A Wild Kingdom

Five days before the third episode of National Geographic’s Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Season 2 airs, New Orleans Chef Eric Cook sits on a boat deep in some Louisiana marsh with his sister, niece, nephew, and a box full of redfish, dropping anchor to catch a few bars so that he can tell this local journalist: “I just want people to see the crazy bounty of this place.” 

When Cook, an ex-marine and career chef who now owns Gris-Gris in the Lower Garden District, agreed to be the featured local chef for the season’s Louisiana episode, he emphasized that he wanted to do it organically. “I didn’t want all the usual play on South Louisiana, with a big yeehaw and a bunch of fiddles in the background,” he said. “I wanted to communicate what it was really like to grow up here, and what it’s like to be a chef here.” 

Ramsay’s calling card being a search of high stakes global culinary cultures—in this season Louisiana is included among some of the most obscure, dangerous, and celebrated cuisines of the world, including Tasmania, South Africa, Indonesia, Norway, India, and Guyana. 

“He’s visited all of these remarkable places in the world,” said Cook. “How to stand up to it? Really, we take this place for granted—don’t always realize how lucky we are to live here. When you get these guys from California up in here, and Gordon’s from the UK, you see it through their eyes. This is a wild kingdom.” 

It was Mardi Gras weekend when Ramsay visited—”I told them, it’s a crazy time to be rolling around NOLA,” said Cook, who instead directed Ramsay and the National Geographic team to the more remote areas around the city. “We put Gordon on an airboat and had him meet us in Venice, where I had hoghead cheese, boudin, blood sausage all at the ready. I introduced him to satsumas—to the great citrus we grow here—and explained all of the foraging you can do in these areas. You can find wild chanterelle, mayhaw, blueberries, blackberries. People don’t always realize what a bountiful area this is. There is just so much going on.” 

As a St. Bernard native, hunting and fishing since he could hold a pole, Cook wanted to really showcase the fragile and untamed ecosystem of Louisiana’s marsh. He sent Ramsay out to get lost in it, to see what he would bring back. “We put him in some sticky situations,” said Cook. “The weather was typical Louisiana weather, dealing us a hand every day. Boggy, freezing cold fog, switching within hours to 110 degrees and humidity. He had to deal with gators, with sharks, bullfrogs.” 

And then they cooked— "He’s such a huge deal,” said Cook. “You see these guys on TV, and you think they can’t really be like that. But he was so professional—so truly intrigued and excited about learning. We had instant chemistry. And cooking next to him was just insane.” 

In the end, Cook said that it was less about showcasing his home to Gordon Ramsay than it was to the rest of the world—the people in the 172 countries who will watch the episode on Sunday. “I wanted to show that this is a place to protect, how important conserving this wetland is—not just to the city of New Orleans—but to the people who have lived here for generations, sharing what they can offer with the world, the shrimp, the oysters, the crabs. Squirrel, rabbit, duck. Citrus,” he said. ”Gordon was stunned by how much the ecosystem had to offer, and … he got it. He understood.” Perhaps the rest of the world will too. 

Tune into the episode on Sunday, June 21 at 9 pm Central Time on the National Geographic channel. Not a good time for you? You can stream the episode after it airs at nationalgeographic.com.

Try Cook’s cuisine for yourself at Gris-Gris at 1800 Magazine Street. grisgrisnola.com.