A Third Helping of Food Related Weirdness

A UK school has banned students from including bananas in their lunchboxes, because one teacher has a severe allergy to them. The teacher from the Plymouth school is said to have a "potentially fatal" reaction to bananas (so is presumably also unable to visit supermarkets or parks), causing her council employers to recommend the fruit be excluded from her work environment (Mirror)

Somewhere that teacher may want to cross off her list of holiday destinations is Wilmington, Ohio as the town has just held its 15th annual Banana Split Festival in honour of the supposed invention of the dish, in Wilmington, in 1907. The festival also features the "Banana Split Master’s Competition", now in it's 5th year, won this year by Pete Kramme for his "Sweet and Salty Banana Split", which adds cream cheese and pretzels to the traditional recipe (Wilmington News Journal).

Speaking of odd flavours, here's a two-fer. First up, the Double-Down Saloon is offering two-for-the-price-of-one on it's 'eye watering' bacon-vodka martini on Jun 19th, in celebration of National Martini Day (Examiner). Also, a UK barman hopes to beat the credit-crisis this summer by selling beer flavoured ice-cream. The barman, David Wardleworth, is keeping the exact recipe a secret beyond saying that is does include "Thwaites Original" British cask ale. Despite a historic reputation for liking their beer warm, the ice-cream is apparently proving popular with the British public (Burnley Express).

And it turns out weird flavours are not the only way the recession is impacting the world of ice-cream. The poor economy, combined with lower gas prices, has apparently fuelled a boom in ice-cream trucks, whose drivers stand to make from $100 to $200 a day. And it's not just the money and the lure of being your own boss that drivers find rewarding, according to driver John Jones "You get to see a lot of happy people, you get a lot of smiles." (Wichita Eagle).

And the ice-cream business certainly looks about to boom in Linden, NJ, where police are preparing to hand out tickets for free ice-cream to any kids they see wearing a helmet when cycling; the tickets will also include information about a recent law change, that makes helmets compulsory for under-17s. Even better, no child will be left out as the Brain Injury Association of New Jersey is supplying free cycling helmets for children, also available from those friendly boys in blue (My Central Jersey).

But if the future looks bright for children and ice-cream salesmen, it's looking pretty bleak for barmen with the invention of a robot bar steward who can do the same job more than 7 times quicker (video). The robot, designed by the Asahi corporation and called "Mr Asahi" has six arms, LED "expressions" and a 500 phrase vocabulary, i.e. about three times that of your average barman (Gaj-It).

But if beer's not your thing, how about a nice glass of milk? It certainly seems to have hit the spot for one British pensioner, just as long as it's his daughter's breast-milk that is. However weird it may sound, retired teacher Tim Browne is actually drinking his daughter's milk for a serious purpose, it may just boost his immune system enough to help him fight off his colon and liver cancer. What's more it appears to be working, Mr. Browne's cancer has retreated in the month since he started the treatment (Mirror).

But if you need more convincing that milk is serious stuff, Russia's normally close ties with Belarus have become strained of late after the former banned the import of Belarusian milk. The issue has so upset the people of former soviet republic that it has spurned its long-time partner and boycotted a planned meeting to inaugurate the "Collective Security Treaty Organisation", a planned analogue of NATO, leaving the nascent military co-operative short of of its second largest member. Russia, which forms 95% of Belarus' export market, said the ban was due to new laws controlling packaging and was not politically motivated, but Belarusian politicians claim the action is punishment for refusing to recognise South Ossetia, an enclave of Georgia that was "liberated" by Russia in 2008 (NY Times).

(Image from Wikipedia Commons.)