The history of fermented katsuobushi can be traced back to the Edo period (1603 – 1868), although mentions of “fish that has been boiled and dried hard” can be found in the Yoro Code of 718. It remains an essential ingredient for the dashi stock used to make popular dishes like miso soup and soba dipping sauce.

Photo: Adriano/Wikimedia Commons

The complex process of making katsuobushi begins with frozen skipjack tuna, aka ‘bonito’. The fish is first thawed in water for 24 hours, then cut into fillets that are placed in a special cauldron and simmered for up to 90 minutes. It is then cooled, deboned, and much of its skin and fat are removed. At this stage of the process, the water content of the bonito is about 68%.

Next, the fillets are placed in wooden-lidded baskets and wood-smoked for about an hour, then allowed to cool. This process is repeated dozens of times, for about a month. The smoke drastically lowers the water content in the fish, draws out excess fat, and also prevents it from rotting. By now, the moisture content has dropped to around 28%.

To make the highest grade of katsuobushi, the fillets are sprayed with a solution containing the Aspergillus glaucus bacteria and placed in a special chamber at a temperature of 20 degrees Celcius. After two weeks, the mold-covered fillets are taken out to dry in the sun for two days, after which they are once again sprayed with mold and left to ferment for two weeks. This process is repeated for several months until the moisture in the katsuobushi reaches the desired level of around 18% – 20%.

The mold plays a critical part in the making of katsuobushi, as it consumes moisture to sustain itself, accelerating the drying process, decomposes fat into soluble fatty acids, breaks down proteins into amino acids, and keeps off other microorganisms during the fermentation process.

Fermented katsuobushi is as hard as wood, extremely brittle, and looks like crystal or colored glass when polished. It is shaved into thin flakes using a tool similar to a wood planer.

For the world’s hardest cheese, check out Nepal’s rock-hard chhurpi cheese.

Arthit Chomsawat, the owner of Pattaya’s popular Saiwan Bakehous, told the Bangkok Post that the unique croissant that has become the talk of the town was inspired by another one of their unique desserts, the ‘hairy cake’. The croissants, however, went viral internationally after being featured by the French media outlet Prisme.

Topped with hair-like fat choy, a black edible algae commonly used in Asian cuisine, the hairy croissants have been sparking debates on social media for days. Some consider them in poor taste because of the uncanny resemblance of the fat choy to trimmed pubic hair, while others appreciate the lighthearted joke and praise the bakery for its originality.

You know what they say, ‘all publicity is good publicity,’ and despite the mixed feedback, the hairy croissants have been selling like, well, hot croissants, attracting both open-minded locals and tourists to Saiwan Bakehous.

For more unusual desserts, check out this oyster-infused soft-serve ice cream and these realistic puppy puddings.

The base of this peculiar treat is a rich, milky soft serve, topped with fresh oysters from Yamada Bay in Iwate Prefecture, and finally drizzled with a special soy sauce. Not the most appetizing description, we know, but the combination of “seafood freshness + sweet milk + salty soy sauce” is sure to shock your taste buds, at least.

As photos and clips of people enjoying the oyster-infused soft-serve ice cream started showing up on social media, people couldn’t contain their surprise, with many declaring themselves convinced that the dessert was created by AI and not a real thing.

“This has gone beyond the realm of desserts!” one person commented on X.

“The ‘creativity’ of the Japanese knows no bounds!” someone else wrote.

Michino-eki Yamada is expected to continue serving their unique oyster-infused soft serve ice cream all through the summer, so head on over for what is bound to be one of the strangest gastronomical experiences of your life. One cone will set you back just 600 yen ($3.7), so at least you won’t be breaking the bank.

Japan’s fascination with soft-serve ice cream has led to the creation of other unusual treats, like this hard-to-swallow matcha-covered dessert, or this soft-serve cone swimming in a bowl of ramen.

Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, the third-generation owner of Wakatori, openly admitted that the oil reused for decades is the key to his family’s delicious fried chicken. The ‘aged oil’ allegedly gives the Wakatori fried chicken a “complex aroma” and “unique flavor” that cannot be replicated with new oil, giving the eatery a leg up over the competition.

As you can probably imagine, Tsuchiya’s revelations caused quite the uproar on social media, with many claiming that Wakatori was putting people’s lives at risk by frying chicken in 66-year-old oil. However, the Japanese award-winning eatery clarified that the quality of the oil is maintained through daily cleaning, filtering, and adding new oil.

Every night, the restaurant staff carefully filters out meat scraps and impurities from the oil, retaining only a small amount of old oil as a flavor base, and adding it to a new batch of frying oil. So they are not using the exact same oil from 66 years ago, but, technically, molecules from that original batch may still be present in Wakatori’s oil blend.

By preserving some of the old frying oil and topping it off with fresh oil, Wakatori is essentially using the same technique some restaurants use for their soup broths. In fact, the oldest oden soup in existence is believed to be used at Otafuku, a famous restaurant in Tokyo, Japan. It has been topping off the same broth for over 70 years. Similarly, a restaurant in Bangkok’s Ekkamai neighborhood has been serving the same batch of soup for over 50 years.

In the case of Wakatori, food experts warn that oil is not the same as broth, because frying it repeatedly produces harmful and carcinogenic substances such as trans fatty acids and acrylamide. Even by diluting it daily with fresh oil, the long-term accumulation of these harmful substances cannot be completely prevented.

To mold-age tuna, Japanese chefs store pieces of fish in very specific conditions – usually at temperatures between 1 and 6 degrees Celsius and humidity between 70 and 85% – encouraging the development of Koji mold. Over at least four weeks – some chefs will let the mold grow for eight weeks or more – the fish becomes completely covered in a furry-looking layer of mold.

Under the off-putting layer of “fur,” enzymes gradually break down proteins and fats, releasing amino acids, which results in a deep umami flavor (rich, slightly nutty, sometimes with meaty undertones). The meat is also considerably more tender, to the point where it melts in your mouth.

If you’re worried about eating that furry shell, don’t be! The mold is carefully trimmed off, leaving only the aged tuna, which is usually served raw as sashimi or sushi.

Launched in February 2024 at Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza in Tokyo, Japan, MATTE Bottega del Cioccolato quickly made a name for itself by producing the world’s thinnest chocolate. Aptly named “Corteccia” (“tree bark” in Italian), MATTE’s most famous dessert has been described as a wonder of engineering, as producing chocolate that is just 0.03 millimeters thick is no small feat.

Inspired by Italy’s classic layered chocolates, Corteccia consists of a single, ultra-thin layer of chocolate pressed and rolled using a unique custom machine developed over 1.5 years in collaboration with a local machinery specialist. Although you can probably find similar machines around the world, none of them can produce a layer of chocolate as thin as Corteccia.

You’re probably thinking, “Why does chocolate need to be this extremely thin, anyway?” Well, it turns out that the vision of MATTE founder Matteo Sanclicca was to create a chocolate dessert with an unprecedented melt-in-your-mouth texture. They say chocolate is at its best when it is about to melt in the mouth, and that is precisely the sensation MATTE set out to deliver with every bite of Corteccia.

By rolling the 0.03-millimeter layer of chocolate into a shape resembling a cylindrical twig covered in irregular tree bark, MATTE created a unique dessert that allegedly melts instantly upon contact with the tongue, delivering a novel mouthfeel.

Although many have tried to replicate Corteccia after the dessert went viral on social media, it has proven impossible to do so far, because the machine used to press the chocolate is essentially one-of-a-kind and only found in MATTE Bottega del Cioccolato’s Tokyo workshop.

The Takeuchi poultry farm in Hokkaido, Japan, is famous for producing a brand of poultry eggs with white or very pale yellow yolks used for traditional dishes like Tamago-Kake-Gohan, Tamagoyaki, or white Omurice. To achieve this color, the farm puts its chickens on a special diet rich in rice and other foods that contain very few carotenoids.

White-yolk Kometsuya®eggs are one of the most sought-after eggs in all of Japan, both for their eye-catching, immaculate whiteness, as well as their silky texture and sweet taste.

According to Salam Groovy, to produce Kometsuya eggs, the Takeuchi farm feeds its poultry a diet that consists of 68% rice grown in Hokkaido, 15% fish caught in Hokkaido’s ocean, 8.8% raw rice bran, 8.0% scallop shells from Lake Saroma, Hokkaido, 0.2% salt, vitamins, lactic acid bacteria, and other beneficial bacteria.

Like the many other egg brands produced and commercialized in Japan, Kometsuya adheres to the country’s very high nutritional and safety standards. Despite their colorless look, these white-yolk eggs allegedly have the same or at least comparable nutritional values as orange yolk eggs, although many people online dispute that claim.

Although primarily sold in Japan, Kometsuya eggs are reportedly also exported to other parts of Asia, such as mainland China, Taiwan or Hong Kong.

For more unusual eggs, check out these green yolk eggs produced on a farm in India.

Andre Ortolf, a young German man famous for taking on unusual eating and drinking challenges, recently set out to break the world record for the most honey consumed in a minute. His attempt took place in Augsburg, Germany, and saw him consume 1,273 grams, or 44.91 ounces, of honey in just 60 seconds. Talk about a sugar rush!

A video of Ortolf’s successful record-setting attempt has been doing the rounds online, but it really doesn’t do him justice. He can be seen taking a large spoon to a bucket of honey, but at a pace that would probably make most people choke.

Ortolf’s feat is a testament to both his speed and determination, as well as his experience in unusual eating challenges.

As a millennial, I still remember growing up in Eastern Europe during the final years of communism, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Virtually the only thing we had for breakfast and as snacks were plain white bread sandwiches with baloney, butter or cheese. There just wasn’t anything else available. Many people from my generation still remember those simple but hearty meals fondly, but I never imagined a business model built around them.

Buterbrodik 66 (Russian for ‘Sandwich 66’) is a unique eatery in Sankt Petersburg, Russia, that only sells basic sandwiches with baloney, butter, cheese, or egg, for as little as 100 rubles ($1.36). There is nothing fancy about them; in fact, they look like they were made by some student in their dorm room, but that’s the appeal.

Owner Alexey Petrachev told PDM News that he and a friend started the business as a simple stand selling dirt-cheap sandwiches to cheer people up, but the whole thing evolved into something more, and now they have their own place. Like the sandwiches, it’s nothing fancy; it’s in a building no one else wants to operate in, on the outskirts of Sankt Petersburg, but it’s cheap, so they can stay in business.

“At first, the prices were 50 rubles—people would come in and say, ‘Oh, what a rip-off,’ and leave. Then we raised the price to 100 rubles—everyone immediately felt OK,” Petrachev said. “Considering our location—we’re on the outskirts, in a building and a place no one wants—we have enough to cover the cost of this space.”

A slab of butter between two slices of cheap, white bread might seem like a lot, but judging by the online reviews, a lot of people are more than willing to shell out 100 rubles for a sandwich, either out of melancholy or because they simply don’t want to do it themselves. After all, you need to buy a whole loaf of bread, a stick of butter, not to mention the time required to make the sandwich.

“Sin entered into the world through food, and Satan doesn’t stop there. Food, for me, is really like a weapon of how I can fight back,” 27-year-old biblical eating influencer Kayla Bundy recently told the New York Times, adding that she got into it after looking at the Holy Book from “that lens of noticing what they are eating”.

Bundy, who has been a biblical eater for the last eight years, is a popular content creator on platforms like TikTok, where she shares tips and recipes with over 500,000 followers. She also managed to turn her unique diet into a lucrative business, selling a $28 digital guide to biblical superfoods and booking coaching sessions for $700 per month.

Kayla Bundy may be one of the most popular promoters of biblical eating, but she is definitely not the only one. Abbie Stasior, a Christian dietitian who lives in Nashville, likes to reference Bible verses, such as a scene in the Book of John in which Jesus eats a balanced breakfast of bread and fish with his disciples, pointing out that they get both carbs and protein.

Then there is Annalies Xaviera, a stay-at-home mom, whose online following has surpassed 300,000 on Facebook alone. She focuses mostly on eating locally-sourced, unprocessed foods, but also incorporates prayer and Bible verses in her videos.

The idea of biblical eating has been around for years, but it has probably never been as popular as it is today, mainly thanks to social media.