"Strange" news and stories

Did you catch the guy eating toasted cicadas on The Colbert Report last night? David Gracer, a Rhode Island writing teacher, is on a quest to convince chefs to cook with insects, claiming that bugs offer more edible protein per pound than beef cattle.

Lots of cultures eat insects. I've enjoyed tiny grasshoppers, known as chapulines, in Oaxaca, Mexico. Slathered in guacamole and rolled in a tortilla, they were salty and undistinguished-tasting. Toasted and tossed with salt and chili powder, they were like corn nuts with legs. Cicadas, earthworms, crickets - bring 'em on.

Colbert was not convinced though. "I might ask one of my writers to eat a bug," he said. "Let me check their contract."

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When people are bored, they come up with all sorts of unusual experiments that, if otherwise occupied, perhaps they wouldn't ordinarily try. There is little doubt that this has led to some great discoveries over the years, but this particular one is probably unlikely to have widespread cultural ramifications. It involves Jello and the question of whether or not it can be nailed to a wall.

I won't keep you in suspense. Jello - or jelly if you're not from the US - cannot be nailed to a wall in its standard form. When prepared according to package directions, the amount of gelatin that gives the food its signature "jiggle" is not enough to hold it together when nailed to a board. If you live somewhere where you can purchase concentrated jelly/Jello cubes, however, you will find that it can easily be nailed to a wall.

Mystery solved.

[via boingboing]

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If you're a fan of GroceryLists.org, have a look at WeirdFortuneCookies.com. Unlike the fortune cookie messages written by Penn and Teller ("That lump is cancer"), these are all supposedly real. The collection isn't huge, but it appears that its curator has been at it sporadically since 2000. The one above is one of my favorites so far, along with "A woman who seeks to be equal with men, lacks ambition. Don't touch that," and "Confucius say: you have heart as big as Texas." Oddly enough, the "in bed" rule still seems to work.

I think this package says it all. I picked up a pound of maple sausage, the delectable links that my family has always called "breakfast sausage" without allowing a title to limit our consumption. No, we eat it from dawn 'til dusk, despite its moniker.

Evidently, Fred Meyer (our local grocery and part of the Kroger gi-nomerate) is worried that the name "breakfast sausage" will limit more conservative families to (horrors!) eat it only during breakfast. They've changed the label so it reads, "maple flavored sausage" and "delicious anytime!"

Thank you, Fred Meyer, for freeing us -- and our sausages -- from the shackles of breakfast.

It's hip to eat savory ice creams, and if you go to a food festival you're bound to see something in the creamy, cold category no matter what the topic - even, yes, garlic. But octopus, that's an ice cream I've never either (a) tried or (b) cared to try. Jason from Damn Interesting agrees, and says: "damnit, we have to draw a line, and Octopus Ice Cream would have to be on the far side of that line."

Watch Iron Chef and you're bound to see some strange ice creams. Sure, sure, that's a spur-of-the-moment exercise in bizarro creativity. But this is a packaged variety available commercially. Does it sell? Has anyone tried it?

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