Anthony Bourdain, the Food Network star turned Travel Channel star, has eaten some pretty gruesome food on some of his shows.  From raw seal meat and blood in the Arctic to snakes in Asia, his stomach is a cast iron sink.  But even he has his limits.

Last week’s episode in Namibia, while not surprising, grossed me out simply watching it on TV.  I can’t imagine how Anthony didn’t puke on camera.  Obviously when we’re comparing our way of life to a remote tribe in Africa, things are going to see gross to us simply because we’ve never done it before.  But there are a few times where one can legitimately say “Holy crap, I don’t think I’d ever want to try that.”

It started out kind of cool.  The bush tribe found a stash of ostrich eggs and they took a few to make.  To scramble the egg, they poked a hole and then stirred a stick inside.  The way they prepared it was that they burned wood until it was reduced to red-hot embers, then dropped it in the middle of the smoldering fire and raked the embers over it.  Of course this seals it with an ash-filled, dusty, sandy cover which then they had to pick away at to get to the cooked egg in the middle.  Even with getting as much of that extra junk away, it was still filled with ash and sand.

But that wasn’t the worst part.  Some men in the tribe had hunted a warthog and were gutting it to serve the village.  The head was severed and placed underneath a bed of embers.  When that was served, it not only included ash and dirt, Anthony also got to sample the hog’s hair along with its brains. 

But wait, that still wasn’t the worst part!!!!  Next, they show a villager taking the warthog’s anus and squeezing the poop out of it, so you know they’re going to serve it to him.  Did they rinse the colon out after that?  No!!! They simply placed it on the embers.  To make matters worse, they don’t cook the colon as long as they do the rest of the body.  So, in addition to the ash and soot and sand, he also gets to taste cooked warthog shit that takes forever to swallow since it’s rubbery and chewy like a balloon.  For the first time ever, I felt sorry for a TV host.  Obviously if he refused any of the food, his hosts would take it as an insult.  Then again, I would find it amusing if this tribe only cooks warthog anus when white people come to visit.