Mexico Sets Record for World’s Biggest Sweet-Bread

Record attempts are very frequent in Mexico and most of them have to do with food. On January 3rd, Mexican chefs managed to create the world’s biggest sweet bread, called “Rosca de Reyes”.

Popular around the Three Kings holiday, in Mexico, Rosca de Reyes never looked as big and tasty before. The cooking of the sweet bread has been sponsored by Mexico’s National Bakers’ Association, but this year the bakers outdid themselves and came up with the largest Rosca de Reyes ever.

Measuring 720 meters in length and weighing over 10 metric tons, the world’s largest Rosca de Reyes took over 21,000 man hours and $128,000 to make. 50,000 eggs and 2,900 kg of sugar were “sacrificed” during the cooking process.

The giant Rosca de Reyes was shared among 250,000 locals gathered in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square. Many of them couldn’t afford to buy sweet-bread on their own so this event came like a godsend.

Photos via Xinhua

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Would You Like Some Canned Corn Smut?

A pest in the United States and pretty much everywhere else, Cuitlacoche, or Corn Smut, is considered a delicacy in Mexico.

Cuitlacoche is sold at a higher price than healthy corn and used to make tortillas. The diseases attacks the kernels, turning them into spore-filled tumors that apparently taste way better than healthy corn. The smut-infected corn is picked before it reaches maturity, so the kernels are still moist and taste sweet, savory, woody, and earthy.

After high-profile chefs and government officials tried to convince the American  people to stop regarding Cuitlacoche as a disease and start treating it like food, cans of Cuitlacoche found their way on to store shelves. But people are still reluctant to try it…I wonder why.

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Snail Eggs Are the New Caviar

Invented by a Frenchman who used to make a living fitting kitchens, Snail Caviar is France’s newest gastronomical sensation.

Dominique Pierru, the genius behind Snail Caviar, spent three years perfecting his invention, after abandoning his career as a kitchen fitter. He had to find a way to “convince” his 180,000 snails to lay a large enough quantity of eggs, then soften and condition them. It was a tough-enough task, but now his De Jaeger caviar is one of the most coveted treats in French restaurants.

After selling 200 kg of Snail Caviar in 2008, Pierru estimates he’ll ship 300 kg by the end of the year. And that’s not because it’s cheap, a 30 gram-jar sells for 39 euros, while the 50 gram-one has an 82 euros price tag.

Dominique and his wife decided to invent the bizarre delicacy after reaching the conclusion that traditional snail farming is not a viable business. Now they import snails from Eastern European countries and watch them lay eggs. How’s that for viable?

Snail Caviar is best served on toast or sage leaf, accompanied by a glass of champagne.

via Arbroath

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World’s Fishiest Wedding Cake

I’m all for originality, but replacing a wedding cake with a smelly tuna seems a bit too much. But in a country like Japan, where people fight each other with neon lamps, anything goes.

A wedding-planning company in Kanagawa has been offering tuna fish instead of traditional wedding cakes for over ten years now. The couple you see below has opted for a 100 kg-heavy BigEye Tuna as treat for their guests, but clients have a wide range of packages to choose from, depending on the number of guests.

I don’t know about you, but I always look forward to the cake when attending a wedding, and this tuna doesn’t look very delicious.

via Japan Probe

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Golden Kaiser Schnitzel Comes with Real Gold

Real gold leafs and white truffles make the Golden Kaiser Schnitzel the world’s most expensive schnitzel.

A German restaurant in Dusseldorf decided to laugh at the economic crisis and offer its customers one of the most expensive treats on Earth. The Berger Strasse restaurant has been serving its golden delight for about three years, but only recently began to promote it.

Thomas Huber, the establishment’s manager, said the gold has no taste and therefore ads nothing to the flavour of the schnitzel, but the white Italian Alba truffles are a whole other matter. At 5,000 euros per kilo, these exclusive ingredients set the Golden Kaiser Schnitzel’s price tag at 150,euros ($242).

So far around 100 golden schnitzel’s have been sold.

via The Local

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Century Egg – Would You Eat One?

I love a good omelet and I’ve been known to gobble down boiled eggs from tme to time, but Century Eggs? No freaking way!

Known also as preserved egg, hundred-year egg, thousand-year egg or thousand-year-old egg, the Century Egg is a Chinese delicacy used in many traditional dishes. Fresh duck, chicken or quail eggs become Century Eggs after weeks, sometimes months of preservation in a mixture of clay, ash, lime, salt and rice. The process of “cooking” Century Eggs is believed to date back 600 years, when someone apparently found some old eggs preserved in a pool of slaked lime. Upon tasting them, he decided to produce some more, but this time with some added salt.

After the preservation is complete, the hull mixture and egg shell are removed to reveal the now dark-brown egg-white and a dark-green, creamy and pungent yolk.  It’s the alkaline that raises the ph of the egg from 9 to 12 or more and gives it a strong smell of ammonia and sulfur.

Century Eggs are consumed either raw, or as ingredients in other Chinese foods. There are those who associate them with smelly cheese, pungent but really delicious. Sadly there are others (myself included) who just can’t get past the disgusting colors and smell.

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The Most Number of Dishes on Display, in a Single Day

That’s the Guinness Record Filipino cooks and cooking students attempted to break yesterday, in Manila.

Chefs from the finest cooking school in Manila gathered at the Araneta Coliseum and attempted to create 5,000 cheese-based dishes, in order to beat the previous record of 4,668, set by India, in 2007.

Alex Tacdera, a representative of Kraft Foods Philippines, said the event was organized to celebrate Filipino originality and love for food, in a time of great challenge for their nation. Guinness Book of Records announced it is waiting for evidence on the result to confirm the new record.

Kraft Eden will also be organizing a “Keso de Gallo”, an event where people will try to use Eden cheese to prepare a feast for families affected by the Ondoy and Pepeng typhhons, who don’t have the means to celebrate Christmas this year.

via Daily Mail

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Puppy, Kitty and Rat Meats Online

Because puppy, kitty and rat steaks taste so damn good.

During one of my daily internet surfing sessions, I stumbled on one of the weirdest sites I’ve ever seen. It’s called Rat Beef.com and it’s an online rat butchery (doesn’t that sound delightful). Sure, we’ve featured photos of cooked field rats before, but to see them commercialized online struck me as a tad bizarre. RatBeef states their rats are bred and raised in 100% natural conditions and they even offer a few cooking recipes.

While I was browsing the site’s pages, looking for some suiting pics, I found Rat Beef has two sister (to be read siNIster) sites, Puppy Beef and Kitty Beef which sell…well, you can guess. I know these types of meats are very popular in some Asian countries, but to see them sold on websites containing the words puppy and kitty is just ridiculous.

In case you don’t believe this is odd in anyway, at least you know where you can buy your exotic meats from now on.

TAIWAN-RATMEAT/

Delicious Brain Cupcakes

Is this what they mean by brain food?

The disgusting-looking brain cupcakes you see below were baked by a girl named Pamela, back in August, but I just discovered them today and couldn’t help but share with you guys. Delicious red velvet raspberry cake, cream cheese frosting and chocolate brains, created with moulds, make up some of the weirdest deserts I’ve ever seen.

brain-cupcakes

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Meat Water – Dinner in a Bottle

Damn, I’m so thirsty, I’d kill for a bottle of Buffalo Wings right now. Whew, thank God for Meat Water, right?

The best way to describe Meat Water drink is “dinner in a bottle”. This high efficiency survival beverage brings you all your favorite foods in liquid form. that’s right why bother cooking Italian meatballs, pizza, fried oysters or whatever else you like, when you can just drink them out of the bottle?

Apparently, Meat Water is perfect for athletes because it allows them to cut down on exercing and eating time and allows them to enjoy themselves. Of course that doesn’t apply to me because, one: I’m not an athlete, and two: I actually enjoy myself when eating.

Read more about Meat Water on their official site

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Yam King Contest Held in China

On November 25, a yam and taro contest crowned the largest yam of 2009, in South-West China.

As one of the biggest yam and taro supplier in China, Anhe Township held the seventh annual Yam King Contest. Farmers from all around the area brought their biggest harvested yams hoping they’ll snatch the title of yam King 2009.

The winner of the contest was a 1.66 meters-long yam that weighed 38 kilograms. I bet that’s big enough to feed the farmer’s whole family for a long time.

via Xinhua

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The Knotted Foods of Ed Bing Lee

Ed Bing Lee, a talented artist from Philadelphia, has been perfecting his knotting skills for the past 25 years and is now able to create practically anything using basic macrame knots.

His “Delectables” series features some of the most delicious art pieces I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing. They may not be edible, but Ed Bing Lee’s knotted foods sure look good enough to eat. Using as many as 500 half-hitch knots per square inch, the artist managed to transform into a unique art form.

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Delicious-Looking Edible Chocolate Couch

Entitled “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too”, the chocolate couch was created by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich for an art-exhibit appropriately named “Let Them Eat Art”.

The chocolaty art-piece was covered in a thick layer of chocolate that not only made it look like a brown leather couch, but also feel like one. All the couch details, including buttons and stitching were made from chocolate.

That chocolate couch looks so real I bet there was someone at the gallery door telling visitors not to sit on it.

via mocoloco

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Love Dessert – A Viagra Enhanced Sweet Delight

Students from a Colombian cooking school presented their unusual “love dessert” at the Gastronomy 2009 culinary show, in Bogota.

The special pudding contains dissolved Viagra, passion-fruit and is garnished with whipped-cream and chocolate. The students, aged between 17 and 23, found a way to safely dissolve the magic blue pill in their dessert and create a new, sweet aphrodisiac. They say their recipe contains detailed instructions on how to dissolve the pill.

Because Viagra is a prescription drug, the Love Dessert can’t yet be sold, but once Colombia’s food and drug institute concludes its analysis of the dessert, you may find it in cafes and restaurants near you. Enjoy and make sure to wear baggy trousers.

Photos by William Fernando Martinez / AP

via IBN Live

Colombia Viagra Dessert

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Heart-Shaped Oranges Spotted in Seoul

Their shape may not be as complex as the Buddha-shaped pears, but these heart-shaped oranges spotted in a market, in the capital of South Korea are just as impressive. I’d like to get my hands on one of those for Valentine’s Day, but I doubt they’d ship those babies half way around the world. Oh well, I guess a heart-shaped box of chocolates will have to do.

via People.com.cn

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