Gas station food is 'extraordinary' and 'hiding in plain sight,' says top chef

Gas station food is as much a slice of American cuisine as a single serving of pizza, according to one celebrity chef.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, chef Andrew Zimmern, based in Minnesota, said he's spent the better part of 25 years traveling the country in a van.

"I'm not sure there's someone else alive who's probably stopped as many places to eat as I have in the last two-and-a-half decades," he said. (See the video at the top of this article.) 

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That's what Zimmern said makes him qualified to vouch for gas station food, which he believes is more appealing to hungry Americans than it may appear.

He's now partnered with the Iowa-based Casey's gas stations to promote their new barbecue brisket pizza.

"I really think that what it has to do with is our own sense of adventure," Zimmern said. 

"We don't have to cross the ocean on a 19th century tramp steamer to have an adventure. We can walk into some place and try a regional food or a regional treat that happens to be for sale in that particular shop and have just as much of a warm, fuzzy feeling."

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The chef praised the new barbecue brisket pizza at Casey's, which he touted for its "real, wholesome ingredients, stuff I'm happy to feed my family."

He added, "And by the way, in today's price-conscious world, there should be a pizza that's a whole pizza that can feed a family of four people really easily and not cost you a million dollars."

But good gas station food goes beyond just pizza, he said. 

"When you're in Arizona and you have a breakfast burrito at a gas station with three grandmas in the back rolling up homemade chorizo with eggs and crispy potatoes and handing them to you, you are in a very, very, very special place, and you're about to eat something really extraordinary – and they're all hiding in plain sight."

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Zimmern also makes no apologies about eating what he wants when he's on the road.

"You try to maintain your healthy lifestyle up until the time that you have a cheat moment or a cheat day," he admitted. 

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"If I drank slushies and ate pizza three meals a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, I'm not sure it would really be great for me," he said. 

"That said, I choose not to live in a world where I need to not eat pizza. I choose to live in a world where I get to eat pizza when I want and I get to have an orange slushy made with my favorite Mexican soda brand."