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Nothing beats the taste of a Southern fried meal--and host Bobby Bognar traces its amazing journey to your plate. In Alabama, Bobby wades among 275,000 catfish during feeding time--and discovers how each fish scooped from the pond becomes a fillet within just one hour. At a Louisiana alligator farm, he dares to grab a gator from its holding tank, and learns how gators owe their survival--in part--to those who eat them. Did you know that one popular Southern favorite, rice, reaches your plate by falling from the sky? Or what it takes to extract frying oil from a lint-covered cottonseed? Or what makes the South's favorite spicy condiment, Tabasco sauce, so hot? And what do giant fans, fire and cannons have to do with putting peach cobbler on the table?

For generations, people have been gathering around the table to experience the traditional recipes of America's most popular ethnic cuisine – Italian food. Have you ever met anyone who hasn't tried pasta? Probably not since Americans eat over 2 billion pounds of it each year. But pasta's just a part of our big Italian family dinner. Host Bobby Bognar travels from coast to coast in search of what makes this dinner so special. He'll trawl the waters off North Carolina and crawl the forests of New Mexico for the ingredients in our pasta sauces. In New York, he'll learn the secret behind pasta's many shapes. Then he'll press some California grapes and learn how one type of bacteria makes both vinegar and wine. And when it's time for dessert, Bobby goes from New Jersey, where he learns the difference between gelato and ice cream, all the way to Costa Rica for an after-dinner caffeine boost. So pull up a chair, grab a plate and help yourself.

Host Bobby Bognar travels to America's buffet capital, Las Vegas, to kick off a nationwide exploration of our most popular buffet dishes. Off the sunny Florida coast, Bobby discovers that the secret to catching shrimp is to tickle them. In snowy Wisconsin, he finds out what makes the horseradish for our cocktail sauce so spicy. In California, he dons a protective suit to see how bees make the honey that will glaze another buffet favorite, ham. Can you guess how many flowers bees have to visit to make just one pound of honey? And at a sugar cane farm in Hawaii, he follows the fascinating process of making the sweet stuff key to every buffet dessert. Finally, Bobby explores the immense logistical challenge of staging the buffet itself. And what better place to do that than the biggest buffet in Vegas, the Rio Carnival World Buffet, where an army of chefs whip up 380 different dishes for 4,000 hungry diners every day.

An afternoon at the ballpark isn't complete without a few trips to the concession stand. Today, more than ever, food service vendors offer increasingly finer fare, but American fans still eat more hot dogs than any other ballpark food--22 million a year at Major League ballparks alone. Have you ever wondered what really goes into a hot dog? What does a pine tree have to do with its shape? When you wash it down with a draft beer, would you believe a flower is responsible for its bitter taste? And, there is more to that tasty morsel at the bottom of a Drumstick than just sweetness. Bobby Bognar travels to Washington's Yakima Valley to help farmers grow the spice of beer. In Michigan, he uncovers how a special hybrid of popcorn is vital to making Cracker Jack. In Arkansas, he reveals wood pulp is responsible for giving hot dogs their uniform shape. And in Missouri, he discovers the culprit responsible for the mustard stain on his shirt.