Kangaroo Meat Scandal, 1960

The horse meat scandal is widening in Europe, with reports now surfacing that Ikea's meatballs have been found to contain horse. Ikea insists the meatballs sold in the U.S. are horse-less, even though the U.S. and European meatballs come from the same supplier.

Of course, the U.S. has its own history of meat scandals, such as back in 1960 when Pennsylvanians got "hopping mad" to discover kangaroo meat was being mixed into their sausages and bologna.

In the past, I've purposefully had horse sausage and kangaroo filet. Or, at least, that's what I was told I was being served. Who knows. Maybe they were both really pork. I would never have been able to tell the difference.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 25, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Food

Tattooed Apples

Ediblegeography.com delves into the history of apple tattooing. The concept is simple. You place a stencil on the fruit so that part of the skin isn't exposed to the sun, leaving a permanent image when the stencil is removed. However, getting it right is time consuming, so it's not a practice commercial farmers are likely to adopt. Pity, since I'd much prefer an apple tattoo over those obnoxious stickers that all the supermarket apples have on them. See more images of tattooed apples at the Société Régionale d’Horticulture de Montreuil.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 19, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Food

Who Dat Say Chicken in Dis Crowd?

I learned of this song during a musical celebration of Black History Month on radio station WQXR. Certainly an artifact of its time.

You can mentally combine the instrumental music in the player with the words below.

Who Dat Say Chicken In Dis Crowd

There was once a great assemblage of the cullud population,
all the cullud swells was there,
They had got them-selves together to discuss the situation
and rumours in the air.
There were speakers there from Georgia and some from Tennessee,
who were making feather fly,
When a roostah in the bahn-ya'd flew up what folks could see,
Then those darkies all did cry.

Chorus:
Who dat say chicken in dis crowd?
Speak de word agin' and speak it loud--
Blame de lan' let white folks rule it,
I'se a lookin fu a pullet,
Who dat say chicken is dis crowd.

A famous culled preacher told his listnin' congregation,
all about de way to ac',
Ef dey want to be respected and become a mighty nation
to be hones' Fu' a fac'.
Dey mus nebber lie, no nebber, an' mus' not be caught a-stealin'
any pullets fun de lin',
But an aged deacon got up an' his voice it shook wif feelin',
As dese words he said to him.

Chorus:
Who dat say chicken in dis crowd?
Speak de word agin' and speak it loud--
What's de use of all dis talkin',
Let me hyeah a hen a sqauwkin'
Who dat say chicken in dis crowd.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 18, 2013 - Comments (1)
Category: Food, Music, Stereotypes and Cliches, Nineteenth Century

Electric Waffles for Valentine’s Day

Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 14, 2013 - Comments (5)
Category: Food, Holidays, 1920s

Fried Dandelions

It would never have occurred to me to go out into the yard and fry up some dandelions.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 12, 2013 - Comments (12)
Category: Food

Dirt Food

Chef Toshio Tanabe envisions his Tokyo restaurant Ne Quittez Pas as being like "a nature-surrounded auberge in southern France" where people can sit and eat dirt. His dirt-themed dishes include potato starch and dirt soup, salad with dirt dressing, sea bass with dirt risotto, dirt gratin, dirt ice cream, and dirt mint tea. However, this isn't just any dirt. It's "lab-tested…first-class agricultural soil from the farmlands north of Tokyo, baked, boiled, triple-filtered and mixed with gelatine." [foxnews]

Posted By: Alex - Fri Feb 08, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Food

Happy Superbowl Watching… Please Pass the Feces!

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has a message for all the people going to Superbowl parties today:


They go into more detail:

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 03, 2013 - Comments (7)
Category: Food, Excrement

Last-Meal Plates

Artist Julie Green creates plates that show the last meals of death-row inmates. She's been creating these plates for 13 years and now has around 500 of them. The most popular last-meal request? Junk food from KFC and McDonald's. [Daily Mail]

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 30, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Art, Food, Junk Food, Prisons

Twinkies Art

Artist Nancy Peppin specializes in using Twinkies in her work. She sees herself as working in the tradition of Warhol. His Campbell's soup can art was her initial inspiration. Sometimes she makes art out of the sponge cakes themselves, and sometimes she creates paintings, photographic prints, etc. that feature Twinkies. Either way, they're her muse.

She's been creating Twinkies art since 1975, but thanks to the current woes of Hostess, she's been getting lots of attention recently. What I'm curious about is how she preserves the Twinkies to make sure they don't rot. Because that idea of Twinkies never rotting is just an urban legend. I also couldn't find any info on how much her pieces go for. [huffpost]

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 28, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Art, Food, Junk Food

The Pasta Art of Vernon Spicer

Vernon Spicer was in his 60s when he began his career as an artist. One night he was woken by a dream, "I could see something that had a three-dimensional design, one that involved me using sticks to create.” His wife suggested the sticks were pieces of uncooked spaghetti. So he started using uncooked pasta to make paintings. As the Montgomery Advertiser puts it, "this man really knows how to use his noodle to utilize noodles."

If you decide to buy one of his paintings — I think the three below are his entire oeuvre — the price is $1800. He hasn't sold any yet, so you have a chance to be the first!

The pictures are from the Selma Alabama Photo Blog, which has higher-res versions posted. Though I suspect the pasta paintings, in real life, have a 3-D effect that the photos can't convey.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 05, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Art, Food