President Obama recently returned from a three-day trip to Alaska and the Arctic to push his climate agenda, but not before recording a clip for the reality TV show Running Wild with Bear Grylls for NBC. Grylls is the irrepressible British TV star who has made a career of eating absolutely anything to get out of pickles in the wilderness—combined with his survivalist know-how and occasional nudity.
In the short clip, broadcast on Today this morning, the president can be seen gingerly nibbling on the “bloody carcass” of an salmon that Grylls has cooked up on a portable stove after finding it on a riverbank. The fish had been previously chewed on by an actual bear, Grylls informed the president.
The verdict: “Bear’s a mediocre cook, but the fact that we ate something recognizable was encouraging,” Obama said—referring to Grylls’s penchant for eating just about anything, like raw snake or giant larva. “Now, the fact that he told me this was a leftover fish from a bear, I don’t know if that was necessary,” the president said. “He could have just left that out.”
Obama is called “the bear” himself occasionally, when he gets restless and starts doing unexpected things in public, outside the confines of his Secret Service bubble. “‘The bear is loose’: Is Obama breaking free or running away?” asked the Washington Post, last year. “As president, I am in what’s called the bubble, and Secret Service makes sure that I’m always out of danger, which I very much appreciate, but it can be a little confining,” he told Grylls, according to Today.
“This has got to be one of the best days of my presidency,” he said.
Obama also ate dog meat as a child, which, you’ll remember, unleashed a torrent of attacks from conservatives.
Correction: I wrongly referred to the salmon enjoyed by Obama and Grylls as “Atlantic” in an earlier version of this post. As Paul Arden, the communications director for congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA), points out by email: “Where’d you get the bit about it being Atlantic salmon? Should be Pacific salmon if it really did come from a bear? Looked like coho or sockeye…”
