"unusual food" news and stories

MSN has posted a list of the top 10 cities for foodies, as determined by a travel site. The cities chosen are all over the globe, picked for a combination of unique dishes, celebrity chefs and all-around good cuisine. Barcelona, Brussels, Lyon and Rome were lauded for their long standing traditions, while Las Vegas and New York were included for having just about everything. While San Francisco did get a nod for its non-Asian cuisine, it seems to have been selected mainly on the availability of good Chinese food. Asian flavors are what put Tokyo, Vancouver and Hanoi on the list, too.

It appears that the definition of a foodie as someone who is willing (and possibly desperate) to eat anything has been put into play with this list, as along with Asian flair, Hanoi was picked for "unusual delicacies like dog or snake," including "fried snake skin, snake spring rolls, snake soup, and minced snake dumpling." Weird meats are all well and good, but to plan a whole trip around them seems a bit extreme.

Nevertheless, their list includes:

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As appetizing as roadkill ordinarily is, I still don't think that I would eat it. Ever. Surely the 5 second rule will have long since ceased to apply to the "food" unless you were the one who hit it with your car, which is not really the most humane way to procure food. There are some people who have a substantially different view, though, and Arthur Boyt is one of them.

Mr. Boyt eats roadkill. Frequently. In fact, the only time he doesn't eat roadkill is on the occasions when he dines out. He started eating it 50 years ago, collecting it near his home in Cornwall, England, as a way to save money. Now 66 years old, he hopes to publish a roadkill cook book that contains all of his favorite recipes for meats such as badger, hedgehog, rabbit and rat. He has eaten hunting dogs (lurchers), cats, squirrels, foxes, mice, deer and pigeons. A Labrador he once found tasted "just like a nice piece of lamb," though he finds cats to be "a bit bland." His favorite food is a badger sandwich made primarily with head meat.

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Guo-li-zhuang is unique among the restaurants in Beijing and, most likely, the world. It is the first restaurant in China that specializes in cuisine in which every dish contains one (or more) of the male reproductive organs of some animal. Though superstitions of virility and fertility have long been attached to the consumption of a penis from another animal, this restaurant is the first to base its existence around that belief. The clientele, according to staff, are primarily men eager to experience the promised benefits of the food.

The writer for the Telegraph sampled the Hot Pot containing six types of penis and four types of testicles. Generally speaking, he seemed to find the dishes to be gamey, gristly or stringy. Though he did not sample it, the restaurant boasts a specialty dish of Canadian seal penis. At over $500 per serving, it must be ordered in advance and is considered to be an aphrodisiac. For photos of some of the dishes, including dog and ox, see the full article.

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A massive meal, the Primanti's Sandwich is the signature sandwich of the Primanti Bros restaurant chain in Pittsburgh, PA. The sandwich is stacked high with layers of tomatoes, coleslaw, corned beef, cheese and french fries, all sandwiched between two thick slices of Italian bread. The sandwich was supposedly invented in the 1930's, during the Great Depression. Since the restaurant owners couldn't afford luxuries like plates and cutlery while they were starting up, the simply piled everything into the sandwich. The entirely in-hand meal was sold as a convenient, filling and cheap dinner option to all the night shift workers in the area. It must have been a success right off the bat, since Primanti Bros is still going strong with their famous sandwich over 70 years later.

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Turducken is a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey and is becoming more and more popular at the holiday table. The layers are often rounded out with a hearty measure of stuffing, so it's not a roast for the faint of appetite. But what do you call an 18-pound turkey stuffed with 9 other birds? For now, it's simply called a ten bird roast or, as chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall proclaimed it,  "one of the most spectacular and delicious roasts you can lay before your loved ones at Yuletide".
Apparently, the roast has its roots in medieval traditions as well as in an early 19th century French tradition of having a feast with 17 kinds of birds. The turkey is stuffed with goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock (go-du-ma-gu-chi-phea-par-pige-ock?) and carries a £160 price tag (about $277). It, like the turducken, also contains a fair amount of sausage, bacon and stuffing. Another roast gaining popularity is the unfortunately named "gooducken" - a goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.