The Wildest Thing Gordon Ramsay Eats In Uncharted Season 3
With a show title like "Uncharted" and decades in the business under his belt, it's no secret that chef Gordon Ramsay is entering some unfamiliar territory in the latest season of the series. Season 3, which premiered in May on National Geographic, follows the infamous culinary expert from the coast of Maine to the Arctic Circle of Finland, with quite a few wild pit stops along the way.
Ramsay is no stranger to putting himself on the line — whether it's risking his appetite on trying lackluster dishes or treading terrifying waters to harvest barnacles in Portugal. Learning about different cultures and culinary techniques across the globe is what makes Ramsay return to the "Uncharted" set. Viewers at home are likely scratching their heads, wondering why the star would eat such a thing one moment, but be absolutely enthralled the next. Executive producer Jon Kroll spoke with TV Insider to share the scoop on what else Ramsay tried his hand at this time around.
Ramsay has a strict policy about eating worms
After so long in the business, you would be hard-pressed to find something chef Gordon Ramsay hasn't tried. "Uncharted" executive producer Jon Kroll explained that, after a few worm-related incidents, Ramsay required him to taste test any worm before he did. So, while eating worms was nothing new to the chef — he'd tried them before, said Kroll — this time around in Mexico, he refused to be the only one to take the risk.
According to Kroll, he tried a butter worm, which "tasted like hot buttered popcorn," to him. Then, he told Ramsay to give the delicacy a try. Ramsay, however, had a different take, claiming that the worm tasted like "sawdust." Kroll told TV Insider that the chef likely got a bad worm, but we're thinking it's probably just the fact that it's, well, worms. According to Bugs for Growers, butter worms — scientifically known as Chilecomadia moorei — are typically fed to bearded dragons, lizards, and turtles. Sounds delicious!
Ramsay wasn't a fan of tar, either
If you asked Gordon Ramsay about the strangest thing he tried on "Uncharted," he might answer differently. After all, Bear Grylls has rendered worms of any form as rather basic in the spectrum of weird foods. So while he admitted to IndieWire that this season has forced him to eat a lot of weird things — including the butter worm — the weirdest was actually weird: "Top of mind has to be tar in Finland. I don't think that will be making an appearance on any American menu anytime soon."
However, the weirdest food of this season may not top the list of the weirdest things Ramsay has ever eaten. Gordon Ramsay told James Corden in a 2015 episode of "The Late Late Show" that in the recent audition of "MasterChef" he tried a plate of macaroni and cheese with a twist. Mac entering mouth, he asked what the twist was and was informed it was the contestant's breast milk, prompting him to spit it out immediately. You can still find the segment on YouTube, where commenters remembered that even in 2019, Gordon Ramsay was still listing that moment as one of the worst things he ever ate.
Another contender is when, in January of this year, he recounted to Big World Tale how he ate a cobra's beating heart: "This thing made me feel sick. I can still feel it bouncing around it in my tummy ... two minutes later I passed it out."
How safe is this odd meal?
Let's get back to the fact that Gordon Ramsay has eaten tar. For anyone unfamiliar with Finland, tar is a common additive that has a smokey flavor that is reminiscent of another Finnish love: chewing tobacco (via Big in Finland).
Gastro Obscura suggests that the attraction to the flavor came from centuries of using it as medicine in accordance with the proverb: "If a sauna, vodka, and tar don't help, the illness is fatal." Today, it appears in shampoo, ice cream, and candy, one of the most popular being Terva Leijona, or tar lions.
Despite the purposefully provocative pictures of road surfaces, the tar Finns eat and the asphalt and tars used for road work differ drastically. As The Constructor explains, asphalt is primarily found as a thick liquid within various mineral and oil-based environments while tar can be derived from coal, minerals, or wood. In the case of Finland, it comes from wood, which accounts for the smokey taste, and is often used to preserve wooden surfaces, like boats. The Culture Trip explains that the tar made from tree sap can be eaten safely, which is also why it was developed as a go-to medicine for the Finns. That said, Ramsay may be right about the viability of a tar candy takeover, as internationally, we still associate it with paving roads.