Canada’s Illegal Eater

BASYA LAYE

It seems that the Western world’s appetite for reality television has perfectly and powerfully collided with the foodie-esthetic zeitgeist, spawning such hits as Iron Chef, Chopped and Hell’s Kitchen, and celebrity taste-makers like Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsay, Simon Majumdar and Nigella Lawson. This has, in turn, spurred the popularity of secret supper clubs, street food trucks, farmers markets and a nose-to-tail ethos, so it seems like a no-brainer that a show would come along that is dedicated to uncovering the edible “gold” waiting to be discovered in North America.

Armed with former Barenaked Ladies front man (and fellow Member of the Tribe) Steven Page as host, Middle Child Productions has shot 13 episodes of The Illegal Eater, now airing Tuesday nights on Travel+Escape. Each episode visits a new location where Page provides a glimpse into the world of underground restaurants and eateries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, Brooklyn, Halifax, Ottawa and Toronto. The show’s co-creator and producer is former Vancouverite Tony Wosk who now makes his home in Toronto. Wosk spoke with the Independent about the new show, and which Vancouver burger he can’t do without.

“I grew up in Vancouver, attending Vancouver Talmud Torah, followed by high school at Eric Hamber Secondary before doing a bachelor’s degree at Western and my MBA at York,” Wosk said. “Knowing I wanted to go into film and television, I took courses as part of my MBA in arts and media management. My first job out of business school was with a division of BCTV in Vancouver. I was then lured to Toronto by a job doing film financing and, from there, I went into distribution before beginning to produce my own projects.”

Described as “No Reservations meets Come Dine With Me with a dash of Man v. Food,” The Illegal Eater was developed and produced by Middle Child Productions.

“I formed Middle Child ... (a company name approved of by my family) to make my first film The Green Chain,” he said. “It was written and directed by Vancouver’s Mark Leiren-Young, [the] award-winning author, playwright, screenwriter and journalist. Then I made The Samaritan with Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Wilkinson. Most recently, I executive produced the documentary The Sheepdogs Have At It; this was done with the same team as The Illegal Eater.”

The show is billed as “actively seeking out underground locations that thrive on legal loopholes or, in some cases, ignore legal mandates completely.”

“Mainly being unlicensed restaurants or locations, sometimes food that is banned or hard to find because of regulations,” explained Wosk. “Many restaurants include ‘pop-ups,’ where some really great chefs want to try out new things outside of the regulated locations of brick and mortar restaurants. Some of these restaurants are so secret you have to apply to be invited to dine there.”

As for working with Page (who also wrote the show’s theme song), Wosk said, “He’s a mensch, a fun guy to work with, super smart, knows food.” Co-creator “Chris Charney read an article where Steven was outed as a foodie and proposed we reach out to him. We all thought he’d be a great TV host given his personality and talent. It didn’t take a lot of convincing.”

Featured restaurateurs and vendors are most often pleased to be unearthed for the show, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“All are happy to have us; when there are those who aren’t, they don’t let our cameras in,” Wosk explained. “So far so good. The Canadian ones have even live tweeted during the episode. In fact, many of the U.S. restaurants and people we’ve profiled have tweeted and are eagerly awaiting the show’s U.S. broadcast debut.” So far, a favorite location has been Charleston, S.C., said Wosk, because it features “Great food, excellent chefs and [a] wicked setting.”

When in Vancouver, Wosk said he has his spots. “I’ve always been a big hamburger fan, so I make a point to visit Vera’s Burgers anytime I’m home for a visit…. I also really like Hapa Izakaya, and will often also hit Nick’s Spaghetti House on Commercial, as it used to be a place we went all the time with my zaida, Murray Goldman.”

As for the formidable relationship between food and Jews, Wosk said he sees the cultural parallels at work in the show. “I think ‘food and Jews’ go together just as well as ‘guilt and Jews,’ or, maybe more precisely, ‘humor and Jews.’ You can’t have one without the other. As a nice Jewish boy, I think Steven Page shows that in The Illegal Eater – despite the amount of pork that was served.”

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