In an effort to stop the recent horrific incidents involving kitten sandwiches, confectioner Cadbury Adams has issued the following instructive poster encouraging those who enjoy eating kittenwiches to think twice and have a nice, chewy Swedish Fish instead. I've never been a real big fan of the gummy treats, and, no, I've never had a kitten sandwich.
Nor have I had any of the other bizarre meals that Cadbury created for its "A Friend You Can Eat," adverstising campaign. The others include a shot of a dude with hamburger dressings sitting on top of his head and a teddy bear panini. The web site also has a cool photo tool where you can upload a shot of yourself to be featured as one of the ingredients in the three bizarre meals.
Even though I'm no fan of Swedish Fish, I'll take one over a kitten sandwich any day. Hopefully this campaign will help keep kitten sandwiches out of Halloween goodie bags on Friday. On a side note, blogger The DoughyGuy says his cat does not like Swedish Fish.
By the time McDonald's introduced Happy Meals, I was too old to enjoy them. I've always felt kind of gypped by the whole Happy Meal thing. Now that the fast-food giant may discontinue the Pasta Zoo Happy Meal in its Australian restaurants, I'm even more disappointed. Actually that's a lie, I've never even heard of Pasta Zoo until today. It sounds like the pasta version of animal crackers.
Pasta Zoo was introduced back in January, but after poor sales, McDonald's is seriously considering replacing it with something else. The animal-shaped pasta with dipping sauce was part of the company's efforts to provide healthier Happy Meals.
This isn't the first failed product for Macca's, as the chain is known Down Under. Last spring the chain tested several dinner items, including spaghetti Bolognese and beef rendang, that were dropped from the menu. As a fan of Malaysian food, I don't whether to be happy or disappointed that one can no longer get a Big Mac with a side order of rendang in Australia.
This election year has seen all manner of cooking and food related products ranging from Hop Obama beer to Hillary and Obama aprons. I suppose those Hillary aprons might have some value for collectors. But except for a Japanese confectioner offering lollipops, I've seen precious little campaign confections out there.
Then I happened on this pair of presidential Pez dispensers from Herobuilders. I've never been much of a Pez collector, though I do own a Homer Simpson dispenser. Herobuilders is offering its presidential "Candydates" for the whopping price of $19.95. I don't plan on buying one, but I do know who I plan to vote for pezident, er, president. No word yet on whether Herobuilders plans to cash in on all the hoopla surrounding Joe the Plumber by making a dispenser bearing his likeness.
Take a good look at this reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Don't worry, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those are slices of various sausages and luncheon meats in the background. In fact, the whole painting is made of meat. It was part of a show put on by six Russian artists to celebrate the 100th birthday of Tavr a meat processor located in southern Russia.
The artists spent three days fashioning the meaty museum of classic paintings, which also includes reproductions of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers and Pablo Picasso's Girl on a Ball. They used 40 pounds of meat to create these canvasses fit for a carnivore. Visitors to the show were offered fresh Tavr sausages.
What's it like for artists to work with meat? Well, Aleksandr Solomko likes ham as a medium because it's soft and flexible. "The biggest trouble was to stick the sausages to the canvas. Gelatin turned out to be the best solution. It's perfectly natural and doesn't affect the taste. However, we had to rework some parts of the picture, when it started to darken after the meat spent some time in the air."
On Wednesday 1,500 cooks in Iran unveiled an attempt to smash Italy's Guinness Record for the world's largest ostrich sandwich. The event took place in Tehran's Mellet Park. At 4,920 feet, the humongous hero, which contained 1,543 pounds each of ostrich and chicken meat, easily beats the Italian record of 4,521 feet, set last May.
There's only one problem though. The sandwich was devoured in minutes by a hungry crowd before Guinness officials had a chance to measure it. The organizers are hoping that Guinness will accept video footage to authenticate the record.
It's a shame that something which took two days to prepare was gobbled up in mere minutes. The hero contained a mixture of ostrich and chicken meat with mustard and spices. The gigantic sandwich made from gigantic flightless birds was the brainchild of Tehran's city council along and a group of ostrich farmers. Ostrich meat is renowned for its flavor and is high in protein and low in cholesterol. Iran is the world's third-largest ostrich breeder behind South Africa and China.
The Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser is so big that it looks like it might eat Brad Sciullo. Nonetheless the 21-year-old chef from Uniontown, Pa., took down the 15-pound burger along with 5 pounds of toppings in four hours and 39 minutes. For his efforts the 5-foot-11, 180-pound received $400, three T-shirts, a certificate and what the owner of Denny's Beer Barrel Pub calls "a burger hangover."
Sciullo is the first person to ever successfully eat this outlandishly huge burger within the 5-hour time limit. The colossal cheeseburger was dressed with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, mild banana peppers and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and relish. Four hours and 39 minutes is a glacial pace compared with the people on the International Federation of Competitive Eaters circuit. The IFOCE is all about speed.
I'm guessing that Sciullo might spend a good 4 hours in the bathroom after eating that much ground beef. At least the chef doesn't have to face any burgers when he returns to work. He works at an Italian restaurant called Pasta Lorenzo's in Uniontown.
Lately bacon has been appearing in everything from tiaras and bras to ice cream and Obama logos. It's gotten so popular and so absurd that many in the blogosphere are crying, "Enough with the bacon all ready!" Which is why I found this story about bacon shoplifting rather refreshing. Not that I'm in favor of shoplifting, I just like reading about bacon in the traditional sense.
I guess with all the hoopla about unconventional uses for bacon, I missed this one. Last month shoplifters cleaned out a Londis supermarket in Burnley, U.K., of all of its bacon – for two days in row, no less. The price of the breakfast meat has increased 100 percent making it a target of opportunity for shoplifters. Local police believe the bacon burglars were stealing the bacon and selling it on the street to buy heroin.
In response to the thefts the supermarket's managers have placed the breakfast meat under lock and key. At least Londis' management is taking the new policy with a healthy dash of dry British wit. A sign at the Burnley store reads, "Due to the fact that our bacon is so delicious the shoplifters can't resist it – If you would like to try some please ask at the tills."
Dole has increased its banana imports to Japan by more than 25%, yet there's still a shortage of the fruit in this island nation. So what's the reason behind this sudden spike in demand? A fad known as the Morning Banana Diet. It's so popular that one young woman has been waiting to start the diet for a month because her local OK Store is always out of bananas.
The run on bananas began last month when former opera singer Kumiko Mori who weighs more than 200 pounds announced on the television show Dream Press-sha that she lost 15 pounds on the Morning Banana Diet. After the show aired there was a 70 to 80 percent increase in banana sales versus last year at supermarkets run by Life Corp.
The regimen itself is pretty simple: Allow yourself as many bananas and room temperature water for breakfast; eat anything you like for lunch, 3 p.m. snack and dinner; stop eating by 8 p.m. and get to bed before midnight. It's the brainchild of Osaka pharmacist Sumiko Watanabe who designed it to increase the metabolism of her husband, Hitoshi, who lost 37 pounds. There's even a web site for the diet. It appears to be down right now, but this amusing video describing how the diet works complete with a techno version of The Banana Boat Song is still working.
This isn't the first time a fad diet has caused shortages in Japan. Last year the natto diet stripped supermarket shelves of the funky, slimy fermented soybeans. Who knows whether either of these diets works, but a morning banana beats natto any day.
The current version of the Choking Victim poster hanging in almost every New York City eatery and bar warrants scarcely a moment's thought. It's clearly laid out and quite instructive. At a glance one knows how to save the Choking Victim via the Heimlich maneuver, but it lacks any sense of whimsy or artistic flair. It's not all like the one above, which hangs on the wall of Porchetta in New York City's East Village. Even though Porchetta's an Italian pork specialist the Choking Victim poster here has a Caribbean flair. More on that later. This blueprint/comic conveys what is essentialy a grim message in a visually pleasing manner. The panels of the gent expelling his food are quite effective. You'll never swallow a whole fish or hamburger without chewing again.
The poster's the work of Alex Holden. He designed it for a Cuban-themed bar that couldn't deal with the city's version. He happened to have an extra copy laying around, so he gave it to the folks at the recently opened Porchetta. Holden has succeeded in crafting a Choking Victim poster that evokes a chuckle from even the most jaded of diners.
I'm a huge fan of Korean food. It's spicy and so full of fresh, vibrant ingredients that I always feel superhealthy after eating it. So when I heard that a gigantic bowl of bibimbap would be served on the stretch of New York City's West 32 Street better known as Korea Way last Sunday I dropped everything and hopped on the subway. For those unfamiliar with Korean cuisine, bibimbap is a dish consisting of rice mixed with a wide array of ingredients. There's usually plenty of veggies, a bit of meat and there's always gojujang, a fiery chili pepper paste. The version that was served up to a hungry horde that day is known as Jeonju bibimbap. Before mixing the ingredients were laid out in a stunning visual display that used five colors (green, white, red, black and yellow) and resembled the Korean flag. The 507-pound bowl of bibimbap contained 19 ingredients and took 27 people 43 hours to prepare.
No self-respecting American pizza lover would ever dare to use a knife and fork to dispatch a slice, unless it was Chicago style. Apparently folks across the pond have no shame when it comes to eating their 'za with the aid of cutlery. And one Neapolitan chain operating in London is none too happy about the situation. Rossopomodoro has banned knives and forks from its shops in Covent Garden, Chelsea and Notting Hill.
Rossopomodoro uses only ingredients sourced from Naples and is staunchly true to its Italian roots, hence their attitude toward people eating pizza with their hands. "Pizza is something you touch and share. You've got to treat a pizza like someone you want to make love to," said Rossopomodoro's managing director Simone Falco.
While I applaud any effort to encourage people to enjoy pizza as a sensual experience by eating with their hands the campaign's tag line, "Fork Off!" is clearly in poor taste. No word yet on whether Rossopomodoro's London restaurants will install metal detectors to enforce the ban.
As many of us here at Slashfood know geeks love to play with their food. And what geek doesn't love computers? Here's a birthday cake that combines the love of computers with that playful approach to food. It's a sugar-laden cartoony rendition of a motherboard. That Intel chip is an After Eight chocolate mint, and you can see that the gal who created this cake for her boyfriend also made liberal use of vanilla and chocolate wafer cookies. The circular gold things are Rolos. I haven't had one of them in years. Seeing the gold-foil wrapped treats has me wanting to run out and buy a pack.
I stumbled upon this sweet rendition of a motherboard on Geekcake, an entire site that's devoted to geeky cakes. What are some of the other cakes geeks are making you ask? Naturally, Star Wars is a common theme. There's a cool-looking Jabba-The-Hut wedding cake. And since nerds worship role-playing games, there's a cake fashioned after a 20-sided die. In high-school I played my fair share of D&D. But my favorite cake on the site is a Rubik's Cube cake. I'm guessing that's its not a fully functional Rubik's Cube. I'll bet it tastes good though.
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you folks. That's a pair of Mickey D's Chicken McNuggets in their natural habitat slurping down some barbecue sauce. They're part of the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill that opened in New York City's West Village earlier this week. Other critters at this decidedly strange pet store include a pair of fish sticks swimming happily around a bowl. There's also a wide selection of hot dogs that behave oddly like snakes as they enjoy the warm rays of heat lamps. There some more conventional pets too, like a rabbit that preens in its cage applying her makeup.
I haven't been to the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill yet, so I'm not sure what kind of food they serve. It strikes me as kind of cruel to eat chicken nuggets and hot dogs once you realize they're sentient beings. If I were a betting man I'd say the whole operation is a big hoax and that they don't sell any pets or cook anything on a charcoal grill at all. And that's because it is a hoax of sorts. All of the "pets" at the store are actually animatronics designed by the prankster artist Banksy as part of his latest show.
Village Pet Store is located at 89 7th Avenue between West 4th and Bleeker Street and is open from 10 a.m. to midnight until Halloween. Those not in the New York City area can check out the bizarre goings on in this video. I'll leave it up to the critics to decide whether this weird little emporium qualifies as art. At least the dude found an amusing way to repurpose Chicken McNuggets.
This past Monday was the beginning of autumn, which in years past been somewhat of a sad time for my meat and fire loving alter ego, Joey Deckle, because it marks the end of the competitive barbecuing season. But not this time around. For in addition to being the start of fall and the autumnal equinox, Monday was also Il Buco's fifth annual Sagra del Maiale, or pig festival. There's nothing quite like an afternoon spent on a downtown Manhattan street eating roast pork with a bunch of like-minded carnivores to cure the end-of-summer blues.
This wasn't just any old roast pig though, it was a heritage breed called a Farmer's Cross, or Crossabaw. For those of you not up on heritage hogs, a Crossabaw is breed based on the Ossabaw blood line, the very pig Peter Kaminsky praised in his book Pig Perfect. It yields exceptionally rich moist meat and luscious fat. Lest I forget, it wasn't exactly a tiny pig either, it weighed in at 200 pounds. Such a beast would take a good 24 hours if it were to be cooked over smoke. When I asked Chef Ignacio Mattos how long it would take, he responded, "That's a good question. Hopefully about six-and-a-half hours. It's going on at 6 a.m."
The reason behind such a relatively short cooking time for such a large hog? A cooking method known as infernillo, literally little hell. When Chef Mattos told me that it took some 400 pounds of fuel, including lump charcoal and oak and cherry wood to cook the beast, I thought it sounded more like a big hell. Infernillo, is an Incan method of cooking that Chef Mattos learned from his mentor, the Uruguayan chef, Frances Mallmann. Essentially it involves roasting the pig on a shelf with an intense wood fire above and another below. Chef Mattos butterflied his Crossabaw and then seasoned it with rosemary, fennel pollen, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. The intense heat yielded some incredibly crunchy skin.
As a kid Rice Krispies was one of my favorite cereals largely due to its onomatopoeic spokescharacters: Snap, Crackle and Pop. As for flavor, I never though it was all that great, but I was always fascinated by this musical cereal. It was a treat to pour the milk over the little bits of crisped rice and sit back and enjoy the show.
Apparently Kellogg's thought that kids in the '80s needed a little more stimulation than the percussive trio provided and released a promotional record with catchy tunes covering musical styles ranging from gospel to New Wave. This bizarre excercise in branding starts out with a rollicking gospel number that includes the lyrics, "Waking up, waking up, you and me waking up to that Snap, crackle, pop. We've got the whole wide world waking up waking up." There's also a country tune that features a twangy voiced guy singing, "You see it's downright fun to pour the milk on top to put snap, crackle, pop into your morning."
It's worth going to WFMU's Beware the Blog, to check out the wacky tunes. The last tune is a pitch-perfect New Wave rocker. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at breakfast cereal.
By the time McDonald's introduced Happy Meals, I was too old to enjoy them. I've always felt kind of gypped by the whole Happy Meal thing. Now that the fast-food giant may discontinue the Pasta Zoo Happy Meal in its Australian restaurants, I'm even more disappointed. Actually that's a lie, I've never even heard of Pasta Zoo until today. It sounds like the pasta version of animal crackers. 
This election year has seen all manner of cooking and food related products ranging from 
Take a good look at this reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Don't worry, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those are slices of various sausages and luncheon meats in the background. In fact, the whole painting is made of meat. It was part of a show put on by six Russian artists to celebrate the 100th birthday of Tavr a meat processor located in southern Russia.
On Wednesday 1,500 cooks in Iran unveiled an attempt to smash Italy's Guinness Record for the world's largest ostrich sandwich. The event took place in Tehran's Mellet Park. At 4,920 feet, the humongous hero, which contained 1,543 pounds each of ostrich and chicken meat, easily beats the Italian record of 4,521 feet, set last May. 
Dole has increased its banana imports to Japan by more than 25%, yet there's still a shortage of the fruit in this island nation. So what's the reason behind this sudden spike in demand? A fad known as the Morning Banana Diet. It's so popular that one young woman has been waiting to start the diet for a month because her local OK Store is always out of bananas.
As a kid Rice Krispies was one of my favorite cereals largely due to its onomatopoeic spokescharacters: Snap, Crackle and Pop. As for flavor, I never though it was all that great, but I was always fascinated by this musical cereal. It was a treat to pour the milk over the little bits of crisped rice and sit back and enjoy the show.
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