Cooking in the Danger Zone
Encyclopedia
Cooking in the Danger Zone is a documentary television series produced by the BBC
and presented by Stefan Gates
.
In each film food writer Gates explores unusual food stories in some of the world’s more dangerous places. He uses food to explore and understand people’s culture and the challenges they face. He has eaten such obscure foods as rat in India
, baby seal in the Arctic
and radioactive soup in Chernobyl
.
Series three completed filming in October 2007 and it aired on BBC Two
in March 2008.
, finding out how the country’s reconstruction is going. He samples the testicles of the legendary fat-tailed sheep, known to the locals as the "Afghan Viagra"; narrowly avoids being blown up by abandoned Soviet Scud
missiles; and has dinner with a former Taliban commander.
to find out whether there’s anything wrong with eating dogs
. He visits a farm where over 2000 dogs are raised for their meat, picks up a few recipes from "Dr Dogmeat", and hears allegations that dogs are tortured to death.
, to find out how people survive on meagre UN food rations. The UN gives them just 60% of their daily needs.
to find out why they are over-eating. In Tonga
he finds the fattest people on earth (91% are overweight). In Fiji
, he tries the local inebriant kava kava
and slaughters a piglet for lunch.
restaurant, and attempts to shake off his Communist party minders to talk to one of China’s poverty-stricken farmers.
to discover how people have survived in its aftermath. Inside the Exclusion Zone
, deemed too dangerous to live in, he finds, amongst the ghost town
s, a handful of people who have moved back in illegally and live on dangerously contaminated land.
to spend time with the Inuit
living on some of the harshest terrain in the world. He is taken on a seal hunt and tried the local delicacy: eighteen month old rotten walrus
.
, India
’s poorest state to meet the Dalit
s, or “Untouchables”. These are the lowest group in the Indian caste system. He helps a dalit girl make dung
cake
s for fuel. Gates joins them as they are about to tuck into one of their few sources of protein: roasted rat which they catch themselves. Otherwise they survive on rice and little else. He then meets the private militia of the landowners in Bihar, who have hired the men to protect their properties from the dalit labourers, who they accuse of stealing from them in communist agitations.
Gates then travels west across India by rail towards Mumbai
, where he talks to people living in the slums of Mumbai, particularly Biharis who have immigrated in an attempt to make a better living. He talks to a dalit dabawalla, a person who carries lunches from people's homes to their offices at midday. Indians prefer their lunches to be freshly cooked and home-made by their wife or mother, thus creating such an occupation.
, using food handouts as part of his socialist revolution. He helps out in one of the soup kitchen
s providing food to the poor and he also visits a subsidized food shop where the food is quickly running out much to the anger of those waiting in line. He then travels into the hinterland where he finds the ranch owners furious as Chávez has encouraged the poor to take some of their land and farm it themselves.
people who are being hunted by the Burmese army who are starving them out of their villages. Land mine
s are placed in the fields making it too dangerous to harvest any crops.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and presented by Stefan Gates
Stefan Gates
Stefan Gates is a British food writer and television presenter.-Early life:As a child, Stefan, along with his sister Samantha, were photographed for knitwear patterns and appeared separately in commercials and TV dramas, including Poldark. They were the child models on the cover of English rock...
.
In each film food writer Gates explores unusual food stories in some of the world’s more dangerous places. He uses food to explore and understand people’s culture and the challenges they face. He has eaten such obscure foods as rat in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, baby seal in the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
and radioactive soup in Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
.
Series three completed filming in October 2007 and it aired on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
in March 2008.
"Afghanistan"
Stefan cooks his way around AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, finding out how the country’s reconstruction is going. He samples the testicles of the legendary fat-tailed sheep, known to the locals as the "Afghan Viagra"; narrowly avoids being blown up by abandoned Soviet Scud
Scud
Scud is a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and exported widely to other countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name SS-1 Scud which was attached to the missile by Western intelligence agencies...
missiles; and has dinner with a former Taliban commander.
"South Korea"
Stefan's in South KoreaSouth Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
to find out whether there’s anything wrong with eating dogs
Dog meat
Dog meat refers to edible parts and the flesh derived from dogs. Human consumption of dog meat has been recorded in many parts of the world, including ancient China, ancient Mexico, and ancient Rome. According to contemporary reports, dog meat is consumed in a variety of countries such as...
. He visits a farm where over 2000 dogs are raised for their meat, picks up a few recipes from "Dr Dogmeat", and hears allegations that dogs are tortured to death.
"Uganda"
Gates visits refugee camps in war-torn Northern UgandaUganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, to find out how people survive on meagre UN food rations. The UN gives them just 60% of their daily needs.
"Fiji and Tonga"
Gates visits the South PacificOceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
to find out why they are over-eating. In Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
he finds the fattest people on earth (91% are overweight). In Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, he tries the local inebriant kava kava
Kava
Kava or kava-kava is a crop of the western Pacific....
and slaughters a piglet for lunch.
"China"
Gates finds how the rapid pace of modernisation is changing the way people eat. He spends a day working at the Kung Fu fast food joint, samples the menu of a BeijingBeijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
restaurant, and attempts to shake off his Communist party minders to talk to one of China’s poverty-stricken farmers.
"Chernobyl"
Gates visits the site of the world’s worst ever nuclear disasterChernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine , which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow...
to discover how people have survived in its aftermath. Inside the Exclusion Zone
Exclusion zone
An exclusion zone is an area that protesters are legally prohibited from protesting in.Exclusion zones often exist around seats of government and abortion clinics. As a result of protests by the Westboro Baptist Church at the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq War, 29 states and the US...
, deemed too dangerous to live in, he finds, amongst the ghost town
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...
s, a handful of people who have moved back in illegally and live on dangerously contaminated land.
"Arctic"
Gates visits the Arctic CircleArctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
to spend time with the Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
living on some of the harshest terrain in the world. He is taken on a seal hunt and tried the local delicacy: eighteen month old rotten walrus
Walrus
The walrus is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the Odobenidae family and Odobenus genus. It is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic...
.
"India"
Gates visits the state of BiharBihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
’s poorest state to meet the Dalit
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
s, or “Untouchables”. These are the lowest group in the Indian caste system. He helps a dalit girl make dung
Dung
Dung may refer to:* Dung, animal feces* Dung, Doubs, a commune in the Doubs department in the Franche-Comté region in eastern France* Mundungus Fletcher or "Dung", a character in the Harry Potter novels* Dung beetle...
cake
Cake
Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...
s for fuel. Gates joins them as they are about to tuck into one of their few sources of protein: roasted rat which they catch themselves. Otherwise they survive on rice and little else. He then meets the private militia of the landowners in Bihar, who have hired the men to protect their properties from the dalit labourers, who they accuse of stealing from them in communist agitations.
Gates then travels west across India by rail towards Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, where he talks to people living in the slums of Mumbai, particularly Biharis who have immigrated in an attempt to make a better living. He talks to a dalit dabawalla, a person who carries lunches from people's homes to their offices at midday. Indians prefer their lunches to be freshly cooked and home-made by their wife or mother, thus creating such an occupation.
"Venezuela"
Gates finds a country divided between rich and poor and the country’s president, Hugo ChávezHugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
, using food handouts as part of his socialist revolution. He helps out in one of the soup kitchen
Soup kitchen
A soup kitchen, a bread line, or a meal center is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church groups or community groups...
s providing food to the poor and he also visits a subsidized food shop where the food is quickly running out much to the anger of those waiting in line. He then travels into the hinterland where he finds the ranch owners furious as Chávez has encouraged the poor to take some of their land and farm it themselves.
"Burma"
Gates spends two weeks in the jungle with the Karen peopleKaren people
The Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
people who are being hunted by the Burmese army who are starving them out of their villages. Land mine
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
s are placed in the fields making it too dangerous to harvest any crops.