Woman Cooks Recipes Found on Gravestones as a Hobby

A US woman recently went viral for dedicating herself to a very unusual hobby – cooking recipes etched into people’s gravestones as a unique way of remembering and celebrating their lives.

About a year ago, Rosie Grant was studying library science at the University of Maryland and interning in the archives of the Congressional Cemetery. At one point, she started a TikTok account and started sharing facts about her studies with the internet, and it was this foray into the world of cemeteries that led her to her first gravestone cooking recipe. It was for spritz cookies, featured only seven ingredients and included no instructions, but Rosie managed to use it to make something edible, and the experience just left her hungry for more gravestone recipes.

Read More »

Ahuautle – The Edible Insect Eggs Known as Mexican Caviar

For thousands of years, the eggs of a species of water insect have been consumed as a ‘food of the Gods’ which has come to be known as Mexican caviar.

Lake Texcoco, a shallow body of water on the outskirts of Mexico City, is home to an aquatic insect of the corixidae family, which is technically a water fly that most locals refer to as a mosquito. That confusion is less important, though, as it’s the insect’s eggs that people are interested in. Known as ahuautle – loosely translated as ‘seeds of joy’ – the tiny delicacies are about the size of quinoa seeds and have a pale golden color. They have been consumed since the days of the Aztec Empire, but today only a handful of fishermen are known to still be harvesting the eggs, and few young people even know about the existence of this unusual ‘caviar’.

Read More »

Company Develops Bread With White Crust to Decrease Food Waste

A Japanese company recently released a white crust milk bread that it hopes will curb the practice of removing the crust when making sandwiches.

Did you know that the vast majority of milk bread sandwiches made daily in Japan have their crusts removed? While crusted sandwiches do exist, the general perception is that the fluffy, white part of Japanese shokupan milk bread is tastier than the brown crust. This perception dates back to a time long ago when the crust was harder to chew through, but things are definitely a lot different today. The crust is nice and soft, but people still seem to prefer crusted sandwiches. That results in a lot of food waste, but one company hopes to change that with an innovative white crust shokupan bread.

Read More »

Kupi Khop – Indonesia’s Upside-Down Coffee Is Best Sipped Through a Straw

Kupi Khop is a unique type of coffee served in an upside-down glass on a glass plate and sipped through a straw. For obvious reasons, it’s also known as Indonesian upside-down coffee.

If you ever find yourself on the West Coast of Aceh, in Indonesia, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a Kupi Khop coffee. The unique serving method alone makes it worth a try, as even if you don’t enjoy coffee, you can at least share it on Instagram or on whatever other socials you prefer. Kupi Khop consists of coarsely ground robusta coffee brewed in a glass that is then turned upside down on a glass saucer. A plastic straw is then used to gradually extract the coffee from the glass without it spilling uncontrollably.

Read More »

Lithuanian Company Launches NSFW Potato Chips

If you think scorching hot potato chips are bold, these new pus*y-flavored potato chips recently launched in Lithuania will probably leave an interesting taste in your mouth.

According to recent research young people are three times less likely to fall in love than their parents were at the same age. Social media and our transition to virtual lives are partly to blame, but one Lithuanian potato chip company is trying to reverse the trend with a controversial line of chips aimed exclusively at 18-year-olds and older. The CHAZZ potato chip line features flavors like mussels and white wine, or Bloody Mary cocktail, but it’s the “pus*y flavor” that has been attracting the most attention…

Read More »

Japanese “Sacred” Noodles Have Religious Sutra Printed on Them

A Japanese restaurant in the city of Ota, Gunma Prefecture, has gone viral for selling a unique type of noodles with a complete Buddhist Sutra printed on them.

Nittanosho Kanzantei, a small eatery in Ota, has been getting a lot of attention for a product that is not even on the menu. Its so-called “sacred noodles” are only available as a souvenir, for cooking at home or giving away as a gift, but they’re so eye-catching that people can’t seem to stop talking about them. Cut into thick, rectangular sheets, these unique noodles feature large, caligraphy-like characters printed on them with edible ingredients that remain visible even after cooking. So you can actually read your food as you’re eating it!

Read More »

“Heavy-Fired” Bread Buns Sold at English Market Spark Heated Debate

Photos of charred-looking bread buns being sold at a market in Manchester have been going viral online, with some calling them a delicacy and others billing them as inedible.

The “heavy fired” roll has apparently been a staple of Scottish bakeries for several decades. They are supposed to have an overcooked, black crust and be airy and slightly chewy inside, and while some people describe them as addictive, delicious, or spot-on, their charred interior puts a lot of people off. A heated debate between the two camps recently went viral on social media, after photos of some heavy-fired buns sold at a market in Manchester started doing the rounds online.

Read More »

KFC Introduces Blue Mint Chocolate-Flavored Dip for Its Fried Chicken

KFC fast food restaurants across South Korea recently introduced a bizarre new dip for its fried chicken and it has been raising eyebrows for both its unusual color and flavor – mint chocolate.

In case you didn’t know, a mint chocolate craze is sweeping South Korea these days, and companies are trying to take advantage of it. Major South Korean companies like Starbucks Korea, Haitai Confectionery and Foods, or Orion have all added mint chocolate-flavored products to their lineups. The latest to do so is fast food giant KFC, which recently launched a mint chocolate dip. Featuring a somewhat off-putting light blue color and gooey texture, the unique fried chicken dip recently went viral on social media.

Read More »

Hydrangea Tofu Soup – A Block of Soft Tofu Expertly Cut into 3,600 Tendrils

A staple of Huaiyang cuisine, hydrangea tofu soup is a testament to the impressive knife-cutting skills of chefs specializing in this type of Chinese cuisine.

Looking at a bowl of hydrangea tofu soup for the first time, you’d be forgiven for mistaking the slender tendrils swaying in chicken broth for anything but tofu. It looks like a white hydrangea, hence the name of the dish, but it could also be some sort of edible sea anemone. In reality, it’s a block of soft tofu carefully cut 60 times in one direction, then turned around and cut another 60 times in order to create 3,600 delicate tendrils. It’s challenging to make, as the tofu needs to be sliced just three-fifths in, otherwise, it will break apart and the flower illusion will be ruined.

Read More »

Chinese Company Under Fire Because Its Ice Cream Doesn’t Melt

A Chinese premium ice-cream company has sparked controversy on social media because its products allegedly don’t melt even when kept at high temperatures for long periods of time.

Last week, Zhongxuegao, a Chinese ice cream company known for its high-quality products, went viral on social media, after someone posted photos and videos of a Zhongxuegao ice cream next to a thermometer that showed 31 degrees Celsius. The original poster claimed that the frozen treat had been kept at that temperature for around an hour and a half, but it had clearly not melted one bit. The post got a lot of attention and inspired other people to conduct their own experiments, including taking an open flame to the ice cream to see if it melts. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

Read More »

If You Can Eat This Hot Habanero-Laced Ice Cream, It’s Free

Hirata, a small village in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, has become famous for challenging tourists to try its ultra-spicy habanero-laced ice cream.

Can soft-serve ice cream be hot? It sounds nonsensical, but if we’re talking about the cold treat served in Hirata Village, Fukushima, the shoe definitely fits. Sprinkled with varying amounts of habanero pepper powder – depending on the person’s spiciness tolerance – this special ice cream is nothing to mess with. It’s so hot, in fact, that people need to sign a waiver clearing the seller of responsibility before trying it.

Read More »

Japanese Butcher Shop Makes People Wait Years for Its Delicious Beef Croquettes

A legendary butcher shop in Takasago, Japan allegedly makes Kobe beef croquettes so delicious that people are willing to wait years, even decades just to try them.

Meat & Delicatessen Asahiya, a popular butcher shop in Takasago, Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture, has been making crispy beef croquettes since it opened, in 1918. You can go right in and order yourself a couple of these fried treats, and you’ll most likely love every bite, but if you’re looking to try the very best croquettes Asahiya has to offer, you’ll have to wait in line. The butcher shop’s famed Kobe beef croquettes are in such high demand that people have to wait years, even decades to receive their order. 

Read More »

Densuke – The World’s Most Expensive Watermelon

Of the more than 1,200 varieties of watermelon grown around the world, none is more expensive or more sought-after than the famous Densuke black watermelon.

Grown only on the northern island of Hokkaido, in small quantities that rarely exceed 100 units per year, Densuke is regarded as one of the rarest watermelons in the world. It’s not the type of fruit you expect to find at a market or a grocer. Instead, the few fruits available every year are auctioned off to the highest bidder in highly anticipated events, for hundreds, and even thousands of dollars. The most expensive Densuke watermelon in history was auctioned off in 2019, for a whopping 750,000 Japanese yen ($6,000). Prices have dropped in the last two years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the black watermelon remains the most expensive variety in the world, by far.

Read More »

Japanese Restaurant Goes Viral for Serving Dessert Shaped Like Pieces of Plaster

The Opuses restaurant at The Royal Park Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo recently got a lot of attention because of an intriguing dessert shaped like pieces of wall plaster.

On the list of least appetizing things in the world, wall plaster ranks pretty highly, so most people wouldn’t call it the most inspired choice for designing a dessert. Still, that’s exactly what the chefs at Opuses, a high-class restaurant in Tokyo, Japan seem to have done. Photos of this dubious-looking dish were recently posted on Twitter by user @mimimimimitsu32 and ended up getting over 200,000 likes, 26,000 retweets and hundreds of comments. The general sentiment was that the dessert looked remarkably like plaster.

Read More »

Lab-Grown Food Startup Will Soon Serve Lion, Tiger and Elephant Meat

Food technology company Primeval Foods plans to launch an entire menagerie of exotic meats that didn’t actually come from animals, including lion burgers, tiger nuggets or giraffe ham.

As the meat-alternatives market becomes increasingly competitive, food tech companies are coming up with new and ingenious ways of making their products stand out. Primeval Foods, a London-based startup specializing in cellular agriculture, plans to start selling exotic meats cultivated in a laboratory. And we’re not talking expensive and hard-to-come-by beef either, but the types of meat most people never even imagined were edible, like lion or tiger meat.

Read More »