"weird foods" news and stories

Each week, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• A taste of the tropics in your kitchen -- palm trees, not included.
• Take a culinary cruise through Maui.
• Is duck fetus egg an edible treat?
• Wind down tomato season with this tart.
• Crashing waves pair well with coastal comestibles like grilled sardines.
• While working on that tan, match these LA chefs with their restaurants.

Just how tumultuous a year was 2008 when it comes to food news? In November, a man in India died at a company-sponsored pastry eating contest. That same month a couple sued McDonald's. For what? Philip Sherman left his cell phone at a McDonald's in Fayette, Arkansas, and he claims that employees found naked pictures of his wife Tina and posted them online.

Alright, what's so new about McDonald's being sued? Fair enough. Perhaps, one of the craziest news in food for 2008 is the world's largest fruit mosaic created by over 1,000 students from Pingyuan Middle School in China. The mosaic consists of 349,200 navel oranges, 18,172 apples and 5,153 pomelos. And, it made the Guinness World Record being 60 m (196 ft 10 in) long and 37 m (121 ft 4 in) wide, with a total area of 2,220 m² (23895 ft²).

This past summer, CNN posted a story online of the world's priciest foods. And, apparently gold is an edible mineral. Companies, such as Fancy Flours, are selling edible gold leaves for approximately $15,000 per pound. Now, one of my favorite food stories from 2008 comes from Wacky Archives: creative food sculptures. These adorable and insane food creatures are hilarious, especially the one of the egg shell transformed into a baby carriage carrying its yolk. And, there's the anthropomorphized roll of bread, seen above, biting onto its knife.

What are some of your favorite crazy food moments from 2008?