"delicacy" news and stories

I always crave the soft raw milk cheeses that are impossible to find in the U.S (impossible to find because U.S. law requires that all raw milk cheeses be aged at least 60 days, which renders them less soft ).

Last Sunday, on seven-hour layover in Paris, I strolled down to the famous market on rue Cler and stopped into La Fromagerie, the renowned cheese shop at No. 31. The creamy cakey goat's milk cheeses sitting on straw mats in the window attracted me right away. They were all diverse shapes and sizes: Little bell-shaped cheeses called Clochette, doughnut-looking cheeses called Couronne Lochoise, cork-shaped ones called Bonde de Gatine, and pyramid-shaped ones called Pouligny Saint Pierre. This incredible view through the glass window was the best food porn I have ever seen!

After spending about forty-five minutes tasting them and talking with the cheese experts at the shop, I purchased a goat's milk cheese called Cathare. Everything about this cheese -- from its appearance and taste to its production and history -- fascinates me. Check out my review after the jump.

You thought today was going to filled with yummy, delicate posts about sweet treats and flowers, didn't you?

Think again.

Trifter.com has oh-so helpfully provided us with eight of the "most disgusting delicacies" - although we prefer to think of them not as disgusting, per se, but as ...daring. Different. Deconstructed.

Some of the more colorful examples? In Morocco, you can indulge in oil made from goat excrement. The goats climb the trees in search of food, and the resulting oil is though to have medicinal purposes. Or you could hop over to Italy and try some Casu Frazigu. Sound exotic? It's made when a fly lays its eggs on cheese, and maggots hatch and crawl throughout the cheese. So, essentially, it's rotten maggot cheese.

But that's just kids' stuff compared to what awaits you in Southeast Asia: balut, a fertilized duck egg, comes complete with a partially formed duck fetus inside - at no extra charge! Just season with salt and pepper, and dig in.

And for dessert, engage your senses with Sumatran coffee beans [ed. note - pictured]. Not adventurous enough for you? Well, they come fresh out of the digestive track of a civet, a small, cat-like creature. The civet eats the beans, and when they are excreted, they are scrubbed clean and brewed.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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When I was growing up, my grandma Bunny liked to go out with friends to gather wild mushrooms. She always swore up and down that she knew exactly what to look for and would never feed her friends and family suspect 'shrooms, but my mother was never convinced. She refused to try them, and would never let my sister or me have a taste either. Bunny disapproved, because she believed that children should always taste everything on the table, but her rules didn't stand a chance in the face of my mom's protective parental instinct.

Keeping this very memorable reaction to these wild mushrooms in mind, I can only imagine what she would say if I suggested to her that I was interested in trying blowfish (I can hear her voice in my head saying very firmly, "Marisa, you are NOT allowed" even as write this). However, my interest in the delicate and sometimes lethal fish has now been piqued, thanks to Gadling's (our sibling site about all things travel) recent three-part series on The Subtle Art of Eating Blowfish (that's the link to part I. Here's part II and part III). I still don't think I'll be trying it any time soon, but it's good to learn a little more about the preparation, as well as the laws that are in place to protect people from its hazards.

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