Australian Farm Grows Bluberry the Size of a Golf Ball

Australian fresh produce company Costa Group recently set a new Guinness Record for the world’s heaviest blueberry, with a 20.4-gram fruit roughly the size of a golf ball.

Picked on November 13, 2023, at Costa’s berry farm in Corindi, New South Wales, the record-breaking blueberry was from the Eterna variety, which is known for yielding consistently large fruit without compromising on flavor. Interestingly, one of the growers in charge of this particular farm said that this blueberry was one of at least 20 fruits of similar size spotted during harvesting. After measuring and weighing, it was discovered that the fruit beat the former heaviest blueberry by over 4 grams. The previous world record was for a 16.20g blueberryberry grown in Western Australia in 2020.

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South-Korean Researchers Create Beef-Infused Super Rice

Scientists at South Korea’s Yonsei University have created a new type of hybrid rice that not only has a meaty pink color but is also packed with beef protein and fat cells.

Rice is already one of the most nutritious foods available in nature, but thanks to some scientific ‘magic’, it could soon become a viable, sustainable alternative to meat. A team of researchers at the Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, managed to create a rice hybrid laced with beef protein and fat cells. The new pink rice has 8 percent more protein and 7 percent more fat than regular rice, and while it doesn’t yet taste like beef, it does carry a “unique blend of aromas, including a slight nuttiness and umami which are characteristic of meat”. Thanks to the integrated animal cells, this new pink rice could one day become a complete meal by itself, ensuring a sufficient, sustainable food supply for the whole world.

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Chili-Infused ‘Hot Ice Latte’ Proves Big Hit in China

A coffee shop in Ganzhou, China’s Jianxi Province, has found success with a bizarre but innovative drink that combines the traditional ice latte with dried chilies and chili powder.

Jingshi Coffee launched its now-famous ‘hot ice latte’ back in December, as a tribute to Jianxi Province’s famously fiery cuisine, but the drink proved a big hit and the café is now selling it at a rate of 300 cups per day. Viral videos doing the rounds on Douyin (China’s version of TikTok), show café pouring the lattes in plastic cups before infusing them with dried chili and topping off the drink with chili powder. Those brave enough to have tried it claim that the drink is a bit more spicy than regular lattes, but definitely not unpleasant.

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Trendy Ice Cream Shop Specializes in Hyper-Realistic Edible Flower Bouquets

(THISIS)SHIZEN is a Kyoto-based café that has gained popularity mainly thanks to its artistic ice cream cones which resemble intricate flower bouquets.

We use the phrase ‘too beautiful to eat’ to describe food art pretty often here on Oddity Central, but the edible ice-cream bouquets created by (THISIS)SHIZEN really look too pretty to eat, regardless of how tasty they are. Featuring a botanical-themed decor containing potted plants and nature-inspired paintings, this relatively new Japanese café serves a variety of ice-cream bouquets that are only available for a limited time, depending on the season. You can treat yourself to creamy roses, lilac, Japanese camellia, and many more flavorful wonders.

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This Japanese Restaurant Makes the World’s Smallest Sushi

Tokyo restaurant Sushiya no Nohachi reportedly serves great sushi, but it is most famous for its gimmick – making the world’s smallest sushi with a single grain of rice.

Located in Asakusa, a slightly quieter part of Tokyo, Sushiya no Nohachi is the place to go if you want to enjoy the tiniest, most adorable sushi in the world. Each piece is made with only a grain of rice and a tiny slice of topping wrapped in the thinnest piece of nori. Every served piece is actually perfect, which hints at the amount of work and patience that goes into making them. They are the work of Hironori Ikeno, the chef of Sushiya no Nohachi, who came up with the idea in 2002 when a client asked him how small he could make his sushi. He answered, “as small as a grain of rice”, and proceeded to demonstrate that he wasn’t kidding. Over the years, the eatery became internationally famous for making the world’s smallest sushi.

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Joke Gone Wrong – Retiring Cook Makes Space Cake for Colleagues, Gets Sued

A retiring Dutch cook who wanted to say goodbye to her colleagues in a special way cooked a cannabis-infused space cake for them as a surprise. It didn’t go well…

The retiring cook, known only as Mariska, had worked in a Zeeland hotel alongside her colleagues for a long time and wanted to part ways with them in a memorable way. They had discussed the cannabis-infused space cake many times in the past but had never gotten around to actually making it together, so she decided to make one for them, as a parting gift. On February 8th, on her last day on the job, she greeted her colleagues and left the workplace, but not before leaving behind a surprise cake for her colleagues along with a note advising them to only eat it after working hours. Unfortunately, some of them just couldn’t wait.

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Japanese Gummy Candy Tastes Like a Fruit That Doesn’t Exist

A Japanese candy company has been making national news headlines for its idea to produce gummy candy that tastes like an ‘imaginary fruit’ called Kiraspika (キラスピカ).

Last year was a great one for gummy candy producers, and the market continued to expand throughout 2023, with fruit-flavored gummies being the most popular. While there are plenty of fruit flavors to choose from, including intriguing fruit combinations, companies are still limited to the fruits available in our world. But what if someone broke down barriers and started making candy that tastes like imaginary fruits? That was the genius idea that Japanese sweets maker Kanro recently came up with. Last month, the company launched a new type of gummy candy that tastes like ‘Kiraspika no Mi’, a made-up fruit with an original flavor, design, and even an origin story.

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Restaurant Credits Deliciousness of Pork Skewers to Sauce Jar That Hasn’t Been Cleaned in 60 Years

A popular restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, sparked controversy for claiming to dip its delicious pork skewers in a sauce jar that has not been cleaned in over half a century.

Abe-chan, a famous pork skewer eatery in Tokyo’s Azabu Juban shopping district, was recently featured on a popular Japanese television show where it was revealed that one of the secrets to its success was a rather dubious-looking jar covered in a gelatinous mass. Apparently, this was the same sauce jar that pork skewers have been dipped in for the last sixty years, and the dark brown mass around the jar is the sauce that spilled over and hardened over the decades. According to the third-generation owner of Abe-chan, the jar has never been cleaned in the last six decades, which apparently contributes to the rich taste of the sauce.

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School Lunch Provider Creates ‘Manga Milk Bottles’ to Motivate Kids to Drink Milk

A Japanese producer of milk and dairy products came up with an ingenious way of motivating kids to finish their milk bottles at lunch – decorating the bottles with manga comics.

Seki Milk, a milk producer and processor in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, has been providing its products to local schools, but in recent years the company had seen consumption of milk drop significantly. According to its own research, the majority of school students (around 65% of them) were not finishing their milk bottles at lunch, which caused unnecessary food waste and also deprived them of calcium and other valuable nutrients. However, if you’re a parent, you probably already know that getting kids to eat things that are good for them isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Luckily, Seki Milk came up with an original and fun way to motivate children to finish their milk – manga bottles.

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This Vanilla Ice Cream Is Made With Recycled Plastic And It’s Probably Safe to Eat

A UK designer claims to be the first to ever make ice cream with vanilla flavoring sourced from recycled plastic. While no one has tasted it yet, it’s supposed to taste just like regular vanilla ice cream.

As part of her final-year project at Central Saint Martins Design School, Eleonora Ortolani set out to do something no one else had ever attempted before, at least to her knowledge – use a small amount of plastic to make ice cream flavoring. The project, titled Guilty Flavours, was inspired by the young designer’s frustration with how plastic was generally being recycled: being made into products that couldn’t be recycled any further, because it had been mixed with resins or other materials, which she thought was only making the problem worse. Having recently heard about a species of worm that could digest plastic bags, she started wondering if there was any way humans could eat plastic, break it down, and eliminate it for good.

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Grilled Ice Is Apparently a Real Street Snack in China

Videos of people grilling ice cubes and seasoning them with sauces and spices have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media and leaving people with unanswered questions.

Move over, stir-fried stones, it’s time for grilled ice cubes to enjoy their time in the social media spotlight. According to a number of news reports from China, the bizarre street snack was made famous by a short clip shot at a street food stall in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. In it, we can see large ice cubes being cooked on an open grill and seasoned with sauces and spices, before being served on a plate. We can’t see anyone actually eating the dish, but it is apparently very popular on hot summer days, especially since it’s offered as a free treat.

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This Is the World’s Most Expensive Piece of Cheese

A Spanish restaurant recently paid 30,000 euros ($32,800) for a 2.2kg (4.85 lbs) piece of handmade cheese, thus setting a new world record for the most expensive piece of cheese.

Every year, in the last week of August, the town of Las Arenas de Cabrales hosts a contest where the best pieces of Cabrales cheese are auctioned off to the highest bidder. This year, Llagar de Colloto, a restaurant in Oviedo, Spain, paid a whopping 30,000 euros for a piece of Cabrales cheese made by hand from cow and goat milk and matured for several months in a cave in Los Picos de Europa mountains. Made by the Los Puertos cheese factory from Poo de Cabrales, the 2.2kg piece of cheese was selected by the jury as the best of the cheeses of fifteen producers who participated in the contest and was the most coveted in the subsequent auction.

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Israeli Restaurant Serves Chocolate Ice Cream in the Most Disgusting Way Possible

Gordos, a popular restaurant in Holon, Israel, has been getting a lot of attention online because of its latest dessert – a real toilet bowl full of chocolate ice cream.

I don’t care how much you like chocolate ice cream, you can’t tell me that you don’t find “Third House of Shit”, the controversial dessert available at Gordos just a little bit off-putting. Don’t get me wrong, I for one would still shovel the entire bowl down my throat, but I’d have to get over my initial disgust to do it. I mean, just look at it! The smeared toilet bowl and the way the chocolate ice cream is shaped like turds, it’s definitely not the most appetizing dessert I’ve ever seen. But I guess the wow factor is more important, and so far the unusual dessert has been getting a lot of attention on social media.

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The “Beautiful Princess” of Strawberries Costs Up to $350 Per Piece

Bijin-Hime, aka ‘Beautiful Princess’, is a Japanese strawberry variety that is perfectly shaped and colored and offers an unmatched flavor. It also costs up to $350 a piece, making it one of the world’s most expensive fruits.

Developed by Mikio Okuda, a Japanese farmer with over 45 years of experience growing strawberries, over 15 years of trial and error, Bijin-Hime is one of the world’s most highly regarded strawberry varieties. The largest fruits are about the size of a tennis ball and weigh around 100 grams, but it’s not the size that makes the Beautiful Princess special. Well, actually, it is, but not in the way you expect. Generally, the larger a strawberry is, the less flavor and sweetness it has, but that is certainly not the case with Bijin-Hime strawberries. They are rated at 13 degrees Brix, which makes them considerably sweeter than the 10-degree Brix strawberry standard, and have a flavor reminiscent of roses.

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Burger King’s ‘Real Cheeseburger’ Contains 20 Slices of Processed Cheese, No Meat, No Sauce

Burger King Thailand recently shocked the fast food world with its latest addition to the menu – a ‘real cheeseburger’ that consists of 20 slices of cheese between two sesame burger buns.

The Real Cheeseburger hit Burger King locations across Thailand last Sunday and immediately went viral online. People started posting photos of the tower-like burger, expressing their disbelief that something like this was actually being sold as food. Many people still didn’t believe it was anything more than a stunt, but Burger King clarified that “This is no joke. This is for real,” via its social media channels. The unusual burger, which consists of 20 slices of American cheese stacked between two buns, comes with no sauce, pickles, and most importantly, no meat patty. By some accounts, the cheese is sometimes not even grilled or melted.

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