Non-Prophet

Casu Marzu: Maggot Cheese

I've recently been enjoying quite a lot of strong cheese. I'm hooked. I've been eying the available brands and types in an attempt to find one that really knocks my socks off. Today at work I learned of where this fascination could ultimately lead though, and the road to trying progressively more and more pungent cheeses seems to lead to a land upon which I don't really want to trod.

wikipedia:

Casu marzu (also called casu modde, casu cundhídu, or in Italian formaggio marcio) is a cheese found in Sardinia, Italy, notable for being riddled with live insect larvae. Casu marzu means "rotten cheese" in Sardinian and is known colloquially as maggot cheese.

Derived from Pecorino Sardo, casu marzu goes beyond typical fermentation to a stage most would consider decomposition, brought about by the digestive action of the larvae of the cheese fly Piophila casei. These larvae are deliberately introduced to the cheese, promoting an advanced level of fermentation and breaking down of the cheese's fats. The texture of the cheese becomes very soft, with some liquid (called lagrima, from the Sardinian for "tears") seeping out. The larvae themselves appear as translucent white worms, about 8 mm (1/3 inch) long. When disturbed, the larvae can jump for distances up to 15 cm (6 inches).[1] Some people clear the larvae from the cheese before consuming; others do not.

Yaroslav Trofimov, in the August 23, 2000 edition of The Wall Street Journal, describes the cheese as "a viscous, pungent goo that burns the tongue and can affect other parts of the body". Susan Herrmann Loomis reports an encounter (in a 2002 Bon Appétit article):

....

* Risk of enteric myiasis: intestinal larval infection. Piophila casei larvae can pass through the stomach alive (human stomach acids do not usually kill them) and take up residency for some period of time in the intestines, where they can cause serious lesions as they attempt to bore through the intestinal walls. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and bloody diarrhea.[2]

Because of these health threats, or simply because it is considered a contaminated product, casu marzu cannot be legally sold in Italy. Within Sardinia, enforcement of the ban is sporadic and the cheese is available as a black market item, selling for about three times any other type of pecorino's price.

You're eating crushed bug juice

I watched Koroshiya 1 (Ichi The Killer) last night and found it to be good wholesome fun. I enjoy good game of entrail jump-rope as much as, or even more than, the next person. That said, this here is really kinda nasty. It isn't the idea of being unknowingly fed crushed up bugs that bothers me in any way, it is the bugs themselves. These boys are nasty.

From CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- That ice cream you're eating or the lipstick you're wearing just might contain extract from crushed bugs. On purpose.
The Food and Drug Administration proposed Friday requiring food and cosmetic labels to list cochineal extract or carmine if a product's ingredients include either of the two red colorings that have been extracted from the ground bodies of an insect known since the time of the Aztecs.
….
The widespread use of the dyes in everything from yogurt to lipstick hasn't exactly been well-disclosed: The ingredients typically are listed as "color added" or "E120," the FDA said.
Carmine puts the red in ice cream, strawberry milk, fake crab and lobster, fruit cocktail cherries, port wine cheese, lumpfish eggs and liqueurs like Campari, according to the FDA. Carmine is also used in lipstick, makeup base, eye shadow, eyeliners, nail polishes and baby products, the agency said. Meanwhile, cochineal extract shows up in fruit drinks, candy, yogurt and some processed foods.
….
Not that the stuff hasn't been around long: Indians living in pre-Columbian Mexico were the first to recognize a cactus-sucking insect called the Dactylopius coccus costa was a good source of dye.

Accidental Pastrami

Yesterday I made real pastrami, entirely on accident. The follow-up to my successful debute in putting my new Weber Smokey Joe to good use happened on Saturday. I had more flower-bed vacuuming to do, along with other yard related activities, so I decided to make some more barbecue.

Good Weekend

I spent the vast majority of this weekend cleaning up my yard. Spring is full on, and between parenting and work I've only managed to find a couple of days to put in before this open weekend. I more or less put the full weekend in, but there is much left to do.

My lawns have been mowed, I popped all of the dandelions out of a good part of the yard (the parts people can see), and I vacuumed my flower- beds. Vacuumed you say? Yes. I've found that the best way to clean all of the chaff and dead leaves out of a flower-bed is not to use the old fangled rake method, but to use my bigg ass shop vac. It sucks everything up nice and clean. Large stick are the only real problem, but they are dealt with easily enough. Ignore the weird looks from your neighbors, once you go vac, you'll never go back.

I bought a little charcoal grill yesterday to replace my dead giant gas grill that I took to the dump last fall. It's a Weber "Smokey Joe" with a lid and all. After hitting those barbecue lunch stops I decided that I'd try my hand at Wob style real barbecue at home. I got up early and put on a huge 5lb dog chokin' wadd of pork. All day while I worked I would stop to keep the smoker running. It was fun, and being that I didn't eat anything until it was done at about 7:00pm tonight I'm enjoying it very much. Pulled pork! Not that different than what I've been served for lunch recently actually. Very nice.

Oh, one cool thing I found today. Under a big tree in a seldom visited section of the yard I noticed a fantastic tulip growing. This thing has been trying to bloom for years but there has never been enough water, until now. Check the pic.

[update] Because nobody brought it up I thought I would. That is not a pot plant growing in my front yard, it's a sapling Chestnut tree from the big one above. It does share an uncanny resemblance though, don't you think? Those are poppies growning just to the upper right of it, but I don't think they are the heroin producing variety.

Nutty Racism

The other day at work, during the normal conversational pauses, I learned something that I found truly shocking.

It seems that most of the country refers to Brazil nuts as "Nigger Toes". I was shocked as person after person casually said, "yeah, that's what they're called."

My boss was at a loss when asked if he knew another name for a Brazil nut. He didn't know what a Brazil nut was and finally asked, "Do you mean Nigger Toes?"

Everyone seemed to know this, other than myself. From Colorado, to Texas, to Minnesota, to Illinois to California the answers were the same and casually stated. In fairness, I don't think many of my co-workers actually use this term. Most attributed it to what was said in their home growing up.

Finally our sales V.P. who hails from Pennsylvania had the same reaction as I did. We agreed that if we ever even said that in our own home our mothers would have slapped us so fast we wouldn't have had time to duck.

How many of you are familiar with this term and how many heard it used in your home growing up?