Priced at an eye-watering $214, Quintessential Grilled Cheese has held the the record for the world’s most expensive commercially-available sandwich for over seven years.

You could say that New York-based restaurant Serendipity 3 is specialized in setting food-related Guinness records. It currently holds world records, most expensive desert, most expensive hamburger, most expensive hot dog, largest wedding cake and largest cup of hot chocolate. But the one we’re interested in today is the records for world’s most expensive sandwich, which happens to be a humble grilled cheese treat. Named Quintessential Grilled Cheese, the sandwich is deceptively simple, as it features some of the world’s most exclusive ingredients.

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Synsepalum dulcificum, aka the miracle fruit or miracle berry, is a unique plant known to produce fruits that, when eaten, make all sour foods and drinks subsequently ingested taste sweet.

For centuries, indigenous tribes of Ghana, in West Africa, used the fruits of the Synsepalum dulcificum plant to sweeten sour or tart fruits, foods, and drinks, but it wasn’t until 1968 that the miraculin protein that makes the fruits special was finally extracted and turned into tablets. That made it possible for virtually anyone in the world to experience the “taste tripping” that miracle berries are so famous for. Miraculin essentially alters your senses, causing things that should taste sour, like lemon or vinegar, to taste sweet, or even too sweet for up to 60 minutes after the protein is consumed.

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The Golden Boy, a decadent delicacy made with 100 percent Wagyu A5, Beluga caviar, king crab, white truffle, among other premium ingredients, has just broken the record for world’s most expensive burger, with a price of 5,000 euros ($6,000).

The Golden Boy burger was created by Robbert Jan de Veen, owner of Dutch restaurant De Daltons, who came up with the idea while sitting in his restaurant pretending to get some work done. As he browsed the internet to pass the time, he stumbled over the previous record for the world’s most expensive burger, held by an Oregon restaurant that made a $5,000 burger that weight a whopping 352 kilograms, back in 2011. He found it cool, but decided he could make an even more expensive burger, and one that could actually be finished by one person.

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The Below Zero ice cream machine uses a unique technique to freeze alcohol, which allows you to turn beers, cocktails and even spirits into delicious soft-serve ice cream.

Getting drunk on ice cream used to be the stuff of dreams, but thanks to Will Rogers, inventor and owner of WDS Dessert Stations in Hinkley, Illinois, it has become a delicious reality. Rogers, who runs his own ice cream shop, was trying to create a highly-caffeinated espresso ice cream flavor when he realized he could use the same technique with alcoholic beverages. He started experimenting with various gums and stabilizers commonly used in the ice cream industry and eventually patented something called the NEA gel. It’s this magical concoction that allows the alcohol to freeze to a near solid inside the Below Zero ice cream machine.

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‘Mojie Ringo’ is a Japanese technique of harnessing the power of the sun to create beautifully decorated apples without the use of any sort of chemicals.

For centuries, apple growers in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture have been creating stunning heirloom apples by using the mojie ringo technique. The process is fairly simple, as basically implies depriving the apples of sunlight for a period of time and then applying stencils to ensure that some portion of the apple peel remains discolored. Most often than not, mojie ringo apples are decorated with messages and symbols of good fortune and prosperity, and are offered as gifts.

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Yin and Yang Fish is a controversial dish where the body of a fish is cooked, while the head is kept fresh so that it moves its mouth and eyes while it is being eaten.

From fish that smells like a public toilet, to a cheese as hard as rock and even a fish-head-stuffed pie, the world is full of weird foods, but few dishes can be described as truly disturbing. Well, the dish you’re about to discover is one such rarity. Reportedly invented in the early 2000s, by a restauranteur in Chiayi City, Taiwan, Yin and Yang fish, also known as “dead and alive fish”, is definitely not a dish for the faint of heart. It consist of a whole fish, usually carp, whose body has been cooked and covered in sauce, but whose head is maintained raw so that its mouth and eyes are still moving while it is being eaten.

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Inspired by the firm belief that spaghetti is far from the ideal shape for pasta, a man set out to create a perfectly shaped pasta. The result of his hard work is now known as cascatelli.

The story of how cascatelli came to be began in 2018, when Dan Pashman, the host of the James Beard and Webby Award-winning “Sporkful” podcast, made some harsh remarks about spaghetti, on the stage of the Caveat Theater, in front of a live audience. His comments got a lot of attention and inspired him to dedicate a lot of his time to researching pasta shapes in a quest to create the ideal pasta design, which needed to have an appealing texture, have the perfect bite, and, most importantly, hold the right amount of sauce. Believe it or not, he spent almost three years on this project.

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Photos of a moldy-looking bun sold on Chinese online marketplace Taobao have been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media lately, because of its unappetizing appearance.

Chinese company Nanjing Yican Foods has been turning a lot of heads with a rather unique-looking product – match and cheese bun that looks a few months past its expiration date. Underneath its light brown exterior, the cheese matcha bun has a light green appearance that looks just like the disgusting food mold that develops on old bread products. Only it’s actually worse than that, as squeezing the bun causes the green matcha and cheese mixture to ooze out of it…

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If you’re not into liquors, they probably all taste bad to you, but there’s a particular liquor that everyone agrees tastes horrible. It’s called malört and, over the years, it has been compared to battery acid, pesticide and gasoline.

Although Jeppson’s Malört is most often associated with the American city of Chicago, its true roots are in Sweden, where where “malört” is the word for wormwood, the key ingredient in this ghastly spirit. Wormwood is a notoriously bitter herb known for its ability to kill stomach worms and other parasites. The Swedes started infusing it in alcohol and using it as medicine for digestive problems in the 15th century, and it reached US shores with the first Swedish immigrants. The awful taste didn’t appeal to many, so it’s no wonder that malört faded into obscurity pretty much everywhere, except Chicago. For some reason, people here not only accepted its horrible aroma, they actually embraced it.

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Escamol is an ancient dish made with the edible larvae and pupae of two species of ants, known for its nutty, buttery flavor. It has been consumed in Mexico since the time of the Aztecs.

Commonly known as ‘Mexican caviar’, because of its similarity to fish eggs, escamol consists larvae and pupae of ants belonging to the Liometopum apiculatum and L. occidentale, two species native to some semi-arid areas of Mexico and the southern United States. Its origins can be traced back hundreds of years, back to the time of the Aztecs, when consumption of insects as food was very common. Escamol was considered a delicacy by the Aztecs, who would trade for it with nomadic tribes such as the Otomis, because it was difficult to procure. Its price in Mexican restaurants suggests that escamol has retained its status as delicacy in modern times as well.

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Jacu Bird Coffee is one of the world’s rarest and most expensive coffee varieties. It is made from coffee cherries ingested, digested and excreted by Jacu birds.

At around 50 hectares, the Camocim Estate is one of the smallest coffee plantations in Brazil, but it still manages to rake it quite a nice profit thanks to a very unique and sought-after type of coffee. It all started in the early 2000s, when Henrique Sloper de Araújo woke up to find that his precious plantations had been overrun by Jacu birds, an endangered, pheasant-like bird species, protected in Brazil. They weren’t known to be coffee cherry fans, but they seemed to love de Araújo’s organic coffee. But they were going to pay him back for the meal in the most unusual way.

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Shiltarae bingsu, or stringed shaved ice, is a modern take on a popular South Korean treat that consists of amazingly fine ice shavings that look like super-thin pasta.

You’ve probably heard of spaghetti ice-cream before, but this is nothing like that. Shiltarae bingsu is reportedly an incredibly airy and creamy treat that not only looks good but tastes great as well. It was allegedly invented a few years back by Seoul-based café and dessert lab Tiravento, and has since become a staple dessert, and a sought-after props for Instagram users. There is no denying the visual appeal of this treat, as the shaved ice actually looks like noodles before it starts to melt.

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The small town of Nuoro, on Italy’s Sardinia island, is home to what many are calling the world’s rarest pasta, an intricate, hand-made treat that only a handful of people can make.

Known as su filindeu (in Sardinia’s Sardo dialect), or Fili di Dio (in Italian), and translated as threads of God, this traditional pasta had been linked to La Festa di San Francesco, an ancient religious ritual celebrated every year, in May. For the past two hundred years, the only way to try threads of god pasta was to complete a 33km pilgrimage on foot or horseback from Nuoro to the village of Lula. But because this sacred dish is in serious danger of becoming extinct, the only three women in the world who know how to make it, have been trying to save it by making it more accessible.

67-year-old named Paola Abraini picked up the skills to make threads of god pasta from her mother, who also learned them from her mother, and so on for many generations. However, only one of her two daughters knows the basic technique, but lacks the passion and the patience necessary to carry on the family tradition. The only other two women who she managed to pass on her knowledge to – Abraini’s niece and her sister-in-law – don’t have any daughters to pass the secrets to, so su filindeu is in grave danger of vanishing.

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Gangina is a traditional means of keeping grapes and other fruits fresh for several months, by sealing them in air-tight containers made of wet soil.

Grapes are tricky to keep fresh for long periods of time, even when refrigeration is available, but apparently Afghans have long been using an ancient method of keeping the soft fruits fresh for consumption in the winter months, when fresh fruits are otherwise hard to come by. Called gangina, this ingenious conservation technique involves sealing healthy grapes in a saucer-like container made of two layers of wet soil. The container is left in the sun to dry and then has to be kept in a cool place, away from direct sunlight. If stored properly, gangina containers can keep grapes picked in autumn fresh until next year’s spring season.

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A popular plant-based meal subscription service is offering the ‘UK’s biggest meat-eater’ the chance to earn £50,000 ($68,000) by going vegan for three months.

Vibrant Vegan recently announced that it is on the lookout for a Vegan Curious Coordinator, a die-hard meat-eater willing to experience an exclusively vegan lifestyle for at least three months. The selected person will have to sign a contract, pledging to not consume any animal-based foods during the three-month trial, while at the same time encouraging others to give veganism a go on social media. If they abide by the agreement, they stand to earn the the equivalent of a £50,000 salary.

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