned so much, and besides that, it was just a lot of fun.
Like, "Hey, do you want to eat a tarantula on camera?' Yes. Let's see how that goes.
Have you previously tried insects on your travels?
Not on my own, like, hey, I'm in a restaurant, and I'm going to order. But in my reality show career, I have been tasked with a few, eating some insects. And in my travels, I have seen them in markets and stuff like that and always been amazed at their aroma or flavor and how it's not just, oh, it's just another protein source, but how every ingredient has its own flavor. That goes for meal worms and ants as well as it goes for octopus and sea urchin.
Food can have a stigma when it's something that people are not familiar with. And this video may help break some of those barriers and let people know, it's OK to try all sorts of things.
One-hundred percent. I always preach to my kids, "Hey, try it. You don't have to like it, but it's good to try things." And I think "Bug Bites" was great for me for that because it forced me to try some of these things.
Am I going to be on the tarantula of the month gift club? Probably not. That still freaks me out, but I'm glad I did it and I overcame some fears.
It's really, really important to realize that different people and different cultures eat different things and one's not better than the other. They just happen to be different.
In other parts of the world, this is part of their diet.
I've been to Thailand and seen grasshoppers and grasshopper wings and all sorts of things, and again it is normal.
I think what really it came down to (is) at some point you're like, it's a scorpion or it's a crab, They're similar. We often call lobsters, the cockroaches of the sea.
Once you wrap your mind around it, that it's just another food source – it is a normal food source, depending what that ingredient is and where you are in the world – it does make it a little easier to grasp.
But we do have the skittishness, squeamishness, of which I had as well and still have a little bit.
How did you come up with ways to make it more palatable so you even could enjoy them as much as possible?
You know, I love being in front of the camera and producing things now, too and writing my own stuff, so one of the challenges was yes, I would like to be able to get through this challenge. I'd like to keep raising the ladder and the stakes as we eat each insect.
So yeah, let's toss it in some sauce or let's ground it up there. There's that way that you could approach it, and I did with some recipes, but the other end of it is no, I want this to be hard for me, and I want to see a tarantula leg sticking out of this sushi roll, and I want the ants to just be whole on this ice cream cone. So it was kind of a balance – also knowing, I think for the viewer, you want to see, hey, is he going to eat a whole scorpion?
They're little, by the way. Spoiler alert.
Did anything surprise you?
The mealworm pesto.
Speaking to the entomologist about meal worms, that they're in grains and you sort of get into this you taste like what you eat. You know, like if a pig's eating acorns, they taste like acorns.
And then using it, they have a nutty flavor. Replacing pine nuts in a pesto with the meal worms, that was one of the cheffy moments where I'm like, OK, this makes total sense.
If I'm cooking on a competition show, or even in a restaurant quite honestly, and that was a recipe, you would think it was delicious and you would advance in the show. I'm still pretty excited about it.
How does food influence you when you travel and how do you approach food when you travel?
I'm a chef because I love to eat ... And it's a big part of all of my travel.
If I'm traveling, I'm pretty simple when I'm alone on a business trip. Not to lose my chef credentials here, but you can find me at the local fast-casual salad pickup spot pretty frequently, if I'm traveling domestically by myself.
When my wife is involved, she's much more of the planner and we'll set a lot of things up and we'll read a lot of publications and find out what the cool, hip behind-the-scenes ramen spot is or what's the taco shop that we have to go to or what's the fine dining restaurant wherever we're at. But it's definitely a big part of travel for us, even if it just happens to be like we're going to go to the local market, we're going to buy a bunch of things, and we're going to come home and cook.
We just spent a week on the island of Nevis, and it happens to be mango season there, so when you accidentally fall into one of those moments – you have all these beautiful, ripe mangoes – making a nice, easy salsa at the house on your vacation, that's perfect. It's a part of vacationing.
How has your travel influenced the way that you cook?
I think you are a sum of all of your experiences, so I think every cook and every chef goes someplace and comes back with an ingredient that they found or a technique or a flavor profile or even as a restauranteur, a concept you've seen that you want to riff off of. So I think it's probably the most important thing for a chef is to travel.
Do you have a favorite travel memory?
Not one specific memory, but I think just collectively, my family loves going to Hawaii. It's become a really special place for us, and even on the food and the cuisine side, it's just some of my favorite foods. And because we travel there somewhat regularly, one of my daughters, on like a third-grade questionnaire, the question was, what's your favorite food, and she wrote luau.
Internationally, our family's first trip to Paris, the first trip to Rome. For me, as someone who studied a lot of European cuisines and then to be on the ground with your family and – kind of getting back to "Bug Bites" – introducing escargot to your daughter for the first time and she's like, yum.
What is your preferred way to travel?
I spend so much time in the air ... It is becoming now, in my life, more of a chore than it used to be.
Used to love to lock in and watch five hours of movies and now it's more just like transportation, but I do like flying.
There is something also really wild about being on the open ocean in a boat, if you're up for it. My whole family isn't, so we would do a lot more of that if it wasn't for some seasickness.
When you fly, aisle or window seat?
I am the middle on the family flights, where it has to happen. I'm taking one for the team.
I prefer a window.
Even though with all the all the time I've spent in the air, I love a good Instagram story of take-off or landing. There's something still just very entertaining to me about looking out a window and seeing the world from 30,000 feet.
Is there anything you splurge on, on vacation?
Depends, on the type of vacation.
I think food for sure. I think we're always looking for one or two meals, and that might mean a Michelin-star restaurant or a really nice restaurant.
I think for me, as someone who likes sports, it might be an expensive tee time at a nice golf course or hanging out at the spa.
All of those sound great, by the way. If you can do all of those things on one trip, check it off: spa, a little golf, a Michelin-star restaurant, then go find like that local hole in the wall place, that works for me.
And then as parents, just being able to sit in a hotel bed and watch TV for two hours uninterrupted is pretty fun.
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Is there a travel must-have that you always take with you?
I've run six New York City Marathons – sorry, that's a weird flexy brag – and the first one I ran ... I have the bag from that marathon, and I still travel with that bag.
You can't see that it says New York City Marathon. All the letters have just dissolved off of it. It's just a backpack, and now it's just like a security blanket sort of thing. I always travel with this bag. It has served me well.
Do you have any travel pet peeves or maybe an unpopular travel opinion?
It's a weird one. You know what, if I have enough time, I'm a big fan of the (airport) lounge shower, which not everyone is a big fan of.
I'm just being very authentic here. And if I have a 2-hour layover and the shower is available, why not just try to smell your best at all moments?
Does anything grind your gears, that other travelers do?
If you're on a phone call or on your iPad or whatever and you're just playing it loud or we're literally rolling down the taxi (way) and you're on a phone call, I don't need to hear your business. No one needs to hear all of your stuff.
But another pet peeve that a lot of people have that I'm up for is making your tuna fish salad sandwich on the plane. Go for it.
One time I had a little black truffle that I was gifted at an event, and I started traveling with this little black truffle. I would get the eggs on the air flight meal, but I would pull out my own little black truffle and shave it on the eggs.
I think if you can cook and like you're making a sandwich or a little charcuterie board and we're in the air, hey, listen, go for it.
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