Emory Alum, Star of "Man Vs. Food" at MJCCA Book Fest

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to meet a celebrity Emory alumnus. That’s right. The star of the Travel Channel’s “Man vs. Food” – Adam Richman (‘96C). I’ll be honest. I have never watched the show, but after seeing him at the Book Festival of the MJCCA this weekend, I’m a big fan.

In the few minutes we had together in the “green room” (thanks to my friend Bennie Cohen of Birthright Israel NEXT for getting me in), he reminisced with me about going to Hillel’s High Holiday services at Glen Memorial as an undergraduate. Someone asked him if he knew what an aliyah was, he recounted. A nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn who went to Schechter day school? He was all over that. He did the aliyah. As he tells it, they were so impressed that they asked him to lead a couple other prayers during the service.

On stage at the Book Festival, Adam gave an amazing talk filled with humor (much of it referring to Emory) as well as meaningful commentary on how to be mindful of our own culinary experiences. It was while he was at Emory, in fact, that he began to explore all the culinary pickings he could find in Atlanta (eating as much traif as he could, he says with a wink). He started to keep a journal about his food journeys, which ultimately led him to where he is today.

You can get a taste of Adam’s incredible sense of humor and yiddishkeit from this interview in Creative Loafing, where he’s asked how he feels about Jewish cuisine:

Jewish cuisine? That's home to me: latkes, chicken soup, knaidel, matzo balls, gefilte fish. I would like to see a trend of modernizing these recipes and integrating modern cooking methodologies or ingredients into "Old Country" stuff. I also love doing older recipes with (believe it or not) healthier ingredients if possible. It would even be great to see some of these dishes appear on non-specialty menus, but I'm not holding my breath. I doubt Olive Garden is gonna add Matzoh Ball Parmigiana to the menu any time soon. There was a challenge in Phoenix called the "Jewish Slider Challenge" at Chompies Deli, but it was merely a title used to describe the ingredients (latkes, brisket) rather than depict any kind of religious sanctity. I mean, they had cheese on the brisket! That ain't Jewish, but is sure is good - and a Rosenberg by any other name would still smell as sweet, and get you 20 percent lower than retail.

Adam made Atlanta the first stop on his book tour. You can get his new book, America the Edible: A Hungry History From Sea to Dining Sea, right here. It looks like a fun read.

I invited Adam to come check out Goodfriend’s Grill at the Marcus Hillel Center and talked to his agent about doing a show featuring Enoch's delicious southern kosher BBQ. Let’s see if he takes me up on the offer.