In most places around the world, people are taught that eating raw meat is bad for them due to the high risk of contacting parasites and harmful bacteria, but in Ethiopia raw meat is a popular delicacy. Walking through the streets of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, it’s not uncommon to see groups of people gathered around restaurant tables feasting on chunks of raw beef or goat meat. Although particularly popular on holidays or various celebrations, like weddings, a lot of people consume raw meat virtually every day. They will tell you that raw meat is a hearty meal that energizes them and refreshes their bodies, as for the risks associated with eating uncooked meat, which include exposure to tapeworms and dangerous bacteria like salmonella and E-coli, most just choose to ignore them. Read More »

A restaurant in the Italian town of Castelfranco Veneto has come up with an ingenious way to get a leg up on the competition – treating guests to a unique dish called “fried air”. Nicola Dinato, the head chef at Feva Restaurant wanted to capture the essence of being outdoors and breathing fresh air in an dish aptly called “aria fritta” or “fried air”. The name is a tad misleading, as the crispy treats are actually made of tapioca skin that’s first baked and then deep fried. However, there’s some air involved in the cooking process as well, or at least a component of it – ozone. After the tapioca skin is baked and fried, it is infused with ozone for 10 minutes, which gives the treats a special perfume. After the special infusion, the crispy fried air is placed on a bed of cotton candy, which Dinato hopes will remind patrons of clouds. Read More »

Apples are generally red, green, yellow or a combination of the three, but if the right geographical conditions are met, they can apparently grow dark purple, almost black, as well. These rare apples are called Black Diamond and they are currently only grown in the mountains of Tibet. Black Diamond apples are a breed of Hua Niu apples (also known as Chinese Red Delicious) that get their unique dark purple color from the geographical conditions of Nyingchi, in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The 50-hectare orchard set up her by Chinese company Dandong Tianluo Sheng Nong E-Commerce Trade Co., Ltd. has an elevation of 3100 meters above sea level, making it the ideal place to grow these intriguing fruit. The temperature differences between day and night are significant, and the fruits get a lot of sunlight and ultraviolet light which causes their skin to go from the characteristic deep red of Hua Niu apples, to dark purple. Read More »

A cheese maker from the Emmental region of Switzerland has been experimenting with various musical genres to see if they can make his cheese taste better. Since September, cheese maker Beat Wampfler has been blasting musical masterpieces by legends such as Led Zeppelin and A Tribe Called Quest to his wheels of Emmental cheese, hoping to prove that music can influence the development, characteristics and, most importantly, the flavor of the cheese. He is convinced that humidity, temperature and nutrients are not the only things that can have an impact on the taste of cheese, and that sounds, ultrasounds and music can make an impact on flavor as well. Read More »

Pinhead’s Pizza, a popular pizza place in Dublin, Ireland, is offering fans of the Italian delicacy the chance to fill their bellies and their pockets at the same time. Anyone who can finish their 32-inch pizza and down two milkshakes in under 32 minutes is guaranteed a prize of 500 euros. When Anthony Kelly, the owner of Pinhead’s Pizza, put the 32-inch pie on the menu of his restaurant in 2015, it didn’t really have a name and was simply called “Ireland’s largest pizza. Since then, he settled on a proper name for it – The Notorious Pizza – a fitting one considering that no one has been able to finish one, although many have tried. In the beginning, Kelly offered challengers a voucher for 50 euros plus the pizza for free if they managed to finish the whole thing and wash it down with two milkshakes in under 32 minutes. Since then, he has become so confident that his challenge is unbeatable that he is offering a 500 euros prize to anyone who beats it. Read More »

Ningen, a pop-up restaurant in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, attracted a lot of media attention over the last two weeks for giving patrons the chance to order the last meals requested by infamous death row inmates before their execution. The controversial eatery was opened by a Japanese art collective called Chim↑Pom and for two weeks served the last meals of infamous American criminals like armed robber and double-murderer Gary Mark Gilmore, Judy Buonoano, Florida’s “Black Widow”, or real-life killer clown John Wayne Gacy. Read More »

Angulas, the Spanish word for baby eels is one of Spain’s most expensive foods, but no one seems to understand why. They hardly have any taste at all, their texture is best described as slimy and they look like limp worms on a plate. So why are people paying hundreds of euros to eat angulas at expensive restaurants? Legend has it that in the past angulas were used as fodder for chickens and pigs, and there is historical evidence that they were once a staple food of the working class in northern Spain. But today they sell for astronomical prices of up to 1,000 euros ($1,150) per kilo, so only the richest of the rich can afford them. So what happened? Well, scarcity definitely played a big part in their surprising transformation. River dams, the general degradation of the environment and overfishing have seriously affected the baby eel population, and the rarer they got the more expensive they became. They may not taste like anything, but apparently many people like to act like snobs every once in a while, so they pay a premium to enjoy a food that most people can’t afford. Read More »

Mike Roman, a teacher from New Jersey, recently got his five minutes in the internet spotlight after coming on a podcast to discuss his unusual eating habits. The 41-year-old claims to have eaten pizza at least once a day for the last 37 years. Roman’s longtime love affair with pizza began at age 3 or 4 (he doesn’t remember exactly), when his mother introduced him to the Italian dish for the first time. He apparently loved it so much that he kept asking for more every day until his parents finally gave in and stopped trying to convince him eat other foods as well. He has been eating pizza at least once a day ever since, all through his childhood, teenage years and into adulthood. Mike has reportedly eaten pizza for all three meals of his life, for many years, but he recently started switching between pizza and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. He still has pizza for dinner every day, though. Read More »

And the title for the world’s unluckiest diner goes to… A woman in Shenzen, China, who claims to have found sanitary pads in her hotpot, two days in a row, at two separate restaurants. The woman, known only as ‘Ni’ allegedly found the first sanitary pad while enjoying a hotpot at a restaurant chain called Haidilao, last Friday. In a video that has since went viral online, she can be seen pulling the bizarre object out of her meal and inspecting it. The woman later alerted restaurant staff about her disgusting discovery and asked to talk to the manager, who, after inspecting the object himself, explained that it was probably paper wrapping from the meat. However, the woman dismissed his explanation, claiming that it clearly looked like a sanitary pad. She then proceeded to demand a 1 million yuan compensation from the restaurant. Read More »

Because to their thick, finger-like trunks and their eerie claw-like feet, the gooseneck barnacles growing on the rocks of Portugal’s most south-western coastline are known as Lucifer’s Fingers. They are sometimes referred to as the truffles of the sea, both because of their rarity and high price, but also because of how hard and risky they are to harvest. Restaurants in Portugal and Spain charge up to $115 for a plate of Lucifer’s Fingers, which may sound sound outrageously expensive two some people, but is justified by their rarity and the dangers barnacle hunters expose themselves to when harvesting them. Lucifer’s Fingers, or percebes, cannot be farmed and only thrive on the on rocks in the ocean intertidal zone, where crashing waves provide them with plankton. This makes them notoriously dangerous to harvest, with hunters risking getting crushed against the rocks by crashing waves, or being rendered unconscious by the impact and drowning. The lucky ones escape with broken limbs or severe abrasions. Read More »

If you’re a vegetarian who is curious about or misses the taste of smoked ham, you’ll be pleased to learn that there’s an interesting substitute you can try. Will Horowitz, owner of Ducks Eatery in East Village, NYC, has caused an Internet sensation with his new “smoked ham” which actually consists not of meat, but a whole watermelon. At first glance, Will’s creation looks entirely like meat, complete with scoring and charring. And even when you cut into it, the middle has red “flesh”, reminiscent of a rare steak. But the taste is something different; while the initial taste is a salty, meaty one, it quickly transforms into sweetness, especially as you get closer into the center of the faux ham. Read More »

A Chinese restaurant in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, has gone viral for selling the new world’s most expensive beef noodle soup, priced at a whopping 13,800 yuan ($2,014). The outrageously expensive “Haozhonghao Beef Noodle Soup” sold at the Niu Gengtian restaurant in Shijiazhuang has been getting a lot of attention on Chinese social media after a photo of the menu showing its price went viral online. Considering that a bowl of the now second most expensive beef noodle soup sold by Taiwan’s Niu Ba Ba restaurant costs “only” $329, it’s easy to see why this 13,800 yuan ($2,014) soup has become the talk of the town. Read More »

A cafe in Taiwan has been getting a lot of attention online for serving puppy-shaped ice-cream that most people describe as adorable and terrifying at the same time. When you think about food, the first thing that probably comes to mind is taste, but the fact is that eating is a visual experience as well, and sometimes you can be put off by a dish, even though you know it is delicious. That’s kind of the vibe I’m getting from the puppy-shaped ice-cream served at the Sowing the Sweets cafe, in Taiwan. I’m sure it tastes good – it’s ice-cream, after all – but at the same time I find the idea of digging into this realistic puppy with a spoon disturbing and morbid. Read More »

Shaved Ice is a really popular dessert in Japan, so you can find it pretty much everywhere, but if you’re looking for the craziest, most outrageous shaved ice treat in the country, you have to go to Hyakusho Udon, in Miyazaki Prefecture. The only catch is that you’ll probably have to eat it standing up. No, Hyakusho Udon doesn’t have a standing up policy, it’s just that their famous shaved ice desserts are so incredibly tall that it’s almost impossible to eat them with a spoon while sitting down. Just reaching the top of the colorful, syrup-soaked dessert with the spoon is a huge challenge for most people, and then there’s the risk of causing the tower of refreshing goodness to come tumbling down by mistake. Standing up is definitely the safe way to go, and considering you’re getting a lot more than your money’s worth, it’s a decent compromise. Read More »

Visitors at this past weekend’s Car Free Day Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, had the chance to buy one of the most unusual health food products ever created – unfiltered hot dog water. Gluten-free, keto-compatible, rich in sodium and electrolytes, and bottled in a sleek glass bottle, unfiltered hot dog water has all the making of a health food craze. And with a hefty cost of $38 per bottle, it even has the price tag to match. Like similar “raw” or “smart” waters available on the market these days, hot dog water comes with a series of supposed health benefits: it’s rich in sodium, which helps your body increase its water intake, helps the drinker lose weight, increase brain function, look younger and increase vitality, and triggers anti-inflammatory processes, making it the perfect post-workout drink. And the cherry on the cake – every bottle contains an actual hot-dog. Read More »