A well-done steak, especially if it has charred portions, contains far higher levels of carcinogens than a medium, or a rare steak.

http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/rat2-1.jpg -  

The Fact: The FDA allows you to sell bugs and rodent hair for consumption

The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments and one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter. I will certainly think twice before buying my next jar!

A Raisin dropped into a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down from the bottom of the glass to the top, continuously.

The world record for eating live cockroaches is held by Ken Edwards of Derbyshire, England. In 2001 he ate 36 hissing Madagascar cockroaches in one minute.

yummmmm...breakfast!

In the state of Massachusetts, it is illegal for any mourner at a wake to eat more than three sandwiches.

In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs 200 times more than a pound of potatoes.

The longest smoked sausage ever made was in Bucharest. The sausage was 392 meters long, and weighed over one ton. It was prepared by 25 cold cut workers from Pitesti, on behalf of the Romanian capitol.

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Hot dogs were first served in a bun at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.

First Patented Can Opener

William Lyman - Classic Can Opener

 Here's your chance boys and girls....sign up now and get working on your recipes. It's almost time for this year's "Road Kill Cookoff" in Pocahontas County West Virginia.  Here's the rules if any of you happen to have a dead skunk hanging around the house LOL

ROADKILL COOK-OFF RULES AND REGULATIONS

Last Saturday in September (September 25, 2010)

1. All entries must have, as their main ingredient, any animal commonly found dead on the side of the road –

groundhog, opossum, deer, rabbit, squirrel, snake, etc. Pigs, cows, chickens, horses, and goats are also in that

category. However, it need not actually come off the side of the road (and most of the judges would prefer that

it didn’t).

2. Each contestant will provide a written recipe with the application to include, as a minimum, ingredients and

preparation instructions. Recipes will be provided to each judge and must be provided to the RoadKill committee

in advance so that copies may be made for the Judges. Recipe release forms must be provided to the

Chamber of Commerce before registration will be considered complete. The recipes will be considered by the

Judges in the presentation category.

3. Prior to cooking, the main ingredient (the RoadKill) will be inspected to ensure it has not been precooked.

Entries may be fried, stewed, baked, sautéed or prepared in any way desired. Dishes must be prepared and

cooked on site; however, pre-treatment of the meat, such as soaking, boiling, or marinating may be done prior

to the cook-off. Gutting, skinning and cleaning of the animal should be done off site, although special allowance

can be made for fresh RoadKill occurring in route to the cook-off.

4. Contestants must provide their own tables, stoves and other cooking equipment and utensils. We recommend

each contestant bring trash can and garbage bags. There is no electric available at the site; however,

clients may bring generators if desired. Fires may also be built but contestants must have their own firewood.

Contestants are required to remove all trash and debris after competition.

5. For planning and judging purposes, each contestant will be allocated a site approximately 15’ X 15’. Space

is limited so judges will be looking at how well each participant utilizes the space in the presentation category.

6. The cooking period will begin at 11 AM or earlier. Cooking during the entire period is at the sole discretion

of the contestant; however, samples of recipes must be available for public consumption during the day.

7. Only pre-registered assistants may assist the contestant in any manner during the cooking period.

8. A select board of highly qualified judges will determine the winners based on taste, originality, presentation,

and showmanship to include compliance with these rules.

9. Judging will begin at 2 P. M. Each contestant will be given a general time of judging on RoadKill day so

they can be prepared. Contestants will present their fare to the judges, who will have approximately 10

minutes to taste the dish and ask questions. Following tasting of all entries, the judges will meet to discuss

their opinions and determine the winners.

10. Judges will deduct points for every chipped tooth resulting from gravel not removed from the RoadKill.

11. Cash prizes will be awarded a follows: 1st place - $1,000, 2nd place - $450, 3rd place - $225. In addition, the

Showmanship award is a $50 gift certificate.

12. We have tried to select highly qualified judges who will be fair, unbiased and open minded. All judges

have been tested for cast-iron stomachs and have sworn under oath to have no vegetarian tendencies. The

decisions of the judges are final.

13. The judges reserve the right to refuse to taste anything that appears unhealthy or spoiled, or unfit for

human consumption.

Here's last year's winners:

LASAGNA

The etymology of the word lasagna is amusing.  It starts with the Greek lasanon which means 'chamber pot'!  The Romans borrow it as lasanum to humorously refer to a 'cooking pot'.  Later, the Italian word lasagne (plural of lasagna) came to refer to a dish cooked in such a pot - flat sheets of http://www.foodreference.com/html/fpasta.html - pasta layered with minced meat and tomatoes topped with grated cheese.  Soon, the word lasagna was applied to the pasta itself.

Hmm..maybe some sort of pressure relief valve for brewing or fermenting?

Lachanophobia is the fear of vegetables, Mageirocophobia is the fear of cooking.

Here's one for Montana Madness and all the rest of you chili heads out there.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2007) — Researchers at New Mexico State University recently discovered the world's hottest chile pepper. Bhut Jolokia, a variety of chile pepper originating in Assam, India, has earned Guiness World Records' recognition as the world's hottest chile pepper by blasting past the previous champion Red Savina.

In replicated tests of Scoville heat units (SHUs), Bhut Jolokia reached one million SHUs, almost double the SHUs of Red Savina, which measured a mere 577,000.

Dr. Paul Bosland, Director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences collected seeds of Bhut Jolokia while visiting India in 2001.

Bosland grew Bhut Jolokia plants under insect-proof cages for three years to produce enough seed to complete the required field tests.

"The name Bhut Jolokia translates as 'ghost chile,'" Bosland said, "I think it's because the chile is so hot, you give up the ghost when you eat it!"

Bosland added that the intense heat concentration of Bhut Jolokia could have significant impact on the food industry as an economical seasoning in packaged foods.

No More Fruit Flies!

Published March 1, 2009. From Cook's Illustrated.

Many fruits, such as tomatoes and bananas, are best stored at room temperature. During the warmer months, however, fruit flies find ripening produce irresistible. Entice the pests with this trick. Place ¼ cup of orange juice in a small drinking glass and then top it with a funnel. Placed next to a fruit bowl, the juice lures the tiny flies into the funnel, where they are unable to escape. #technique - See Illustrated Technique Below

Fried chicken is the most popular meal ordered in sit-down restaurants in the US. The next in popularity are: roast beef, spaghetti, turkey, baked ham, and fried shrimp.

Casu Marzu

 

Casu Marzu, an illegal Sardinian delicacy, is perhaps the most outrageously foul dairy product in our galaxy. While it’s one thing to eat a cheese that smells like gym socks soaked in milk and left crumpled behind the toilet for weeks; you’ve entered a whole new class of repulsiveness when you bite into Casu Marzu — a putrefied cheese infested with live, wriggling maggots.
To craft this noxious specialty Sardinian cheesemakers encourage the cheese fly, Piophilia casei, a.k.a. the “cheese skipper,” to lay eggs in their pecorino cheeses. (“Pecorino” is a general Italian term for sheep milk’s cheese.) One traditional method is to drill a hole in the block of cheese and slip in a drop of oil to attract the vermin. But the effort isn’t always needed. While cheese skippers originally evolved to scavenge decomposed corpses, they’ve taken enthusiastically to the cured and fermented foods of Homo sapiens. Having discovered a suitable food supply, a mother will lay hundreds of eggs, which then hatch into a vile horde of hungry maggots, eager to devour their host environment.

In the case of Casu Marzu, these maggots — legless and clawless, dragging themselves through by hooked teeth– will release an enzyme during their digestion that causes the pecorino’s fat to putrefy. This unique fermentation process yields a sticky, gluey, gummy mass, still teeming with the worms — and ready to be eaten.

So, Just How Tasty Is It?

Once in your mouth, Casu Marzu is reported to cause more of a sensation than a “taste”: a kind of oral-digestive riot, starting with a strong burn in the mouth. They say it’s good with a full-bodied red, and doubles as an aphrodisiac. But what do “they” know, who eat larvae? As with most things, it’s unclear who to trust. It is advisable when taking a bite of Casu Marzu to cover your eyes. This is not to protect your mind from the nauseating sight; but to protect the eyes themselves from the maggots, who can and do leap up to six inches off the cheese, with malevolent precision. (If you’re too squeamish for such a confrontation, try sealing the cheese in a paper bag. The maggots, deprived of oxygen, will leap off the cheese in an attempt to escape; and when the pitter patter of their dying flops subsides, you can safely eat.)

Some people consider cheese skipper larvae a health risk, and Casu Marzu is actually illegal in Sardinia — but this is not to say it can’t be had. As a black market delicacy it is exchanged amongst family and friends, a favorite for weddings and birthday parties, and sold just under the radar at markets. Often, Sardinian heath officials are themselves fans of the cheese, appreciating its cultural significance, or its taste, or both.
Some Sardinian farmers still believe the medieval idea that maggots spontaneously generate in decaying cheese. This old theory created strong symbolic associations between cheese and death, but also decay and new life. It’s even inspired weird cosmologies (Carlo Ginzburg writes about this in The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller). If you ever have the chance to try Casu Marzu, consider what it means to put the whole Circle of Life in your mouth at once. Then cover your eyes.