If “9 Foods You’re Not Allowed To Buy” just left you hungry for more, Newsweek has compiled their list of 8 forbidden delicacies. “Forbidden” in this case, means that the dishes may be restricted or socially unacceptable. While a few overlap from the other list there are some new tasty morsels here to challenge your palette. Maggot-cheese, anyone? The list, inside…
8. Foie Gras
To produce foie gras, ducks and geese are force fed up to 4 pounds of food a day. While Chicago has lifted its ban on the little livers, California will enact a ban on foie gras beginning 2012 because of animal cruelty concerns.
7. Lobsters
Whole Foods and some other supermarket chains stopped selling live lobsters in 2006 because PETA and other animal rights groups have said that lobsters may not be treated humanely in transport. Many believe lobsters feel pain. For example in Reggio, Italy it is illegal to boil lobsters alive.
6. Haggis
Consisting mostly of sheep lung, liver and heart then minced with onions and boiled in the animal’s stomach, the U.S. banned imported haggis in 1989 over concerns that it could carry mad cow disease.
5. Sassafras
Sassafras bark contains an oil called safrole which the FDA banned in 1960 because of its link to cancer in rats. Nowadays a safer product is produced that is free of safrole and still delivers the sassafras flavor.
4. Absinthe
The green liqueur popularized in France in the 1850′s was banned in the U.S. in 1912 for its “harmful neurological effects.” Currently, Absinthe can be legally imported at reduced thujone levels. Thujone is the psychoactive ingredient in absinthe.
3. Raw Milk Cheese
The FDA has banned the transport unpasteurized milk across state lines. Unpasteurized cheese can only be sold if it’s been chilled to 35F and aged for 60 days.
2. Puffer Fish
While “fugu” is a dish that is very popular in Japan and Korea, the eyes and internal organs of this fish are highly toxic. Chefs are specially trained to prepare fugu as not to poison the customers. The critters contain saxitoxin and tetrodotoxin, a nerve toxin for which there is no antidote. The dish can be found at top Japanese restaurants in several American cities however harvesting puffer fish is illegal in Florida.
1. Casu Marzu Maggot Cheese
This is a runny white cheese made by injecting Pecornio Sardo cheese with cheese-eating larvae. (Who thinks of this?) Eaters of the cheese risk intestinal larval infection and some other health hazards. The cheese cannot be sold legally in Italy although there are a few cities and towns where it can be found. The U.S. has no laws against this cheese, maybe because nobody here wants to eat it.
Eight Forbidden Delicacies [Newsweek]
(Photo: Newsweek)
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Save a lobster club a fisherman rapers of the sea.
@flipx: i’d rather club peta members.
@The Count of Monte Fisto: Yeah, I’m pretty sure the thing knows it’s dying. In boiling hot water.
What’s funny is that Whole Foods stopped selling lobsters because they could not guarantee that they were handled humanely during transport. Umm the things are BOILED ALIVE, I think overcrowding (and almost every other thing) pales in comparison.
- geese are morons, about as brilliant as turkeys. Both are trying to beat out (bovine) cows for Idiot Animal of Forever
- if you throw a live lobster into boiling water you might hear a “scream” — it’s the sound of steam rushing through the shells. Everybody whistle!
& nobody’s brought up lutefisk? Gak.
Also, the summer camp I went to had sassafras plants growing natively all over the place. We used to walk to classes chewing on the leaves. Never got stoned, unless we went past some hiding kids smoking pot…
I can’t believe no one has mentioned dog meat here yet. It is a delicacy, and tastes better than plain meats. I know, I will probably get yelled at by animal activists, but still, it is socially taboo (at least in the U.S.).
I had fugu in tokyo a year ago. The raw fugu reminded me of gummy worms (particularly the clear ones). It had that consistency and was similarly bland. It really didn’t have much flavor raw. I also had it deep fried. It was like a fried chicken wing in consistency and flavor.
Absinthe can be purchased in the US. http://www.drinklucid.com
The Wormwood Society is an excellent guide on all things Absinthe. wormwoodsociety.org
The thing about Fugu is the numbing sensation when you eat it.
There’s always a microscopic trace of toxin they can never washout…hence your lip or tongue gets that numbing sensation.
Bon appetit suckas.
@HeartBurnKid:
A third way: place them in room temp tap water and they go to sleep, well, that’s what I tell the kids, I think you’re really drowning the little bastards. Then, steam them until red, split from head to tail and place on a medium temp charcoal grill, with alder or oak wood for about 15 minutes.
@johnva: VEAL IS CRUEL! And I have to think you are joking to think any of those things are delicious!
Weird about Sassafras; Filé (pulverized sassafras leaves) gumbo is made entirely from Sassafras leaves and is quite legal, I can assure you. It is also quite good when done correctly. Where I grew up, filé is a popular additive to regular chicken and sausage and seafood gumbos; the sassafras adds texture and flavor to the gumbo.
@ShirtNinja: I remember the first time I cooked crayfish and they made that sound, I found it rather amusing. Haven’t cooked a lobster yet, but I imagine it sounds the same.
Speaking of which, IIRC Food Network was fined for broadcasting an old episode of Iron Chef which featured lobster marinated in wine barrels. PETA reps said something like ‘the animal was forced to become intoxicated, that’s animal cruelty.’
Lame, but the thought of naturally marinated lobsters sounds pretty delicious. If I ever decide to boil my own, I might have to shove one of those ugly bastards into a micro brew tank… Then again, I could load 30 crayfish into an empty 5 gallon bucket and use a 1/4 keg to fill it. heheh
@Kos:
Ever eat kimchi? Seagulls won’t touch that.
I tried feeding it to them once, at a picnic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. I was tossing potato chips to a couple of seagulls. I thought to see if they’d eat kimchi (I mean they’ll eat just about anything else), and tossed a little piece to one. One bird sort of examined it then ignored it. Then I found a curved potato chip, stuffed it full of kimchi, and tossed it to the bird. It picked it up, choked it down and stood there looking kind of distressed. It started opening and closing its mouth and sticking its tongue out. Then it hopped over to a ditch and drank some water. Then it gagged some more, and flew away.
@HeartBurnKid:
Having come close to losing consciousness from hypothermia (which due to having a good coat and no hat, was mostly confined to my head), I can confirm that once the extremities go numb, it really isn’t all that bad…just that if you DON’T die from it, you’ll wish you had. (So make sure the water is good and hot, or that little bugger is gonna suffer worse than if you’d just tossed him into the boiling water while he was awake)
@speedwell:
Judging from some of the videos on youtube, I’m guessing the treatment of the birds must vary from farm to farm. Because some of them don’t look so eager.
@Amy Alkon: @johnva: So pay twenty cents more and eat pastured foie gras. There are a lot of people who eat animals who are grown on small farms that don’t treat animals badly. Factory farmed animals are not nutritious in comparison to naturally raised animals. And I’ve produced reports on the foie gras issue, and abused birds really aren’t worth eating.
“Nowadays a safer product is produced that is free of safrole”
And conveniently useless for making MDMA
@Nelsormensch:
Please provide a link to your scientific study that purports to have proved this. Otherwise you’re just guessing…like the rest of us.
@firesign: i’d rather club peta members.
What is it with PETA (or radical environmentalists), They would rather kill or maim a humanbeing, than see a stupid chicken hurt. Talk about nuts. Does anyone else think KFC sucks since they changed their original recipe? Go back to the original recipe with the heart un-healthy oil, we don’t eat fried chicken for our health!
BTW, I always wanted to print up a PETA T-Shirt shirt and walk by a protest… PETA – People Eat Tasty Animals
@mizmoose: Lutefisk does not qualify because it is not food, but soap.
Who cares if lobsters feel pain? We are humans and they are food.
Many of us have a difficult time reconciling our love of meat with our desire to protect animals from cruelty–either while they are being raised or when they are slaughtered. It is not hypocrisy to oppose factory farming and mistreatment even if you will ultimately consume the creatures. Push for tougher laws (you don’t need to be at the PETA end of the spectrum) and buy organic and humanely raised meat. Do not buy veal unless it is free-range veal–but in that case it’s not milky white etc. so it’s not really the veal that most of us developed a taste for. As for lobsters, I have learned to kill them by splitting their heads open with a sharp knife. It is awful, but less painful than plunging them into boiling water. Slowly warming the water only prolongs the pain, by the way. I have yet to figure out how to eviscerate softshell crabs “humanely,” so I usually let the fishmonger do it out of my sight. I know what I have just written will please neither vegetarians nor the person who wrote, “Who cares if lobsters feel pain? We are human and they are food.” But it’s the best I can do at this moment.
So black pudding isn’t on the list? Excellent — one of my favourites.
@Edward Lionheart: This vegetarian stands behind every word you said. For me, it’s not so much about whether or not to eat the meat… it’s about the fact that simple cleanliness, whether physical or moral, is not exercised in the animal processing industry today. I would eat meat I raised myself, but I’m not eating any meat butchered, processed, and stored out of my sight.
I’m really sick and tired about PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In the morning they accuse others for abusing animals or eating dogs, then at night they have beef and pork for dinner. Their reason? Cows and pigs are “grown to be food”. You know dogs are actually grown to be food in asia too. I love animals and I don’t eat dogs. But I do believe if I am eating any animals then I have absolute no right to accuse others.
And yeah sure, like those cows and pigs never feel any pain when they got killed.