Yes, they come from China.

And, yes, the story I saw came from none other than Reuters International.

Whereas springtime in America means bunnies, daffodils, and inedible adorable marshamallow Peeps, springtime in China’s Zhejiang province means “eggs soaked in the urine of little boys”.

That’s right, the annual rite of spring in Donyang, Zhejiang province includes harvesting gallons of urine from little boys’ rooms at grade schools to use as soaking/cooking liquid for what’s known as  “virgin boy eggs”.  Young schoolboys in Donyang are trained to urinate in special collection buckets placed in school hallways, instead of heading to the loo. Teachers tell students that if they are feeling ill, they should not use the special buckets. Thank goodness. We wouldn’t want anyone to unwittingly ingest infected bodily fluids.

They’re called “virgin boy eggs” because the urine is taken only from boys under the age of ten. No one knows why, except that’s just the way it’s always been done. 

The eggs are then cooked and sold by vendors on the street for about a quarter apiece, and folks in Dongyang can’t get enough of them. People look forward to the annual ritual, so much so that the odor of boiling pee is known there as “the scent of spring”.

And of course, there are many health benefits purported to be gained from eating these little stinkers. Such claims include heat stroke prevention, improved blood circulation, and overall invigoration. The eggs allegedly have a salty taste.

There’s a really descriptive article (with stomach-churning photos) over at Very Vietnam.  Here’s the link to the Reuters article, too.

Happy Spring, everyone!

Seriously? We need a g-d MACHINE for these now?? How freakin' hard is it to get out a cupcake tin and pour in some batter? Plus this ridiculous contraption only makes 6 at a time!?! Wanna know how much this costs?

That's right - FIFTY BUCKS!!! Know how much a cupcake tin costs? About five bucks. Americans are beyond help.

And this one just made me laugh:

What's up there, sizzlechest?

I’d love to be more adventurous, really I would, but there are a few things that nag me about what I consider “weird foods”. Knowing full well that my foodie card is about to be revoked, perhaps I should explain myself with some specific items that give me the creeps:

• 

  Nope. No sir. Not gonna happen.

  Brains/other organs – really, as an American living in the land of plenty, I do not feel the need to eat “snout to tail”.  Livers, stomachs, tongues, cheeks, tails – all things that should be buried along with their now-dead owners.  I’d truthfully like to quit eating meat altogether, but I really do like hamburgers and boneless chicken wings.

• Insects/Worms/Arachnids – again, no need.  I get plenty of protein and don’t need bugs in my diet.  Plus they are squirmy and disgusting (especially worms).  They’re really not food.  Come on.
• Frogs – they are slimy and green. Yup, that’s my reason.
• Eggs, other than chicken – I’m not really sure why I’m averse to this one.  But, for some strange reason, the thought of quail eggs or duck eggs just makes me want to retch.  Probably just because I’ve never eaten anything other that chicken eggs.  Friends of mine (Alisa & Stephen) keep extolling the virtues of duck eggs, but the only way they’re going to get me to eat one is if they sneak it in an omelet they make for me.  Hint.
• Oysters/Clams/Mussels – I have been known to enjoy Oysters Rockefeller and fried belly clams, but I’m not a fan of the raw bivalves.  I have eaten them, and they remind me of cold mucus.  I’m done with them.  I tried.
• 

  Please don't eat me! I'm cute and fuzzy!

  Rabbit – I had a harrowing rabbit-as-food experience when I was a kid, and it will never leave me.  We were eating dinner at my grandparent’s house one night, and Grandma was cooking up a rabbit that Papa had apparently shot that afternoon.  I pulled up a chair to the kitchen sink, and peeked my little head over the side and saw the distinct shape of a rabbit, ears and all from what I remember, all skinned and purple.  I can still see that image in my head.  I can’t remember if I actually ate rabbit that night (I doubt it), but I know I have no interest in eating it now.  Heebie-jeebies.

• Goat – I would probably eat this if I was traveling in the Middle East.
• Whole Lobster – too much work, too many eyeballs and antennae, and too much green slimy stuff.  Lobster meat, lobster claws, lobster tails – all delicious and acceptable.
• Okra – I am sure it doesn’t taste all that bad, flavorwise, but every description I’ve ever read uses the words “slime” or “slimy”.  As in, “Certain cooking techniques will prevent your okra dish from being overly slimy”.  Which means, “Oh, it’s gonna be slimy, all right, nothing you can do about that.  But you can maybe cut down on the sliminess by 0.2% by deep fying and slapping some hot sauce on it.” I will not eat any food that has the slimy built right in.
• Tapioca Pudding – what the f*** is tapioca anyway? Okay, I know what tapioca is.  But why would I want to eat it?  The texture of those knobbly little slimy balls makes my stomach turn.  Add creamy milky pudding to that party, and get ready to swab the deck, Cap’n.  Same goes for Bubble Tea (yes, I know, it’s tapioca) and Cream of Wheat (yes, I know, not tapioca).  I just threw up on my keyboard.

Other weird food things about me:

• I will only order fish in a restaurant, and will never cook it at home.  Once bitten with food poisoning, twice shy.
• I enjoy day-old sub sandwiches, where the tomato and lettuce juices seep into the bread and make it mushy.
• I like to dip Wendy’s french fries into a Wendy’s chocolate Frosty.  I haven’t done this in years, but I know I like it.
• I freaking hate celery.
• I do not like Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Many people find this very odd.
• My favorite breakfast is a butter & peanut butter hardroll from Stewart’s.  Only 86 cents!
• I dislike regular raisins, but love golden raisins.
• I cannot tolerate sour things.  Have you ever heard of supertasters?  In a nutshell, supertasters are people who experience taste at intensity levels way beyond normal people.  Personally, I believe that I am a sour supertaster, as I am unable to even *think* about a sour food without my mouth watering and my lips puckering.  I have not been tested, but I know this is true.

What’s your food weirdness?

Fan of Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet magazine and NYTimes food critic, more recently noted for her liltingly sweet and poetic tweets?  Check.

Fan of the Twitter mashup @RuthBourdain?  You’re NOT?  Get.over.there.now.  You’ll laugh your ass off, trust me.

What happens is this: Ruth Reichl posts one of her usual haiku-inspired tweets, describing a recent meal or experience.  Then Ruth Bourdain answers in short order, filtering the Ruth Reichl moment through the f-ed up mind of Anthony Bourdain.  Here’s an exhange from April:

“Fever dreams. So hungry. Caviar. Blini. Habanero salsa, shock waves of fire, electrical sparks. Soothing softness of polenta/mascarpone” – @RuthReichl

“Fever dreams. So hungry. Swaddled in a giant Blini. Caviar all over. Habanero salsa, lava, shock waves of fire, sparks. Need more morphine.” – @RuthBourdain

Another classic:

“Fried clams. Lemon. Fat asparagus, ancient balsamic. Hot crusty bread with cold, sweet butter. Sea urchins. Charred, rare porterhouse steak” – @RuthReichl

“Fried clams! Fat asparagus! OMFG: Sea urchins! Here comes porterhouse steak. Smack it up, flip it, rub it down. Oh no, Ruth needs a napkin!” – @RuthBourdain

And one more, from a couple days ago, because I can’t resist:

“Sour cherries. Raw. A taste as cold as splashed water on a hot morning. Tart shock reverberates. Wonderful way to start the day.” – @RuthReichl

“Sour cherries. Raw. A taste as cold as liquid nitrogen on my nipples on a hot morning.Tart shock reverberates. Horrible way to start the day” – @RuthBourdain

Bourdain goes on record to say he “loves Ruth Bourdain” (catch an interview with him on one of my favorite podcasts, Good Food), and is both flattered and disturbed by it.  Reichl has mixed emotions about the parody, but has said in public that she “finds him hilarious”.

Me too.  Or, as Bourdain might say, F*** yeah!

Last night’s setup involved pork steaks (steaks cut from the shoulder roast) which had been pan-browned and placed in the crockpot , as well as a separate container of onion-soup-mix-and-gravy-mix-plus water, which was to be added at cooking time.

I called Bob early in the afternoon to remind him to get the crockpot started at around 3, and to add “the container in the fridge with the gravy mix in it.”  Easy stuff.   My routine on-my-way-home call to Bob reassured me that he had indeed gotten dinner going as instructed.  Nothing seemed amiss.

When I finally walked in the door, I was greeted by a delightful aroma of slowly simmering pork steaks.  I opened the lid to inspect, and was puzzled to see a thick white gravy coating the steaks.  Hm.  Pork gravy isn’t usually white.

Oh, well.  It smelled delicious, so I replaced the cover and went to the fridge to make myself a bit of a snack to tide me over until dinner at 7.  I opened the fridge and was stunned to see the pint container of onion soup-gravy mix still sitting exactly where I placed it the night before.

“What did you put in the crockpot?” I asked Bob.

“The container of stuff in the fridge,” he replied.

“No, you didn’t.  It’s right here,” I said, holding the mixture aloft.  What the heck did he put in the crockpot?  What the heck did he grab?  The bottle of chicken marinade?  Ranch dressing?  MAYONNAISE?  It was at about this moment I remembered that on Sunday I had prepped many items for the coming week, including a batch of homemade hummus.

Yes, hummus.  Made with cannelini beans (I am allergic to garbanzos), lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, Turkish seasoning, and sesame tahini paste.  Good lord, what did Bob do?

“To be honest,” he said when I told him of the error, “I was going to call you and ask, because I thought it was the wrong stuff.  But it smelled okay, so I didn’t.”   I wondered how long it would take to get a pizza delivered.

But, we decided to try it and see.  Not only did it smell good, it tasted great.  I did add a bit of the CORRECT liquid, because the beans had thickened the gravy almost to a paste and it needed a thinning.  The liquid added more flavor components, namely rosemary and onion, which blended well with the hummus.

Now, if only I could get Bob to cook dinner more often…

Cinnamon has long been known for its antimicrobial properties (used as a corporal preservative in mummification rituals), but now science has finally decided to delve deeper into the knowledge that ancient Egyptians discovered more than 5000 years ago: cinnamon used as an anti-molding agent in food packaging.  Spanish scientists developed anti-mold wrapper, which is basically waxed paper impregnated with cinnamon oil.  The research looks very promising: when wrapped around already-moldy bread, the cinnamon-infused wrapping slowed mold growth by 96%, when compared to bread wrapped in plain waxed paper.  Read the whole story from the New York Times here.

We all know (I hope) that eating whole grains, including whole wheat flour, is a healthy choice, due to higher amounts of fiber, vitamins, and minerals versus processed flours (such as all-purpose white).  But “experts” have always advised against using straight whole wheat flour, because it makes dough denser, and the final products are really kinda gross (think 1968, macrobiotic-lovin’, tree-hugging hippie kinda food).  Recipes strongly urge you to substitute only up to half of the white flour with whole wheat flour, to avoid disappointing results.  There may be hope on the horizon, though, for those of us who’d rather use whole wheat than the nutrient-stripped all-purpose white flour: food chemists (this is probably what I should have done with my life) have shown that making a pizza crust with whole wheat flour and cooking it longer releases more of those healthy antioxidants. These compounds increased by 82 percent when baked at a higher temperature (around 500*), by 60 percent when baked twice as long and doubled when the dough was left to rise an extra day.  The moral of the story: we can use all whole wheat flour, we just must practice patience (and possess a REALLY hot oven).  Read the whole study here (with links to recipes).

What does one do on International Bacon Day, besides the obvious?  Does one hang crisp-fried bacon strips from the mantel?  Dress up in costume and go door-to-door, begging for smoky-cured pieces of fat?  Adopt a pig?  The mind boggles.

I popped “international bacon day” into Google, and was treated to many, many results (4,910,000 to be exact). A couple were blogs, and several were very “official” bacon-related sites.   Since I know how much you all love bacon, I thought I’d share some with you (URLs, not actual bacon), in case you were wondering (as I was) how to prepare for International Bacon Day:

• InternationalBaconDay – the blog that launched the holiday.  Created by The Bacon Boys, this blog really is the definitive source for all things bacon.  It also offers countless ideas for celebrating IBD, including a movie marathon featuring films starring…wait for it…Kevin Bacon.
  
• Bacon Today: Daily News on the World of Sweet, Sweet Bacon (Daily?  There’s that much bacon news?)
  
• The Royal Bacon Society: The Ultimate Bacon Resource
• BaconFreak.com, Where Bacon is Meat Candy (there’s even a bacon theme song that plays when you open the site)
• BaconJew: I’m a Jew and I Love Bacon (this one just made me laugh)
• Lords Of Bacon: Reviews of bacon and bacon related products. This blog also includes a handy list of ALL bacon-related blogs.  There are a lot of them.  Seriously.  People apparently have more time on their hands than I do.
• A page on Etsy ( a site to buy & sell handmade stuff), where you can purchase a bacon case for your iPhone, among other bacon items.
• BBQ Addicts features a heart-stopping bacon/sausage/bacon recipe called the Bacon Explosion.  I would advise against ever trying this recipe.  It might make you die.
• And finally, Pork Magazine – “the business magazine for professional pork producers”.  This trade industry website includes endless fascinating porcine features, such as “Young Pig Resources,” cash hog prices, featured videos from World Pork Expo 2009 in Des Moines, Pork Mobile (graphic below), and of course, a link to follow them on Twitter (twitter.com/porkmag).

Pork Mobile!

Loyal Readers, when it comes to obscure food news, I’m here for you.  I do the research, so you don’t have to.

Incidentally, this past weekend Bob and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary with a trip to an incredible B&B in the Adirondacks.  At breakfast each morning, we were served the most incredibly delicious bacon.  It was from Oscar’s Adirondack Smokehouse, a legendary smoked meats & cheese purveyor in Warrensburg, NY.  We drove through Warrensburg on our way home from Chestertown, but did not see Oscar’s, otherwise we would have stopped in to stock up on some smoky goodness.  Next time!

I felt like saluting.

Can You Grill a Bratwurst?

You know, BlackBerry should really try to get some decent apps.  Either that, or AT&T should try to get some decent coverage in Upstate NY.

Haggis, in all its glory.

According to a Reuters news story released today, Historian Catherine Brown claims that haggis, the legendary and gag-inducing Scottish delicacy, is actually not Scottish but English.

Egads!

Haggis purists shouldn’t worry too much about the Scots’ patriotic claim on haggis getting snatched away; as former world champion haggis maker Robert Patrick insisted: “Nobody’s going to believe it.”

What’s next? Welsh rabbit isn’t really made from rabbit?