"world cup" news and stories

• Thanks to the economy, you can now get a table at Patina. And you'll want to.
• Watching the World Cup? Here's where the fans are -- by country.
• RIP Al Cassell -- a.k.a. the Burgermeister.
• "France's southern Rhone has always been one of my favorite haunts." Um, yeah, us too. Raise a glass!
• Want some new dessert recipes? They're berry, berry good.

You may not be able to watch the World Cup Soccer tournament in South Africa, but that doesn't mean you can't get a taste of that country's munchies (snacks), meals and drinks.

South Africans have nicknamed their food "Rainbow cuisine" to encompass the melting pot of cultures who have joined the indigenous people since the Dutch built a half-way stop in Cape Town for the Dutch East India Company. Next came the French Huguenots who planted vines that were the beginnings of the Cape Winelands. Sugar farmers in Durban brought laborers from India, others came from Malaysia. The British arrived looking for gold, as did Germans (though they staked their claim on South West Africa, now Namibia). Plus, the Portuguese, who colonized nearby Mozambique, brought the flavor of spicy peri-peri to South Africa on chicken and prawns (large shrimp).

As it gets ready to host the 2014 soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro is cleaning up its beaches by forbidding the sale of coconuts.

The city decreed that coconut husks, tossed aside on beaches by locals and tourists alike, are a nasty eyesore and as of Dec. 1, sale of the fruit is banned on the sand, AFP reports.

"Go on Ipanema beach at the end of the day and you'll see a mountain of coconuts that people have left on the sand. What attracts rats most to the beach are coconut husks," Jovanildo Savastano, the official in charge of the beaches, told AFP.

He said up to 30 tons of empty coconut shells are found each day.

In the UK, Coca-Cola is bottling its soda in unique bottles in honor of the World Cup. Instead of the usual decorated bottle caps or customized labels, the bottles are round, like miniature soccer balls. They hold 250ml, or about 8-ounces of liquid, and are available in both regular and diet. Of course, now that England is out of the Cup, there's no telling how long they'll remain on store shelves.

Since the packaging plant has been outfitted with new equipment to handle the special bottles, it is possible that more special-edition bottles will be released in the future, for Coke and its other brands, like Fanta.

 

Source

The German beer supply is in danger as a result of British World Cup fans' unquenchable thirst. According to a recent article in The Mirror, the 70,000 England fans visiting Nuremberg drank about 17 pints each-roughly 1.2 million in all. One calculation put that at 200 pints per minute. "The hardest thing for the breweries is keeping up with the thirst of the English," said one brewery spokesman. I'm a little curious about how they attribute beer sales to certain groups of fans. Sure, a beer vendor can say, "Wow, the people in the ___ jerseys were sure poundin' em'," but how do you pin large figures on one group? Surely those vendors must have been selling to other fans as well. Nevertheless, there are the personal accounts. "Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time," said one bartender. As Andrew noted, his people are a hungry bunch, too.

[Via Fark]