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That may be one of the most satisfying post titles ever for what follows. I was surfing on the Chicago Tribune site today and came upon the video of two Trib reporters covering the Olympics. In the name of journalism, they had decided to visit the Beijing Penis, purveyor of all things, well, you know. Please watch their findings here.

In a similar story (as in, stuff I don't relish the idea of eating), Chi-Town is utterly agog at the prospect of getting its first Sonic. There are MySpace and Facebook pages devoted to just how much the Windy City is excited about pulling up to order one of those fried ice cream blasts or extra-long cheese coneys (wonder why these are suddenly on my mind?). In one of the country's greatest food cities, this seems like a travesty to me, but it's obviously a case of scarcity amping up fiendish demand. For a great story on the subject, go here.

It's got a meat I can dance to

My buddy Hank has brought an important development to my attention:

Apple Inc.'s iPod portable media players are hardly new in the gadget world, but they do have a new — and somewhat unexpected — accessory: a protective case that looks like meat. Marketed by Japanese entertainment company Solid Alliance, the plastic case appears to be crafted from beautifully marbled Kobe beef, and it has a price tag to match: $88.

Future meat?

Please go here and read this story about growing meat in labs. Yes, you read that right. Here's an excerpt:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has just offered a $1 million prize to anyone who develops a commercially viable "in vitro chicken-meat product." The catch is that the product can't contain or entail the use of "animal-derived products, except for starter cells obtained in the initial development stages." The idea is simple: Instead of growing a chicken embryo into a bird and cutting meat from it, you skip the bird part and grow the meat directly from the embryo...To put it crudely, if you can grow a hunk of flesh for transplant, you can grow it for food.

Does this strike anyone as deeply sinister? Not in a stem-cell-research-is-the-devil's-work kind of way. Just that literally making meat in a laboratory seems fraught with all kinds of room for error. Can't we just eat a lot less of it and focus on cultivating foods that don't wreak so much havoc on the planet?

My friend KS, a psychologist at USF, brought this to my attention. But she also added this, which may explain some of my queasiness about this:

A guy was here (USF) giving a talk recently. He was studying the difference between moral disgust and physical disgust (obviously asserting they were different). As a manipulation, he asked people about their reactions to unknowingly being served test-tube grown human flesh. No human was harmed, but genetically, it's human flesh.

A contender for most vile American food

This was courtesy of A. Smedley.

I was once on a camping trip and our ACTUAL dinner floated down the river in Tupperware, leaving us with nothing but Vienna Sausages and Minute Rice.

I'm sure the Austrians claim no knowledge of this travesty.

Furrowed brow

It's a rainy Sunday afternoon. The kind of time to ponder life's deep mysteries. Such as, what is this food? Out of courtesy to readers, I didn't make the photo inordinately large and, thus, deeply disturbing. The big question, of course, is why something would be called a "FOOD PRODUCT."

Does that mean it's not fully food? As in "partially defatted cooked pork fatty tissue" (that's an ingredient, no lie)? And while I'm thinking about it, what's a cheese food? Near cheese?

Because I'm supposed to be doing other things right now--writing, cleaning my house, going nowhere fast on the elliptical--I decided to surf around and find out. This site was very helpful. I learned this:

Pasteurized process cheese food is a variation of process cheese that may have dry milk, whey solids, or anhydrous milkfat added, which reduces the amount of cheese in the finished product. It must contain at least 51% of the cheese ingredient by weight, have a moisture content less than 44%, and have at least 23% milkfat.

Pasteurized process cheese spread is a variation on cheese food that may contain a sweetener and a stabilizing agent, such as the polysaccharide xanthan gum or the Irish moss colloid carrageenan, to prevent separation of the ingredients. The cheese must be spreadable at 70 F, contain 44 to 60% moisture, and have at least 20% milkfat.

Pasteurized process cheese product is process cheese that doesn't meet the moisture and/or milkfat standards.

Imitation cheese is made from vegetable oil; it is less expensive, but also has less flavor and doesn't melt well.

Thus, Velveeta is pasteurized process cheese spread and Velveeta Light is pasteurized process cheese product. Cheez Whiz is labeled as pasteurized process cheese sauce.

Still, the mysteries of potted meat elude me. I propose a list of the most revolting American processed foods, perhaps starting with the original Slim Jim (beef lips, anyone?).

Just in time for Passover

Winner of this year's "What a Bad Idea" award goes to The Sweet Tooth out of North Miami Beach. In the mail we received a package and an accompanying letter that began:

"With the approach of the Passover holiday, we have sent you a set of our unique chocolate plagues. The Sweet Tooth has created this whimsical representation of the Ten Plagues of Egypt..."

Two words that seldom go together--"whimsical" and "plagues."

So, let's see if we can figure this out, getting the obvious ones out of the way first. There's the plague of frogs on the top ("and the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs"), second from the left; locusts bottom left. The snowflake must represent the hail storm and the star must be the plague of darkness (like, as in nighttime). Next to the frog is a little bug. That must be the plague of gnats (not much of a plague, if you ask me). The cow on the bottom is the livestock disease (moraine, right?).

The little thing above the star is a baby crib--I'm thinking the death of the first born. OK, now the round red thing with the white dot is a boil. A chocolate that's supposed to represent a boil. If it has a cream center I'll puke.

The red and white circle is the water to blood. Cherry filled? The only one I can't figure out, then, is the lion.

Alright, I know my sense of humor can be juvenile...

but I just got a press release with this as the title:

MILK-BONER, AMERICA'S FAVORITE DOG SNACK, DONATES MORE THAN 40,000 POUNDS OF PRODUCT TO FEED THE CHILDREN IN CELEBRATION OF ITS 100TH ANNIVERSARY

First off, there's the unfortunate missspelling of Milk-Bone, but then there's the bigger question. Are hungry children around the world gnawing on a smorgasbord of dog biscuits?

Move over, microwaved bean and cheese burrito

It was just a matter of time, right? 7-Eleven has just combined the trendiness of low-cal iced coffee drinks among older teens and young adults with the fun of Slurpee to create a, pregnant pause....

Slurpuccino.

It's available now through the end of March on Slurpee machines at 7-Eleven stores. Same price as regular Slurpees, not milk based. It was test-marketed in Canada in 2007 and evidently went over big.

SPAMendment

My brother just sent me a photo of SPAM Musubi (Hawaiian SPAM sushi delight) but I couldn't copy it to paste here. It was stunning. I did find this one, though, which captures some of the glories of nori-wrapped SPAM.

A PhD in canned meat

The year 1937 was a big one.

Amelia Earhart, disappears in her attempt to be the first woman to fly around the world.

Route 66 is officially completed, total distance: 2,448 miles.

The Golden Gate Bridge opens.

Yeah, yeah, forget all that. The year's big breakthrough: SPAM is born!

It was originally called HORMEL Spiced Ham when the company held a contest to create a name as distinctive as the taste. The winner, Kenneth Daigneau, received the grand prize... $100.

And now, to celebrate SPAM's golden anniversary, The Book of Spam has been published.

I learned a lot, I tell ya. SPAM was responsible for our victory in WWII. There is lite SPAM and SPAM singles. SPAM lasts forever, "on your shelf and in your soul."

For more SPAMlore, visit here.

$$$tupid

In my quest to mock stupid-expensive foodstuffs, the following have come to my attention:

Stupid-Expensive Dessert:

A Sri Lankan resort is charging $14,500 for what it calls the world's most expensive dessert, a fruit infused confection complete with a chocolate sculpture and a gigantic gemstone. "The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence" was created to give visitors at The Fortress resort in the coastal city of Galle a one-of-a-kind experience, said the hotel's public relations manager, Shalini Perera. The dessert is a gold leaf Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream, served with a mango and pomegranate compote and a champagne sabayon enlighten. The dessert is decorated with a chocolate carving of a fisherman clinging to a stilt, an age old local fishing practice, and an 80 carat aquamarine stone. The dessert has to be specially ordered, Perera said. Though the hotel has gotten calls about it from as far away as Japan, she said, no one has yet forked over the money to try it.

Stupid-Expensive Pizza:

A Scottish chef has made what might be the world's most expensive pizza: The pizza is sprinkled with gold and topped with champagne-soaked caviar and lobster marinated in the finest cognac. Creator Domenico Crolla said it was worth more than $3,700. Mr. Crolla tied the pie in to the most recent James Bond movie by calling it the "Pizza Royale 007" (" 'If any pizza was made to suit 007, this is it,' said Mr Crolla.") and it was auctioned off on eBay to raise money for a charity, the Fred Hollows Foundation, "which works to prevent curable blindness in developing countries."

Number one at number two?

Maybe I'm out of line, but getting press releases like this makes me snort and guffaw, then roll my eyes and post it on a blog. Obviously, it ain't easy being green, but this just seems over-the-top-enviro-goofy:

Celebrate a GREEN Christmas with Elephant Poo Poo Paper
TORONTO, Ontario—Paper made of poo? It’s true! And “green,” too. This year, eco-savvy shoppers will be able to purchase handmade journals, gift wrap and card sets and ornaments—all with a festive holiday twist—and made of 100 percent recycled and odorless products.

Created by The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company Limited, these unique gifts are sure to stand out under the tree. As are any of the brand’s existing products, including stationery and journal sets, noteboxes, and greeting cards, all made of (you guessed it!) elephant poo!

These are gifts made of dried elephant dung, ranging in price from  $10.99 to $24.99.

For poo.

It's not a food post, per se, but it fits into some things I've been thinking about. We increasingly do all this stuff to assuage our environmental guilt. Things like carbon-neutral travel in which you plant trees once you've touched down in Southeast Asia, or pay extra to have indigenous peoples learn about renewable fuel sources. Are we barking up the wrong trees, focusing on the wrong things? Is sending notecards made of poo going to make any kind of discernable difference in the health of our planet?

I think Slow Food is a reasonable place to turn for direction.

Wow, who knew?

I know. A bunch of days of silence. I was kayaking down in Lee County for a story I'm writing. Culinarily speaking, here's what I learned:

"Alex, I'd like weird fish facts for 400, please."

"The only fish to have a gizzard."

"What is the mullet?"

"That is correct."

Whoo hoo, 400 clams! It seems that the mullet, mostly vegetarian, is like a chicken in that it has no stomach but a crop and a gizzard. Which I was served, fried and piping hot.

Very, very chewy, it looked like a ring, a little sandy, with that minerally taste you associate with organs like kidneys. The finish, a little bitter. In all, I think the mullet gizzard will not take off as an internationally beloved snack food any time soon.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against mullet more generally. Smoked and on crackers, it's a keeper. Just throw the gizzards back.   

Stick it

The Minnesota State Fair is the second largest in the country (the first, quelle surprise, is Texas). It's ten days and acres and acres of midway rides, 4-Hers running around with celebrity poultry, etc.

If you get a whole bunch of the country's food writers in a bus and you take them to the fair, their pursuit narrows to this:

Foods on a stick.

There were fifty-few items at the fair served in this way, some defying all odds. Here are some of the highlights:

• Corned beef and cabbage on a stick
• Spaghetti and meatball on a stick
• Sloppy joe on a stick
• Pork chop on a stick
• Rocky road scone on a stick
• Coca cola cheesecake dipped in chocolate on a stick

I ate them. Some of them with secret fear and loathing. Still, when all is said and done, they weren't the most notable edibles at the fair. Single best food: cheesecurds, really just lumps of battered and deep-fried cheese, served extra greasy and with ketchup. Single worst: Deep-fried Spam curds (just like the cheesecurds, only the surprise in the center was Spam. Gave me an instant salt/nitrates hangover). Oh, maybe the Spam tied with those KoolAid pickles that seem to be turning up everywhere. Why should a dill pickle be coaxed into tasting like grape KoolAid?

Ew, You Eat Bugs

Ever see “carmine” on a food label? Like maybe in pink ice cream or strawberry milk, fake crab, maraschino cherries, port wine cheese or lumpfish eggs? That red pigment is imparted by the carminic acid in the crushed bodies of female cochineal insects. The Food and Drug Administration requires that insect-derived coloring is indicated, but it’s tricky. It may be called Natural Red 4, or E-120 or even cochineal.

A very small percentage of the population has an allergic reaction to the coloring. I’m not one of them, but the whole thing just struck me as gross. But then I started looking into it, and it turns out the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has something called Food Defect Action Levels. There’s a whole site devoted to describing the “maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods for human use that present no health hazard.” By defects, they mean the amount of unintentional bugs, rodent hair, excreta, mold, etc. that is acceptable in each foodstuff.

I've heard two pounds bandied about as the estimated quantity of bugs we unintentionally consume each year. On the other hand, bugs and other creepy crawlies are delicacies in some cultures.