Gangina – The Afghan Way of Keeping Grapes Fresh For Up to Six Months

Gangina is a traditional means of keeping grapes and other fruits fresh for several months, by sealing them in air-tight containers made of wet soil.

Grapes are tricky to keep fresh for long periods of time, even when refrigeration is available, but apparently Afghans have long been using an ancient method of keeping the soft fruits fresh for consumption in the winter months, when fresh fruits are otherwise hard to come by. Called gangina, this ingenious conservation technique involves sealing healthy grapes in a saucer-like container made of two layers of wet soil. The container is left in the sun to dry and then has to be kept in a cool place, away from direct sunlight. If stored properly, gangina containers can keep grapes picked in autumn fresh until next year’s spring season.

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Coquitos – The Tiny Coconuts of the Chilean Wine Palm

Coquitos, also known as pigmy coconuts or dwarf coconuts, are the tiny equivalent of the coconuts we all know (and some of us love).

It’s hard to believe that I spent over three decades on this Earth and only learned that there is such a thing as a tiny, marble-sized coconut, today. Well, it may be common knowledge to a lot of people – especially if you’re from, or have travelled to South America – but it’s definitely news to me, so I thought I’d share it with similarly clueless people like myself. Known as coquitos, these miniature coconuts are the fruit of  Jubaea chilensis, a feather-leaved palm native to Chile, and, just like regular coconuts, they have a brown exterior, a white interior with a hollow center, and very similar taste.

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Stargazy Pie – An English Pastry Dish With Fish Heads Sticking Out of It

When it comes to unusual and unappetizing-looking Christmas dishes, there are few meals out there that can compete with the Stargazy Pie, a pie with fish heads protruding through the crust, appearing to be gazing skyward.

England is home to a variety of pies, from classics like apple pie and pork pie, to less known treats like steak and ale pie, or pot pie. But none of these pastry treats hold a candle to the famous Stargazy Pie, when it comes to wow factor. No matter how elaborate your pie design is, you just can’t beat half a dozen cooked sardine heads (and sometimes tails) sticking out from the hearty dough crust, looking towards the sky. It looks almost as “delicious” as Japan’s alien dumplings, doesn’t it?

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Alien Dumplings – A Downright Scary-Looking Dish

The world is full of unappetizing dishes, from fermented fish dishes to the dreaded Kiviaq, but few actually look scary to get near to, let alone put in your mouth. These Japanese dumplings definitely fall in the latter category.

Last year, we published a story on one of the world’s most bizarre looking fish, the eel-like Warusobo, also known as the “Alien of the Ariake Sea“. One look at this slimy creature, and that nickname makes all the sense in the world. I don’t know if it’s those pointy teeth, or the lack of eyes, but there’s just something otherworldly about these things. That’s hasn’t stopped the people of Saga Prefecture, which borders the Ariake Sea, from turning the alien creature into a staple of local cuisine, including the delicious dumplings below.

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After 20 Years, Court Tells Baker to Stop Selling Cookies Made With Sawdust

A German baker who has reportedly been selling sawdust cookies for around two decades has recently been ordered to stop, as the finely milled wood has been deemed unfit for human consumption.

An administrative court in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe has upheld a decision to ban the sale of cookies made with sawdust, despite the producer’s claim that they were a traditional vegetable product. The unnamed baker had been operating a mail order business, selling his sawdust cookies all over Germany. He openly listed sawdust as an ingredient on the packaging of his biscuits, and had already written to the city of Karlsruhe about his practice back in 2004, but received no answer. Then, in 2017, a routine examination of a biscuit sample led to a sales ban which he then contested in court.

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Chả rươi – Vietnam’s Popular Worm Omelet

Chả rươi, or sand worm omelet, is a seasonal Vietnamese dish made with unsightly, two-inch-long sea worms that some say give the “delicacy” a caviar-like taste.

Every year, in late fall, street food stalls in northern Vietnam, particularly in Hanoi, serve a very special dish that looks very ordinary at first glance, but that actually contains a very peculiar ingredient. Chả rươi looks like a well-done egg dish mixed with various herbs, but owes its meaty texture and seafood taste to the ingredient that gives the treat its name – sand worms. Beaten egg, tangerine peel, onions, dill and spices, before the two-inch-long sea worms are added. The result is an ordinary-looking omelet with a very meaty kick that fans can’t get enough of in the months leading up to winter.

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The Whimsical Pie Art of Liz Joy-Murray

Liz Joy-Murray, an ex-Hollywood art director turned food artist creates sugary masterpieces that look way too good to eat.

Looking at Liz Joy-Murray’ intricate pies, it’s hard to believe that she has only been creating food art for only three years. It all started when she had to take a break from her Hollywood career for health-related reasons. She had to fill her time somehow, and baking just stood out to her, only, being an artist at heart, Liz didn’t just settle for baking delicious treats, she decided to use her baked goods as canvases for her creative and vividly colored designs.

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Too Good to Eat – Helen Nugent’s Artistically Decorated Pies

Helen Nugent is the Toronto-based pie maker who specializes in stunning, intricately designed pies that are definitely way too good to eat.

Thanksgiving may already be behind us this year, but there’s never a bad time for a pie, especially one that looks as amazing as those made by Helen Nugent, a self-taught food artist who abandoned her career in corporate communications to focus on her passion, baking. Today, Helen is recognized as one of the world’s leading pie artists, has her own cookbook, and collaborates with various food-themed magazines and even the Food Network. And to think it all started with a photo of a beautiful pie she saw on the internet…

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World’s Most Expensive Piece of Ham Sells for $14,000

A Spanish ham producer recently announced that it sold the most expensive piece of traditional Iberian ham to a Japanese buyer for the outrageous price of 12,000 euros ($14,100).

Julio Revilla, president of Sierra Mayor Jabugo, an Iberian ham producer based in Corteconcepción, Spain’s Huelva region, said that the record-breaking piece of ham was prepared following the strict instructions of the buyer. They requested that the ham come from an Iberian pig at least two years old that had been grazing in the mountains of Sierra Mayor for at least 100 days. The animal had to gain at least 100 kilos during the time they spend grazing and that their diet consisted only of acorns and herbs. Finally, the curing period for the ham was five years, double the normal curing period for premium ham.

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Hongeo – South Korea’s Stinkiest Food Smells Like a Public Restroom

Hongeo is a bizarre South Korean dish with a pungent aroma that most people describe as a mix of dirty public toilet and wet laundry left untended for days.

Made from skate, a bottom-dwelling ray fish, Hongeo is considered by far South Korea’s smelliest food. It’s so stinky that many South Koreans wouldn’t come near it, let alone put in their mouths. However, its many fans can’t get enough of the ammonia fumes it emanates and swear that once you get used to it, it’s impossible to replace with anything else. But feasting on this stinky delicacy comes with a social cost, as the smell tends to linger in the mouth as well as on clothes. In fact, hongeo-specialized restaurants advise customers to seal their jackets in plastic bags before eating, and spray them with deodorant before leaving.

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You Can Now Spend $350 on the World’s Most Expensive Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Feasting on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is usually supposed to save you money, but not if you opt for the variety served at Chicago restaurant PB&J, where a single sandwich will set you back a whopping $350.

The owners of PB&J, which unintuitively stands for ‘Pizza, Beek & Jukebox’ not peanut butter and jelly, came up with the idea for the world’s most expensive peanut butter and jelly sandwich after stumbling upon the former record holder and realizing all it really had going for itself was a 24K gold toothpick keeping the bread slices together. They decided that they could do better, so ‘The Golden Goose’, a decadent treat featuring some of the finest ingredients in the world was born.

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This Malaysian Cake Is Probably the World’s Most Intricate Dessert

Kek Lapis Sarawak is a traditional Malaysian cake famous both for its intricate kaleidoscopic appearance and the grueling process required to make it.

Inspired by the spit cakes that Dutch colonists used to enjoy, Kek Lapis Sarawak was born in Malaysia’s Sarawak state, sometime in the 1970’s. It’s basically a much more complex version of the layered Kek Lapis Betawi, which Sarawakians pretty much elevated to an art form. While its beige or brown outer layers do a good job or concealing the complicated inner cake, slicing one of these treas reveals a kaleidoscope of colors and geometrical shapes that require both logical thinking and a rich imagination to create.

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These Juicy-Looking Fruit Are Not What They Seem

An amateur confectioner from Vietnam has been getting a lot of attention for her stunningly-realistic tangerine-shaped steamed buns.

Le Thuy, a secondary school teacher from Ho Chi Minh city, is well known among the confectioner community of the Vietnamese capital, especially for her jelly and bean cakes. However, she recently managed to surprise her peers as well as thousands of social media users with her unique buns designed to resemble real tangerines down to the tiniest details. Her amazing creations look like fruits on the outside, but tear them apart and a soft, spongy interior is revealed.

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Thai Family Buy Stomach-Churning Glow-in-the-Dark Pieces of Sushi

A Thai family got the shock of their lives when they took home a box of sushi to eat only to see it glow bright blue in the dark after allegedly becoming infected with fluorescent bacteria.

Last Tuesday, Arun Yolpaiboon, 58, and her son, 21-year-old Natthanai Kanchanawasa, had just returned home with some boxes of sushi, which they consume regularly, when they noticed that some of the pieces of shrimp glowed an unnatural blue in low-light areas of their home. Even after boiling the pieces of sushi, the unnatural glow remained, so the pair shot a video showcasing the bizarre blue color of the shrimp. Then then woman’s son ate one of the radioactive-looking pieces just for fun.

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Who Knew There Was Such a Thing as Albino Cucumbers?

If you’re tired of growing or eating the same old green cucumbers, you’ll be pleased to hear that there is actually an alternative – albino cucumbers.

As their name suggests, these heirloom cucumbers are a bright white, even though the stalks they grow on have a common dark green foliage. Albino cucumbers don’t simply occur as an anomaly, although that may have been the case with the first such specimen. They are actually a slowly developed variety of cucumber that dates back to the 1893, when the Burpee seed company featured it in its famous catalog for the first time. It had been sent in by a customer in 1890, and Burpee spent the next three years breeding and evaluating the plant before launching it commercially.

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