Bonus: Antoni Porowski Ate Around the World with Your Favorite Celebrities—These Are the Meals That Still Haunt Him

On this bonus episode of Travel Tales, Queer Eye‘s resident food expert Antoni Porowski takes you behind the scenes of his heartfelt, National Geographic show, No Taste Like Home. From crying over kelp with Awkwafina to testing his tasting limits with Henry Golding—these are the moments he’ll never forget.

Transcript

Aislyn Greene: You’re a tech genius! You’re—

Antoni Porowski: Wow! Add it to my résumé!

Aislyn: Add it to your résumé.

That is Antoni Porowski, tech wiz, but also Queer Eye’s resident food expert and now the host of the new National Geographic show, No Taste Like Home, which premieres on February 23. In the show, Antoni takes celebrities on epic journeys to explore their ancestral and culinary roots.

I’m Aislyn Greene, and in this special, bonus episode of Travel Tales, Antoni shares his Polish roots, the travel moments that didn’t make the cut, and the dishes that still haunt him.

Antoni, welcome to Travel Tales. Thank you so much for being here.

Antoni: Thanks for having me.

Aislyn: I absolutely loved No Taste Like Home, and I, I feel like it’s a show that has been missing from the food and travel landscape, and it seems so personal to you. So can you tell me how it came about?

Antoni: Yeah, it’s like most things in my life. Uh, it started out with something completely different, and then it kind of morphed into, into what it is. I knew, you know, that I wanted to do something, um, that involved travel and food in, in sort of more of a global way than I’d been used to on Queer Eye, considering we’ve stayed in the continental U.S. for nine seasons. And so, um, we had these, we had a couple of ideas floating around, and then I had a meeting with National Geographic and, um, was paired with Studio Ramsay, and it was kind of like, we all had slightly different ideas, and then it ended up being this, like, amalgamation of all of our brains together into what it is now.

And basically what we landed on was a concept where, uh, we take celebrities and we start out with, like, their, their “Proust’s madeleine,” like, their, the dish that kind of, that they remember from childhood, whether it was something that, you know, James Marsden’s mom made, like, chicken fried steak on, like, a random night of the week, or if it was something that was a little more celebratory, and then we kind of go to the country of origin, and then we explore what was going on sociocultural politically at the time, and then we kind of, like, go in, into, into different family members. We have an incredible research team. Every episode took three to six months of research just to find, like, stories to tell, which is really fascinating, and I wasn’t part of that process, but I would, like, sneak into the office every once in a while and kind of look at all these, like, boards of family trees and trying to, to unpack things.

So it was really, it’s a, it’s a fascinating experience.

Aislyn: Yeah, I can imagine. And I was wondering about that, because it seems like there’s no way—this must have taken so much time to find all of these stories and personalities and bring it all together.

Antoni: Yeah, and also because it’s National Geographic. It’s like, on Queer Eye, I can kind of say whatever I want, and there’s no fact-checking, really. That’s just not, not an insult to the show, but that’s just the nature of it. It’s just, it’s very on the go, on the cusp. And, you know, with, with Nat Geo, it’s like, every single thing that I say has to be corroborated by three independent sources.

And there’s a lot of narration, so I would have to go back, and we would change, and they’d be like, “No, we don’t like probably, we need to be certain. So give us some more time.” Which is like, really, it’s a completely different beast.

Aislyn: One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about you on Queer Eye and now on No Taste Like Home is that you seem willing to eat and or smell pretty much anything. So I’m curious to know what in your background, what in your life led to you being such an adventurous eater?

Antoni: I was the pickiest eater ever, growing up. I really disliked raw tomatoes. I wasn’t a fan of veggies. All I wanted was meat and cheese.

Aislyn: Wow.

Antoni: And so I really, I’m not sure. I think, ’cause I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve thought about this, ’cause I had this conversation with, with a family member, and my dad was like, “Yeah, it’s pretty incredible.”

He was like, “You were kind of a nightmare growing up. You were super picky.” But I think just watching my mother cook when I was growing up, I wasn’t really allowed to partake, and so I kind of, it’s like that phase of exploration when you’re just kind of taking it in, and you’re standing quietly, and you’re just, like, intaking all the information.

And then suddenly, I think, when I was, like, in college and I was, like, left to fend for myself and, um, wanted to cook for my roommates to, like, show up. Um, I, I, I had these, like, all of these different things banked, and I think it just happened when I was ready. But I think it’s also thanks to my parents because they forced me to do so many things that I didn’t want to do: from sports to trying things, to sheep brain at a French restaurant that was cooked in milk when I was 12 years old.

And I think that kind of, like, desensitized me in a way so that when I grew up, it was like, it wasn’t as scary because I kinda. . . . There was nothing intimidating about it. And I’m also a very sensory person. Like, how are you going to know how something tastes unless you eat it or unless you smell it, you know?

And even if it’s bad, it’ll go away in a minute. You’re not going to feel like that forever.

Aislyn: It’s true. And then you have that information in your brain for whenever you need it.

Antoni: Exactly. Yeah. You could just, like, pull it out. Yeah.

Aislyn: Well, why do you think that food is such a powerful way to explore our roots and travel, especially now that you’ve had this experience with these people?

Antoni: Well, I think food at its core—I mean, I’ll speak for myself—I just think it’s such a deeply emotional thing. It, it, it ties us to all of these childhood memories. Like I was mentioning earlier, whether it was just, like, a random weeknight dinner after swim practice and the whole family got together, or special occasions and things that you only make once a year because they’re so laborious.

Like there, there are all these sacred rituals that are tied to it, and I think that there’s a universality there too. And so I felt like it was a perfect jumping-off point for, um, for, for, for all these people where it was sort of like, I want you to, like, look back on your childhood and just, like, think about, like, what’s the dish? What’s the thing?

Aislyn: And it seemed like for each person it was something that was not—it was like home cooking, right? It was something that their parents or their grandparents made. It wasn’t this, like, fancy, crazy dish. It was something that felt very heartfelt in that way, too.

Antoni: Right. I mean, shepherd’s pie for, for, for Florence and the, the, the, the tri-generational debate between grandma, mom, and daughter of, like, Do tomatoes go in? Are they fresh? Are they canned? Like, are we doing a puree? Like, those family recipes can bring out all the quirks and, like, eccentricities in different family members, too.

Aislyn: Absolutely. And there’s no one right way, right? Like, that argument is never going to end.

Antoni: No, no. It’s ongoing. It will never be solved. That’s what makes it so fun, because we keep on debating.

Aislyn: Yes. Yep. Through the family lineage. Well, which dishes that you tried kind of haunt you now? Like, what food would you want to go back and try again?

Antoni: Oh, what would I want to go try again? OK. The wild ferns in Borneo changed my life. That was, uh, with Henry Golding, and his mom, um, comes from, an Indigenous tribe called the Iban. And he spent a lot of his time when he was young visiting, and she was raised in these, like, longhouses where you have 40 to 60 families, and they eat whatever is available in the jungle. So there’s sticky rice and bamboo shoots that’s, like, thrown over a fire that just gets, like, really delicious and sweet, and you just, like, roll it up in your hand and you have it with, like, a beautiful, sweet, crunchy fern.

Oh my gosh, we had fish, uh, by the water that had torch ginger, which I’d never tried before, which was so . . . nothing, no flavor profile reminiscent of ginger in any way, but it was so sour, it was like a sour candy, and these beautiful little leaves that just . . . adding onto the flakes. It was just perfection.

Aislyn: I remember that.

Antoni: To . . . to . . .

Aislyn: Wow.

Antoni: . . . oh my gosh, to ndambe in Senegal—that was maybe in my top three.

It was um, uh, a baguette with this, with this, like, really hearty, creamy, rich bean stew that’s just, like, slathered in, and it’s, like, the perfect street food, like ultimate comfort food. It was a lot. I could just—if you let me talk I’m just going to literally describe every single dish. So I’ll cut myself off there. Sorry.

Aislyn: Well, it seemed like one of the other aspects of the show is that most people didn’t know what was coming. Like, they had no control over this trip. So how did you guys, kind of, curate such personal trips? And what was it like to be revealing such intimate information on the fly like that?

Antoni: I’m not going to say I was stressed, but where I was a little anxious is you’re dealing with actors who—they know exactly what they’re doing on a daily basis. Maybe they switch some of their, like, acting choices, but for the most part, like, they have a call time. They know the location. They’ve memorized their lines, hopefully.

And with this, they knew which town we were in, but they genuinely had absolutely no idea what they were doing, who we were going to be meeting, which environment we were going to be going into. And so, I made sure to, some of them I knew beforehand and others not as well, so I, I, I really wanted to have, like, a Zoom or a meetup in person just to kind of discuss what it was, and I wanted to be clear.

Because also with them, like, they’re understandably protective over their personal lives. And this is a very personal journey. So there’s kind of a, a bit of a contradiction there, and I wanted to make clear, like, Look, there will be no gotcha moments. Um, you might be a little uncomfortable with [the] really early call time so we can get the beautiful, like, rising sun, um, on, on, like, certain vistas, but other than that, like, I want this to, I want you to leave this experience feeling like you are leaving with a gift, something that you can pass on to your children, to your family members, so you can know more about yourself, and I think that kind of helped them out a little bit.

And also continuity, I’ve learned, was a big thing for all of them, where they, like, carry their jacket, and, like, James, um, Marsden, who’s been, you know, in, like, countless movies, he would walk in with his jacket and be like, “No, wait, I put it down, so we have to stop.”

I’m like, “No, no. There’s no action, there’s no cut. We are living and breathing through this. The cameras are gonna follow us around. Know your markers, so we’re not, don’t have our back turned. But other than that, I just want you to live through this truthfully. As, as truthfully as you possibly can.” And they really did.

It took them about a day. I mean, they were truly all pros and they were all game.

Aislyn: I think that’s what makes the show so emotionally resonant is that they allowed themselves to be a little vulnerable, and you connected with them in that space. And, I mean, it’s truly moving, like, every episode I felt like there was a tear moment. I think for me, Awkwafina’s episode moved me the most. But yeah, what was it like to kind of be adjacent to that, and how do you, how do you support them?

Antoni: I mean, uh, with, with Awkwafina, with Nora, that was a special case because, you know, we, we, we went down her, uh, her maternal familial line, and she was South Korean, and her father’s side is Chinese American, and, and, um, you know, Nora lost her mother when she was four years old, and she hadn’t been back to South Korea since.

So that’s actually, that was one where I did give her a little more of a heads-up as to what we were going to be doing because she was already understandably high anxiety, a little stressed, a little scared. And so I really, I wanted to make sure that she felt safe and comforted throughout the process. Like, we had, there was a scene where, by the end of the, near the end of our journey, where, um, she got to . . . hm, if I start talking about it in too much detail, I’m going to start crying, but we met two of her mom’s high-school friends, and when we walked into the room into the café where we were meeting them, these two, like, really elegant, like, chic South Korean women just, like, got up, and one of them immediately said, “Oh my gosh, you look just like your mom.” Which that was, like, floodworks right off the bat.

Aislyn: Yeah.

Antoni: And then they started showing photos of, of, of her mom that, that Nora hadn’t seen in such a long time. And it was just, it was, like, such a special moment. She actually had to take care of me in that scene. It didn’t make it to the final episode, but I started bawling, crying. And these, like these, these two, these two older women, they were, they were, they were bickering like high-school girls about who was better friends with Nora’s mom.

And like, “But I was there when she met this cute boy that she liked.” And it was just, like, such a sweet and pure moment. And there was no shortage of that throughout the episode. But that was definitely one where we kind of, like, really took it step by step. And I was like, “OK, like, do we want to take a pause? Do we want, like, a little, like, a little tea situation?”Let’s take a breather.

And I have to say she was, she was really, really a trooper.

Aislyn: That’s amazing because that’s, like, a life-changing experience, right? That could be a life-changing moment for her to kind of reconnect with her mother’s side.

Antoni: Of course. It’s identity-building too. And I think it helps with confidence and everything. When you feel like a part of you is missing. . . . Even with—we had all these genealogists and historians and experts where I’ll bring the, whoever it is, to a certain place. Like, I brought, when I brought Nora to her ancestral village, and even with Justin [Theroux], when we took him to a church where, where his great, I think two or three times great-grandfather—I messed those up a lot because it’s so many generations—we meet these historians, and even though we recorded and we didn’t use most of it, I wanted to make sure, and the whole team did, that, that they really had a chance to ask whatever questions it was that they had.

And we would spend a couple of hours just, like, sitting chatting and, and the, like, the experts that Nat Geo found for this is, I, I’m just, my mind is still blown. Just, like, the wealth of knowledge and the passion that they have, and also the reasons for why they do what they do, is just so . . . that could be an episode in itself, truly.

Aislyn: And again, it really came through to the viewer. And in that way, there was one kind of throughline that jumped out at me, and that was the sense that multiple people said, “I feel like I’m home.” And it was maybe a place they’ve never been or hadn’t spent much time. And I was curious to know what you thought created that?

Antoni: So it kind of touches into a title that I wanted for the show that everyone kiboshed because arguably it was a very, like, like, just a strange name for a show. But I was watching—this is random, but bear with me—I was watching Anderson Cooper’s documentary with his mom. I think it was, like, uh, Nothing Left Unsaid.

And it was right before she passed where he really wanted to, like, get to know her. And there was a term that was used in the documentary. It’s a Welsh term, I believe, uh, that’s hiraeth. H-I-R-A-E-T-H. And I, I, from my recollection, it’s, it’s described as a longing or a nostalgia for a home that was or that never was, but there’s some kind of a familiarity there.

Aislyn: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Antoni: I think that’s something that can get activated when you’re in an environment. Like, I remember when I went to Warsaw for the first time, as, like, more of a grown-up, not as a child, and I really was paying more attention to sort of, like, just the people and everyone’s psychology in the streets. And when I got to meet people my age, I understood why my parents are the way they are.

This, this cold, sort of, like, sarcastic sense of humor.

And, and just people’s personalities, when you’re in that environment, it gets triggered. Or even with Nora, when we were sitting and we had this woman who, um, had a PhD in fermentation, who was teaching us how to make this soup. And that wasn’t even the, the, the starter recipe for the episode, but we were rehydrating these beautiful big sheets of kelp and searing these little thin pieces of beef and sesame oil and putting it into a broth, and, and at one point Nora gets emotional, and she, like, starts shaking. She’s like, “I remember this smell from when I was, when I was a child,” when she was four years old. And then we learned that in mythology—not all these details made it, but I’ll share it with you—um, in, in, in mythology, apparently Koreans would look out into the ocean and see [that] when whales would give birth, they would be depleted of iron.

So they would eat a lot of kelp to heal themselves. And, for Koreans, food is truly medicine. I mean, it’s, uh, fermentation is UNESCO-protected. I believe kimchi is. So they take it very seriously with gut health.

And now, of course, I’m obsessed with kimchi and I have it every single morning. But, um, to know that, to know that Nora’s mom, she had this, this very rare, this illness when she was born where the doctors basically gave her a few months, and she decided she’s going to revert to Eastern practices of her ancestors, and she lived for four years.

She made that soup for herself and for Nora. And for Nora, then, to sort of connect, through this woman, who was a stranger, who, who took on a bit of a maternal role in that moment and was like, “No, like, your mom made that because she was trying to heal herself and also taking care of you, her baby,” and Nora, Nora had that smell, like, she remembered that smell from when she was four years old. Like, that’s so incredibly powerful. And it was delicious, objectively.

Aislyn: And she probably hasn’t smelled that since she was four. Right? Like, that’s not something she would encounter in her normal life. So then to suddenly have that powerful sense memory. Ooh.

Antoni: Totally. And then to understand the depth of it as well, which is what we find with so many dishes throughout the show. . . . It’s sort of like the history behind it and, and all, like, the wealth of information that’s behind a baguette with, with a bean stew in Senegal that, that deals with colonization and the French leaving and the Senegalese deciding we’re going to take a baguette, make it better, and we’re going to incorporate our own elements to it . . .

Or South Koreans with kimbap, which gets confused with sushi, which it shouldn’t be, because during the war there was tinned fish, so they use canned tuna in these maki rolls with their pickled vegetables, which, cause they’re big on, like, fermentation and pickled things and truly making it their own and making the best out of just a horrible situation that lasted hundreds of years, like, it’s just, it’s just mind-blowing.

Aislyn: Yes, a single dish can contain so much. Family, history, memory, it’s incredible. Did everyone have, like, a dish that they knew, like, that’s the dish for me, that’s my family dish?

Antoni: They all came up with it really quickly. It was, it was one of those things where, yeah, like with Henry, I think he was a little reticent because a lot of the ingredients are only available in the jungle in Borneo, and his mom would make it for him when he was, uh, when he was a young boy, and she would use, like, tinned products of, like, all these and he was like, “It’s not going to taste as good.”

We’re like, “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry. We’re going to have the fresh version. Like, it doesn’t have to be perfect at the beginning. Like, we’ll get there.” To, even with James Marsden, he was sort of very, like, modest about, like, you know, chicken fried steak. Like, that’s what we ate in Oklahoma.

And then even something as simple and as humble as chicken fried steak—which, full disclosure, I had no idea what the hell it was going into it. I wasn’t really sure—but then to learn that it has ties to barbecue and to, to German immigrants forming bonds, who are anti-slavery, uh, forming relationships with freed slaves because the freed slaves were excellent pitmasters and the Germans were excellent butchers, and they formed what’s now, tonight, today known as barbecue, and then—I’m telling you so much about the episode—but then you go to Bavaria and you’re like, right, it’s schnitzel.

It’s a modified version of schnitzel. Like, the ties sort of cross-culturally are just, uh, wow.

Aislyn: And you mentioned that you didn’t want anyone to have, like, a gotcha moment, but there were moments of discomfort. And I remember—I think it was James Marsden’s episode—I don’t remember what he was eating, but he was uncomfortable with it. It was, like, some kind of offal, I think. Um—

Antoni: Oh, I believe we had heart.

Aislyn: Heart, yes.

And you went right in, but he, I felt, like, was resistant and then ultimately loved it, you know?

Antoni: Yeah.

Aislyn: And then with Henry Golding, a completely different sense of discomfort: like, connecting with his heritage and feeling very divorced from that, for assimilation reasons. Like, those are powerful transformations to make.

Antoni: Totally. And I will just say, fine, I might have been a little more brave than James eating the heart, but with Henry, again, what didn’t make it, when we were in those longhouses and we were being introduced to, to the people who live there, they had these massive grubs. I’m not kidding you. They were as big as my hand and they were live.

Aislyn: Oh my God.

Antoni: He had one off camera and he asked if I wanted one.

Aislyn: Really?

Antoni: He was like, “But you have to bite the head off so the teeth don’t bite you in your mouth.” And I was like, “You know what? That’s where I draw the line. I don’t eat anything that’s alive. Like, I’ll almost put anything in my mouth, but like, I have my limits.” So just to tell you that I’m not, I’m not always that brave.

Aislyn: All right. We found Antoni’s limits. This is a bigger question, but how did the experience of creating these six episodes change the way you think about food and travel going forward?

Antoni: I mean, it definitely, I think internally just for me, ’cause I’ve had this conversation with my dad. Um, it made me realize I’ve always felt, like, pretty damn Polish. Like we spoke Polish growing up, even though I was born in, first one in my family, born in Canada. And I’ve always felt very sort of like, I, I’ve had like a deep knowledge of, of not only my family history, but of our food.

And I realized now how little I actually know about the significance of certain ingredients, why they’re being used, why they’re so prominent in, in Polish cuisine. I’m very drawn to street food and kiosks. Sometimes I suffer from that ’cause my biome just isn’t ready for the environment I’m in, but I still do it anyway. Um, and I get a little sick, but it’s still worth it. But I, I think it’s the most powerful dishes that kind of resonate with me, obviously the ones that, that, that led the episodes, but in between I mentioned kimbap and ndambe, these, like, two like, adored street foods that are, that are enjoyed by people across the country that are just so readily available.

You know, I, I just got to L.A. and I was, uh, I was thinking about those two dishes because I’m going to be making them in a demonstration and I, we were drove by a kiosk with a woman with, who is selling, um, she was selling like breakfast burritos, and I was like, yeah, that’s something that I eat literally once or twice a week.

And I was like, What, like, how did that start? Like American influence on Mexican cuisine. And so it’s, I think with street food, there’s such a wealth of knowledge there that it just has me thinking, like, a little bit of regret where I’m like, I wish I kind of studied it more or asked more questions.

Or in a perfect world I would travel with a historian, but I guess that’s why No Taste Like Home exists so we can kind of answer those questions for you. But, like, it kind of brought in like a, just a deeper curiosity, kind of like, I try to do in therapy with certain things, but it’s encouraged me to go there with food as well, to just kind of understand, like, when did this come about?

Is it indigenous? Who was it brought in by? What influenced its, its, its importance in, in today’s culture and why it’s so adored?

Aislyn: Yeah. All right. So we have many more seasons to come, I hope. Would you do an episode based on your own history? And if so, which dish would you pick?

Antoni: Oh! I would 100 percent do an episode. Any excuse to go to the motherland of Poland. I think a dish that I would probably—OK, so my, my mother made a really fancy version of it. We use crepes a lot in Polish cuisine, which doesn’t feel very Polish, but they’re very popular. There’s a sweet version that’s naleśniki, which is with like a farmer’s cheese and a creme anglaise situation and some fresh berries, and then there’s krokety, which are crepes you can stuff them with all kinds of different things, but it’s meat that isn’t ground, but it’s sort of like a pate texture, and so they’re rolled up into like these perfect little rectangles. If you go to a restaurant, they deep fry them, but my mother would pan sear them. So they’d be nice and brown and crispy. And she would serve it with a wild mushroom sauce, ’cause we would go foraging a lot, as a family growing up. And so we would get like chanterelles and porcinis and um, I know that feels like a bit of, like, a fancy thing, but like a lot of Polish people do it, it’s quite common.

And so we would have these, like, mushrooms that she would pick and with the meat and it’s like, she made like, a like a more elegant version of it, but I would kind of want to . . . just the idea of like, the preserving the meat, the stuffing in the crepe. How did crepes enter Poland?

First of all, I’d never thought about that until this second. Like, I know we didn’t come up with that. Like that, that clearly must’ve been the French, I think. Um, but who knows? I just . . .

Aislyn: Who knows?

Antoni: Right. And it’s just like, like, when did that come about? So I would be curious to sort of do a deep dive on that.

Aislyn: And then the foraging aspect, I mean, I’m picturing you out there in the trees right now. Like, that’s a great visual, so.

Antoni: Oh, when you find the perfect little, perfect little chanterelle and then you sauté it with some shallots and some butter and put it on some rye bread with bone marrow. Mmm. Bit of flake salt. Now I’m hungry.

Aislyn: Alright, alright, that sounds amazing. Because you travel so much between Queer Eye and now this show, what are your travel musts? Like, a couple of things you have to have. Maybe it’s food? Maybe you have to have snacks?

Antoni: So a really important one for me and, obviously speak to a dietitian nutritionist or physician because I’m not one, melatonin is, is really important for me to try to adjust and acclimatize to the, to the different time changes. That said, read local guidelines wherever you travel. For example, South Korea, it is very illegal, and they have like, it’s, they take it very seriously, of bringing melatonin into the country. So I brought a lot of really good-quality chamomile tea bags, which were just as good when you double them up and make a little concentrate.

Adjusting to sleep is really important, whether I’m on a plane or if you’re staying in, you know, we stayed in a hostel and in Senegal or in hotels, you never know what the blind situation is. And I need to sleep in pitch blackness. I have really good sleep masks. Um, Slip is a good one, the silk ones.

And my esthetician told me recently, she’s like, you have to wash those because your sweat and your skin care and stuff like it kind of gets in there and it gets messy. So that’s TMI that nobody asked for. Wash your sleep masks. Very important.

Aislyn: But I forget.

Antoni: I, I always have, I always have like pistachios or some kind of nuts for like really good proteins and like fats if I’m like really hungry because they fill me up and they keep me going for a really long time.

I love jerky, um, whether it’s like bison, elk, or, or, or, or beef. Again, just to have protein because I feel like, in sort of, in the, in the U.S. we’re very, like, protein heavy in our diets and people are a lot more vegetal internationally and they eat less of it. And also my body is kind of a mess after, after long flights and circulation.

I—turmeric, so important. And also I have these like, little Calm brand magnesium packets that I put in water every night. I’m not really sure what it does, but it like feels good for my body and it really relaxes me. And there’s like nothing else in it except like magnesium powder.

And also in case your luggage doesn’t make it, even though I try to travel with hand luggage, only with a obnoxious duffel that ends up hurting my shoulder and then I have to go to acupuncture after, if you’re checking luggage, have a spare set of clothes in your backpack. I have my NorthFace, tried, tested, and true.

I’ve had it for over 10 years. Always extra underwear, socks, T-shirt. It’s just really nice to have when you arrive to a place and you’ve been on like a 10–12-hour flight. Your body is so tight. Even if you can change into a fresh T-shirt in a restroom somewhere or some gas station, you’re gonna feel so much better.

Aislyn: Well, you are the consummate traveler. Thank you for the mask tip. Very last question: Any thoughts about season two? Is it way too early to ask that?

Antoni: I mean, it hasn’t come out yet, but I mean, I, I could genuinely do this forever. Look, we, we, in six episodes, I think we did a pretty good job of covering very diverse territories and stories. But that said, there is just so much more to explore. I’d been to Africa before, only to Botswana and to Cape Town and, and Senegal just completely blew my mind.

And when I think of all the other countries, and the dishes, and the ingredients and it’s like—Asia [is] so massive. Like the more I think about the world, I just like, get into, like a bit of a tailspin because I just think we have so many stories to tell. And, you know, I just want Nat Geo to continue funding my travels.

So I really hope that we get to continue to do this forever because I really, I just had the time of my life doing it, truly.

Aislyn: Well, congratulations on making such a fantastic show.

Antoni: Thank you. Thanks so much. I’m really hungry now. I got to go buy food.

Aislyn: And that was Antoni Porowski. I really did love his show so much. I highly recommend a watch when it comes out this weekend. So in the show notes, you’ll find Antoni’s social media handles and the streaming platforms that are hosting No Taste Like Home. I’ve also linked to Afar’s YouTube channel, if you’d like to watch our conversation. And Travel Tales, season six, will return on Thursday, May 1st.

Until then, you can listen to our sister podcast, Unpacked, and you can sign up for our Behind the Mic newsletter at afar.com/btm to get details on upcoming episodes, surveys, etcetera. Links for both are in the show notes.

For more from Afar, visit afar.com or follow us on social media; our handles on Instagram and Facebook are @afarmedia. This has been Travel Tales, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galtland. Music composition by Chris Colin. Everyone has a travel tale. What’s yours?