'The World's Least Talented TV Chef': Revisiting The Messy Feud Between Andrew Zimmern And Tyler Florence

When a small group of very talented individuals who achieve tremendous success are grouped together, large egos often clash with each other. Case in point: celebrity chefs. There are plenty of juicy stories about big-name television chefs saying nasty things about each other, like the large bone Anthony Bourdain had to pick with Paula Deen or Martha Stewart's swipe about Ina Garten being "not charming." But one of the nastiest mud-slinging involved Andrew Zimmern and Tyler Florence.

The insults and character assassinations were so bad that it's reasonable to assume these two might have had beef with each other before this incident. It began in 2008 when Tyler Florence was a guest on a Ryan Seacrest-produced reality show called "Momma's Boys" in which Florence supervised and judged several of the female contestant's cooking skills. Zimmern penned a blog post shortly after the episode aired, saying, "Monday's episode [of "Momma's Boys"] featured the world's least talented TV chef, Tyler Florence, once again churning out the questionable cooking advice and leading the ladies through a menu of the mom's fave recipes" (via ENews). He went on to call the episode "comedy of the highest order" and pointed out his belief that Florence was a wannabe TV stud who ogled the women and wolfed down the food. Ouch. But Florence didn't just let the smoke clear. He responded with some harsh words of his own toward the "Bizarre Foods" host. 

Tyler Florence was not going to let bygones be bygones when Andrew Zimmern chose to rip him behind his keyboard. Florence was equally harsh back, saying, "This guy Andrew Zimmern, the guy who eats dried camel c*** for a living, has decided to dis my life's work because I did my personal friend, Ryan Seacrest, a favor and helped him out with his first big television production, 'Momma's Boys.'" He explained that the show was meant to be light-hearted and he had a great time filming his segments. Florence finished with, "I guess it's hard to have a sense of humor when you're on your 10th take of eating yak testicles, smiling to the camera, wondering where your life went wrong." Yeesh.

Zimmern eventually took down his blog post but not before the drama was sealed in the history books. Despite the scathing words flung at each other, both chefs have had and continue to have successful and respected careers. Both men have had entertaining television shows, multiple cookbooks, restaurants (even though some celeb chef-owned eateries end up being massing flops), and even still share headlining duties on the food festival circuit. We can assume that the two have made peace with each other and moved on like grown ups. The photos above were taken at a wine and food festival in 2015 and clearly display a relationship of comradery and friendship.