At 5,000 euros (US $6,800) per kilogram, ‘Elvish’ honey from Turkey is the most expensive in the world. The special honey is extracted from a 1,800-meter deep cave in the Saricayir valley of Artvin city, northeastern Turkey.

According to Gunay Gunduz, a local beekeeper, elvish honey is so expensive because it is naturally produced. The mineral-rich cave enhances the honey’s quality, adding to its value. Gunduz, whose family has been into beekeeping for three generations, first noticed some bees entering the cave back in 2009. That’s when he realized that it might contain honey.

“With the help of professional climbers, we entered the deep bowels of the cave and found 18 kilograms of honey plastered on its spherical walls,” he said. It was later analyzed at a French lab, confirming it to be seven-year-old, high-quality, mineral-rich honey.

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Stroganina is a raw frozen fish delicacy from Yakutia, in northern Russia. It is a winter dish, consisting of long, thin slices of frozen Arctic river fish such as whitefishes, white salmons, cisco or sturgeon.

The dish is served with a dip made of equal parts salt and black pepper powder. It is sometimes decorated with wild red whortleberries and greens. Some of the best stroganina is made of freshly caught fish, frozen once. The taste, according to Yakutians, is soft, fresh and frosty.

I find the concept of stroganina very similar to Japanese sashimi, except that the latter isn’t served frozen. This technique of food preparation is very unique to Russia, where the frozen ground doesn’t allow for much fresh produce. The method evolved out of necessity, because the Russians had to store their meat somewhere, so they stored it in ice and consumed it raw.

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After the insanely popular Cronuts (Croissants + Donuts), the latest trend in food mashups is all set to hit the market. A new restaurant in California is combining two of the world’s most favorite foods – chocolate and fried chicken.

‘ChocoChicken’ is the brainchild of Adam Fleischman, founder and CEO of the patty chain Umami Burger. In his latest invention, he plunges pieces of chicken into chocolate-infused batter before frying them in hot oil.

I cannot quite imagine what this might taste like. Savory? Sweet? Somewhere in between, perhaps? According to Fleischman, it tastes like nothing you’ve eaten before. “ChocoChicken is completely different than anything else out there,” he said. “This isn’t traditional fried chicken, or even chicken just dipped in chocolate. It is a whole new style of fried chicken that you just have to taste to believe.”

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Now this is what I call a dream diet. John Cisna, a school teacher from Iowa, ate only at McDonald’s for three whole months and managed to lose 37 pounds (16 kilograms)! He even made a short documentary on his experiences.

John’s project was inspired by the 2004 documentary film, Supersize Me. It featured an American filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock, who also ate only McDonald’s food for 30 days. At the end of that period, Spurlock reported a drastic deterioration of his physical and psychological health. Which is why John’s findings are almost unbelievable. In spite of eating for a longer period of time at the fast food chain, he reported better health and weight loss. In fact, there has been a large improvement in his blood cholesterol after the three-month period.

How could it be that two experiments, so similar to each other, reported such different results? Simple. John followed a much smarter plan that Spurlock did. John and his team of students formulated a plan that would allow him to eat fast food and still stay healthy. “I can eat any food at McDonald’s I want as long as I’m smart for the rest of the day with what I balance it out with,” he said.

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I’m not sure why, but some of the strangest trends seem to emerge from South Korea. The latest one is dinner porn – people watching other people stuffing themselves with food. The Korean term for it is ‘mok-bang’, which roughly translates as ‘dinner broadcast’.

The dinner porn stars of South Korea film themselves eating copious amounts of food. They also provide moaning noises and a running commentary of their meals. The entire event is live-streamed and the protagonists end up making serious money.

Mok-bang isn’t about people eating a plate or two of food. We’re talking about humongous portions here. Like this one ‘broadcast jockey’ who calls herself The Diva. Consultant by day and food-porn star by night, this beautiful glutton wolfs down two medium pizzas, or 30 fried eggs and a box of crab legs, or five packets of instant noodles in one go. One night, she ate 12 beef patties, 12 fried eggs, three servings of spicy pork kimchi soup and a salad.

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Snow King, an ice cream shop located in Taipei, capital city of Taiwan, serves more than 70 flavors of fresh, homemade ice cream. There’s nothing unusual about that, I agree. But wait till you hear what these flavors include.

The shop, in business since 1947, boasts of carrying the most unusual of ice cream flavors. Over here, you can get a lick of Sesame Oil Chicken, a dollop of Pig Knuckle, and even a scoop or two of Taiwan Beer. The family-owned business is now being run by the third generation – 33-year-old Kao Ching-feng. “At Snow King, you get the tastes that Taiwanese know,” said Kao. According to him, customers keep coming back for the local flavors and old-fashioned style. They like visiting in large groups, so they can sample a scoop each of all the flavors.

The most famous specialties at Snow King are Red Bean and Watermelon, preferred by the locals. Tourists from Japan like to try exotic flavors like Lychee and Peach, while customers from Hong Kong want Curry and Wasabi. All these unusual ice cream recipes are the brainchild of Kao’s 87-year-old grandfather. He had founded the business out of his savings from selling ice cream on the streets of Taipei. Kao says that his grandfather liked to challenge himself and spent years tweaking flavors to his satisfaction. Some of his best flavors came from trying to accommodate his older, diabetic customers. That’s how he invented with Snow King’s range of savory ice creams.

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Isn’t it wonderful when the delicious aroma of fried chicken wafts through your home? Fires up those hunger pangs? Leads you by the nose right to the kitchen, where you expect to sit down to a sizzling snack? But what if there was none?

With the new range of KFC-scented candles from Kentucky for Kentucky, you can experience a delectable aroma without the chicken, without the calories. The candles are meant to celebrate the fact that Kentucky is the first state to have ever fried chicken.

The Kentucky by Kentucky website proudly declares: “Our mission is to engage and inform the world by promoting Kentucky people, places and products.” The candles are a latest addition to this mission, available in three scents – Fried Chicken Actual, Ale 8 (Kentucky’s official soft drink) and Derby Actual (inspired by the famous Kentucky Derby).

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Faye Campbell, of Suffolk, UK, has been exclusively eating junk food for the last 16 years. While most women would probably have serious weight problems by sticking to this eating habit, Faye is actually regular-sized and weighs just 9 stones and 12 pounds (a bit over 62 kilos).

The woman doesn’t just avoid eating fruit and vegetables, but also avoids thinking about it, as the mere thought of putting produce anywhere near her mouth makes her nauseous. “The thought of eating vegetables or any sort of fruit makes me physically sick,” Faye says. Well, actually, she is more tolerant to fruit, as long as it comes in the form of a juice or soft drink.  Without any fruit, vegetables or homemade meals, Faye’s daily diet consists only of chips, pizza, toast, cheeseburgers and basically any type of junk food you can imagine.This affects her family life the most. “It’s got to the point where I’d be happy to sit in the lounge with a pizza, while they sit in the kitchen with their roast – it has become a normal routine for us now,” the English woman complains. Apparently, even the smell of vegetables and homemade meals is intolerable for this fussy eater, who admits that “if mom is cooking a roast dinner with vegetables, I have to go in to a different room because I can’t stand the smell. Sometimes I have to open all the windows to get rid of it”. Faye’s love life has also been affected by her strange eating habits, as romantic dinners can only take place in fast-food restaurants. “Once, a guy booked a lovely Italian place but we ended up in McDonalds because I couldn’t face eating anything on the menu,” she says.

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According to foodies, traditional cuisine is among the best things China has to offer. The Chinese food prepared and sold on the streets is not only delicious, but it’s also a big part of the cityscape. The problem is that some street vendors and even restaurants have taken recycling too far by using gutter oil – yes, gutter oil – as cooking oil. This practice  has nothing to do with being eco-friendly, but rather with the Chinese food black market, where gutter oil is presented as a cost-friendly solution for small businesses.

Why is it called “gutter oil”, you ask? Well, sadly enough, the name is not a metaphor, but it merely describes the source of the oil used illegally in the food market. The process of turning sewer sludge into cooking oil is quite simple and disgusting: after draining sewers, trash bins, gutters and anything that may contain cooking oil and animal parts, the content is boiled and then filtered. As expected, the final product is not only unhealthy (and gross!), but it can be fatal in some cases, as it contains carcinogens and other dangerous toxins. Recycling oil is not a novelty in the food industry, where cooking oil is re-used after refining  and purifying it, but in most cases the origin of the oil is clearly not the gutter.

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After their record-breaking 65% alcohol beer was considered “too weak” by their hard-core fans, Scottish brewers Lewish Shand and John McKenzie came up with an even stronger concoction, aptly named Snake Venom. This new beer contains a whopping 67.5 percent alcohol by volume, considerably more than whiskey or vodka.

Last year, Shand and McKenzie of Brewmeister Brewery, in Banffshire, created the strongest beer the world had ever seen, called Armageddon, which had a staggering 65 percent alcohol by volume. After buying about 60,000 bottles, fans around the world were disappointed that Armageddon’s high alcohol content was disguised by the flavors of the brew. Some people didn’t even believe it was 65%. “We thought if it was too strong, people wouldn’t like it. But the problem we found is that people said we shouldn’t have tried to cover up the intensity,” Shand says. “This time we thought we’d go full out. We were too nice last time.”

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Here’s some interesting news: a Japanese company has combined its popular dark beer with the pungent, intense flavor of black garlic, thus creating the unique and rather bizarre Aomori Garlic Black Beer.

Featuring a sleek black label with elegant golden writing, the black garlic-flavored beer bottle – which costs 630 yen ($6.5) – looks very appealing to any avid dark beer lover. The first sip of Aomori Garlic Black Beer doesn’t taste very different from any other quality black beer, but as the dark goes down your throat and into the stomach, the potent black garlic flavor starts to take over your mouth. Incredibly, those brave enough to actually try the Aomori Garlic Black Beer say the spicy, potent aftertaste is very addictive, making you want to drink more and more of the strange beverage.

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What if you could eat your favorite food every day and still be able to lose weight? Believe it or not, such a thing is very much possible, and Evo Terro, and average guy from Arizona, is living proof. Despite stuffing his face with sausages and drinking cold beers all day, he is actually shedding his extra pounds.

Terro’s miracle diet consists of consuming only sausages and drinking up to six beers a day for the entire month of October in celebration of the popular Oktoberfest. Evo discovered the offbeat diet three years ago and has been using it to shed extra weight ever since. Last year, he managed to lose about 6 kg (14lbs) by munching on his favorite bratwursts and gulping beer – which add up to about 15,000 calories per week. “Most of it was body fat,” Terry Simpsons – his doctor, says. “His cholesterol went down by a third.”  To make sure the diet is not harmful in any way, Terro’s health is being monitored by the supportive doctor. “We will do the labs to make sure your liver is doing fine, your lipids aren’t out of wack and your cholesterol is fine, blood chemistries are fine and I thought that was good supervision. We knew if something bad happened we would just shut it down,” the doctor explains.

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If you could only make one trip to the salad bar, how would you go about carrying as much food as possible in one go? To deal with this predicament, some ambitious Chinese foodies invented “salad stacking” – the art of stacking vegetables, fruits and croutons on a single plate in order to create extremely tall and elaborate salad towers.

This fad began when Pizza Hut restaurants in China introduced salad bars serving veggies and fruits to promote healthy eating. When the buffets opened, customers were given a one trip opportunity to fill their plates with as much food as they could. Seeing as they couldn’t go back for seconds, hungry patrons decided to utilize the small plates they were given to their full potential and started piling up their food with so much care and precision that complex structured meals were born.

The fad became very popular on the internet where enthusiastic “salad engineers” posted pictures of their monster creations and even exchanged techniques for making the tallest towers. According to most of them, the trick is to build a stable and straight base and cover it with carrot sticks glued together with salad dressing so that it can hold the actual salad “structure”. All kinds of goodies can go on top – melon slices, peaches, cucumbers, croutons, oranges etc., depending on preference. These must be placed in such a way that the pieces interlock and create a mesh. The entire thing can be topped with a bit of salad dressing and smaller foods for decorative purposes.

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Do you remember how you always had to be quiet at the dinner table when you were young but never understood why? Now that you’re all grown up, with children of your own, you probably wish you could have just one more of those quiet dinners. If quiet is what you seek, you’re in luck, as now you can enjoy a four-course meal in complete silence at the Eat restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn where you have to be quiet and enjoy the food, whether you like it or not.

Nicholas Nauman, head chef and curator of the silent-dinner experience, got the idea for the event during a trip to India where he admired the Buddhist monks having their breakfast every morning without uttering a word. In a competing market where restaurant owners are coming up with the most unusual concepts to attract customers – such as dining in pitch-dark, the 28-year-old thought this idea would gain popularity. “It’s just an opportunity to enjoy food in a way you might not have otherwise,” he says. This way, he hopes to “reconfigure the relationship between a space and food” by forcing customers to focus on their plates rather than on the countless distractions that occur while sitting at the dinner table.

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Buttery and succulent, the related oil fish (Ruvettus pretiosus)  and escolar (Lepidocybium flavobrunneum)) are considered to be two of the most palatable fish in the world. But before you run out to your local fish market in search of these delicacies, you’d better stock up on toilet paper because you’re going to spend a lot of time in the restroom after your scrumptious meal.

With such a large number of species in danger of  being over-fished and others posing health risks due to their high mercury content, the seafood industry needs alternatives that taste great, are cheap, sustainable and healthy to consume. The oilfish and escolar seem perfect choices, and although they’ve been popping up in restaurants and fish markets around the world, there is one dirty little secret that those who sell them sometimes forget to reveal – they cause explosive, oily, orange diarrhea. I know it sounds bad, but there is a way to avoid this embarrassing and highly uncomfortable side effect. The fish are safe to eat if they are consumed in portions smaller than six ounces, but most people are either unaware of the consequences or they just can’t help themselves because they are so damn delicious, so they go for full servings. People who actually went through this kind of ordeal have reported the oily discharges are almost impossible to control and often lead to embarrassing accidents.

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