Andrew Zimmern is busier than he’s ever been, but the award-winning chef, author, producer, philanthropist and activist wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, he’d like to take on more in the future, as he told host Jaymee Sire on the Food Network Obsessed podcast.

We caught up with Andrew to discuss the debut of his first-of-its-kind Blue Food Cookbook, a companion to Hope in the Water — the 2025 PBS docuseries he produced to spread the word about fishers, farmers and scientists aiming to feed the planet while saving the oceans.

Co-written with chef and seafood expert Barton Seaver in collaboration with ocean food advocacy nonprofit Fed by Blue, they created a comprehensive guide to sourcing and cooking delicious seafood with both confidence and a sense of responsibility. If you teach a person how and why to fish, an updated version of the saying might go, you feed them and their community for a lifetime. Shall we dive in?

When I graduated from college, a friend gave me and each of the other seniors in our dorm a copy of The New York Times Cookbook. The Blue Food Cookbook strikes me as the tool to give a young person in that position now, as it’s so much more than a collection of recipes: you’re describing how and motivating/empowering readers to be good neighbors, responsible consumers, hopeful humans as a general proposition and, oh yeah, good cooks. Who did you and Barton imagine as your reader as you wrote it?

Well, that’s very flattering because the NYT Cookbook is a timeless resource. That is one of my five most recommended cookbooks for anyone who wants to get started. And indeed, you are correct. We wanted this book to not only be a collection of great recipes — and there are about 200 of them if you include the sub-recipes in that total — but we did want to motivate all the readers to be good global citizens, responsible eaters and consumers, the whole enchilada.

I can’t speak for Barton or our collaborator [ocean food advocacy nonprofit] Fed by Blue, but the reader in my mind was someone who already loved to cook, regardless of age or their place in life. My experience has told me, and the data backs it up, that very few Americans are cooking seafood at home. So, the group that I feel is most easily converted are the people who are already cooking at home, who already love to eat seafood, but don’t for several reasons. And those reasons are cost, convenience, difficulty in execution and confusion about the facts on the water. Everybody assumes seafood is expensive, but that’s a myth. Everybody thinks it’s inconvenient in some way, and I think that’s BS as well. As a matter of fact, I believe seafood to be the ultimate convenience food because you can store it frozen, it defrosts quickly and 99% of it cooks up in single digits of minutes.

Also, everyone thinks it’s tricky to cook because most of the time they feel that they don’t get it right. While it’s true that a piece of flounder is less forgiving than a double pork chop, it’s also true that once you have a basic piece of information about how to cook it, it is way more easy to replicate it perfectly over and over again than any [other] piece of animal protein of any type on planet Earth.

I appreciated your “Alphabet Chowder” discussion of how to parse the various sustainability designations and certifications that packaged seafood can have. Bearing in mind that, as you explained, all of the sustainable-seafood acronyms have roles to play in helping you learn more about the fish you’re buying, what's a reasonable first action to take as you learn?

Ask the person behind the counter where the fish is from. Was it responsibly sourced and is it the best thing in the case to be buying on that day? If you do that three or four times in a row whenever you’re shopping, you will automatically become friends with the person behind the counter. That’s the important relationship. I would also suggest consumers shop the dish and not the fish. If you go into the supermarket and in your head you want fresh cod to make fish and chips, you go up to the counter, ask for cod. And what if they tell you they don’t have any that day? You might walk over to the next aisle and grab some pork chops. But what if you told the person behind the fish counter what you wanted to make and let them guide your choice? That’s a much smarter way to shop.

You speak in your introduction about how large-scale aquaculture has only been practiced for the last 60 years or so and is still in the process of rapid evolution, and that’s a helpful way of thinking about a steep learning curve! Can you share a bit about a recent innovation or lessons about aquaculture that has been especially exciting or surprising to you, for readers who haven’t yet seen your PBS documentary?

Well, large-scale aquaculture is a relatively new thing. And it was done so poorly for so many years. These days, the vast majority of blue food farms both at sea and on land are doing a great job. No one uses copper netting anymore. No one crowds fish pens anymore. No one dumps food in the water so that most of it falls to the ocean floor anymore. Fish food used to be at a 10-to-1 ratio of total value of food necessary to provide a unit of finished product by weight. Now it’s at 1-to-1, or better!

Aquaculture itself is thousands of years old and has been practiced in many places all over the world with great success. And it’s much more beneficial, much more workable, cheaper and with greater yields than any other system we have for producing protein at scale for a hungry planet. Investment in aquaculture is vital, and I don’t understand why we don’t have more of it, considering the fact that so many different companies that are doing it, small and large, now have reams of data for investors to review. Why invest in cell-based petri dish fish? Investors should be putting their money behind successful aquaculture companies that are doing the work the right way.

For those that haven’t seen our PBS docuseries Hope in the Water, we profile 12 different solution makers to the various problems that I addressed in the question before and in the book. It’s great documentary storytelling. Viewers can watch Season 1 at PBS.org, and Season 2 premieres in 2027.

Your point about the environmental benefits of freezing seafood is a fascinating one. You mention that an estimated 50% of all seafood that’s bought in America is thrown away, which is horrifying; why is that proportion so high? (I’ve seen USDA estimates that put general food waste at around 30% to 40%; what do you think makes seafood an outlier there?)

Seafood is more sensitive to spoilage and to poor handling. Imagine that a truck of tomatoes sits for a few hours above optimum temperature. It can be sold at a discount, even if there is some damage to the tomatoes. Now imagine that that’s a truckload of scallops. Not the same thing, it typically would have to be trashed. And that’s just an example of something that happens once the seafood is off the boat. Imagine the problems on the boat at sea.

You also have to remember that Americans do a really poor job of buying seafood for preparation at home. We just don’t do it. So, there is a lot of pre-consumer contact waste at the retail level. If I could wave a magic wand or if I had one wish for the blue food movement, it would be that Americans eat one or two more meals of seafood a week at home. That would dramatically change our domestic economy, our personal wellness and well-being, and it would have a positive impact on our climate crisis as well. And those are just three things that would happen. I could probably name about six more.

What kind of seafood is in your refrigerator and freezer right now, and what do you plan to do with it?

I have sealed bags of seven different types of fish and shellfish, [including] shucked oysters, cooked clams in broth, cooked mussels in broth, tuna fillets, sheepshead fillets, multiple bags of fresh seaweeds and about four or five different types of prepared seafood dishes — things like gumbo or salt cod with tomato sauce and vegetables.

What I plan on doing with it is feeding people! There were some great oysters on sale in March at a local market, so I bought 10 dozen [and] shucked then froze them in their own liquor. Similarly, I [found] some gorgeous clams on sale and I cooked them with white wine, parsley and garlic, took the meat out of the shells, discarded the shells and froze the meat in the broth. That will be destined for a chowder or a pasta dish. Same thing with the mussels. I had some great skipjack tuna that a friend sent to me, so I portioned it and froze it. Same with the sheepshead. I can defrost those in 15 minutes under running water, and they only take about seven or eight minutes to cook. That’s convenience food. The seaweed I will use in salads and stir-fries, and the prepared foods I will just defrost and eat.

In my cupboard, I have about 20 different species of blue foods that are tinned, and about four types of dried seaweed as well. I will utilize all of that in many different ways.

Last but not least, I have some exquisite dried shrimp and dried scallops in my cupboard and I use those in lots of different types of cooking, but especially when I make my homemade XO sauce.

I was intrigued to learn of your 1:2 MSG-and-salt bowl-finishing sprinkle! Has that been a tool in your kitchen for a long time?

For about 20 years. I am very pro-MSG. Anyone who thinks MSG is some kind of food problem is falling prey to the culinary racism that was created decades ago. By putting that mixture on my counter, I am eliminating a third of my salt intake. I use that mixture to season foods.

The way you introduce your Clams in Black Bean Sauce recipe is really lovely. ["This dish, inspired by the versions at Wo Hop and King Dragon (sadly gone) that I ate as a child with my family, is now my family’s favorite," Andrew writes. "My dad and my son never got to share a bowl of this together, but if we all were magically together again, it would be the first thing I would make for them."] What were the first recipes that came to mind for you as you and Barton developed the book? Was that one of them?

Well, thank you for saying that. The clams dish that you’re referencing was one of my recipes that just had to be included in the book. I’m sure Barton had his that he felt just had to be in there as well. Between the two of us, I think we had about 400 recipes but only had room for about 145 at final publishing, so we definitely have a desire to do part two of this book! I make clams, mussels and oysters in black bean sauce because, in general, I think black bean sauce is one of the greatest ways to cook any type of seafood, whether it’s crustaceans, bivalves, fin fish … you name it, I want it with black bean sauce!

Could you tell me a bit more about the big board that you put out to serve grazing guests when you’re entertaining? How large is the board beneath the little vessels, and how many little vessels do you tend to put out at a time?

My answer depends on how many guests I’m hosting. The other day some friends showed up for drinks and dinner at the last minute, and I put out a little board and a small bowl of olives, a small bowl of smoked mussels that I sauced with a little bit of mustard vinaigrette and a small bowl of Spanish almonds.

At Thanksgiving, when there’s 25 people at my house, there’s usually about 15 to 16 items on that board. We host a lot of political fundraisers at my house and sometimes I just put out as many items as I humanly can come up with just because it is a chance to clean out all of the drawers of the pantry and the refrigerator.

I would encourage people to use things that are on hand for your guests. As an example, last week I took out a fennel bulb from my vegetable drawer, sliced it paper-thin on a mandolin, lightly pickled it with lemon juice, a touch of sugar and some dill. I let it sit for an hour or two, then drained the liquid off and mixed it with tinned oysters. I could’ve chosen sardines or mussels or even a good tuna packed in olive oil. It’s just a breathtakingly delicious and simple little hors d’oeuvre. So, I do a lot of things like that.

Do you have a favorite among the seaweed and sea vegetable recipes featured in the book?

I want to write a whole book about seaweed! And it’s the smallest section in the current book, so I don’t have a favorite. My favorite is always the thing that I cooked last. I’ve been on a real run recently cooking hijiki, which is a delicious Japanese seaweed that can be seasoned a thousand different ways. But it’s earthy and sweet, nutty and loaded with umami. I adore the stuff.

I love the “meet them where they are” approach to the Sockeye Salmon Enchiladas for winning over seafood skeptics. Do other recipes come to mind for you as gateway dishes to prepare for tentative fish eaters?

[Fish and Chips, But Make It Salad and Fish Stick Panzanella] are the two that come to mind fastest from The Blue Food Cookbook. Both of them will make fish lovers out of people, even those who swear they don’t eat seafood.

One of the environmental data points about how our oceans are changing that really stuck out to me over the past few years was when water off the coast of Florida exceeded 100 degrees in 2023. What do you do with news like that, and how do you move on? How do you regain momentum when it is tempting to despair?

I remind myself that hope is more contagious than despair. And then I get out and do something about it. If you were despairing about anything in the news these days, and not out doing something actively, even 10 minutes a day to fight against that thing, whatever it is, then you are doing life wrong. I am not trying to judge or wag my finger, though I know it must come off that way. I am just passing on my experience. I was living in misery, living irresponsibly until I started taking on a stance, a position, on the issues of the day and applying an action step to support my views.

We’re put here on planet Earth for a very short amount of time. And it is taken from us at a point not of our own choosing. We owe it to our loved ones, our neighbors, our children and future generations to try to make our world a better place. A fairer place. A more just place. Once I started working toward those things, and I spend about 50% of my time doing that, I felt right-sized and happy. I sleep well at night knowing that I’m doing everything that I can. Some days less than others, but I know I’m fighting the good fight.