Michael Voltaggio on Breaking Borders, Traveling With Knives and Eating Tarantula
Known for blending Los Angeles’ diverse ethnicities in his dishes at restaurants ink and ink.sack, chef Michael Voltaggio is expanding his palate overseas.
In the new Travel Channel series Breaking Borders, the Top Chef winner is teaming up with journalist Mariana van Zeller to travel the world and bring cultures together via food. Sounds simple, but here’s the catch: They are visiting conflict zones and inviting guests from both sides of major international issues to dine together.
Voltaggio’s challenge each episode, which airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET, is to use regional ingredients to create dishes that combine cuisines from each person’s heritage, without insulting anyone or starting a food fight.
Paste caught up with the award-winning chef to chat about the experience of filming the show, edible ants and suspicious knives.
Paste: How has working on this show changed the way you cook?
Michael Voltaggio: Any experience for me changes the way I cook, whether it’s going to a friend’s house for dinner or going to a restaurant. But certainly leaving the country and getting exposed to different cuisines and cultures—whether it’s spices, techniques, ingredients, flavor profiles—has changed my methods. I’ve taken something back from every trip I’ve gone on. The new things I’ve learned about food are the souvenirs I bring home from every trip.
Paste: What’s one food souvenir you brought home?
MV: In Sri Lanka, I found this coconut grinder. When you split a coconut in half, you push the coconut up against this blade and spin it and it spits out this couscous-like shredded coconut, which is used for a dish in Sri Lanka called pittu, a rice dish surrounded by light fluffy shredded coconut.
Paste: How has this show changed the way you eat?
MV: I don’t think it changed how I eat, but it provides an opportunity for me to eat new things. I ate rat in Cambodia. I cooked it too. I cooked and ate rat. I never thought I’d say that. In that regard, it definitely changed my cooking for sure.
Paste: How was the rat?
MV: I don’t know if I can say I liked eating rat. But I ate it and didn’t mind it. Let’s just say I’m not craving it.
Paste: What has been the most moving meal you’ve had on the show so far?
MV: They’re all moving in their own way. I’m moved when guests thank me for coming in and understanding them and their culture well enough to be able to give them back my version of what I’ve experienced while I was there. They are talking about food, but really they are talking about something more personal, and for me that’s been a very powerful compliment.
Paste: How have guests reacted to these culturally blended dishes?
MV: I think it provides a sense of comfort. When they sit down at the table with the group for the first time, they see something inspired by the conversation I had with them individually; it’s something that makes them feel comfortable about sitting down to an uncomfortable situation. Much like we’ve interviewed them along the way about their experiences, their conflicts and their lives, we’ve also gotten tidbits about food from them. If they can see what those conversations resulted in when they sit down at the table, I think they are also going to see the opportunity to share more about themselves. Those dishes serve as my opportunity to connect them with each other.