Next WFC Event: "Eating Locally, Thinking Globally"

You are invited to a monumental event I've been planning for the past couple of months. I'm very passionate about sustainable food (part of eating "weird food" is using all parts of the animal and minimizing waste) and have long wanted to do something educational on a bigger scale.

Collaborating with my alma mater we have brought to you "Eating Locally, Thinking Globally".

Enjoy an afternoon of locally-sourced food and wine while learning more about the movements for local and sustainable food.

Experience the delicious side of the food movement while hearing how New Yorkers are working to highlight local and sustainable food production, both here in New York and across the globe. We’ll draw on the expertise of including Ellen Gustafson, co-founder and director of FEED Projects and the 30 Project, who will provide insights about how our eating in New York can affect food systems internationally.

A certified sommelier will guide us through a tasting of 4 regional wines paired with creations from the chefs of Great Performances Catering, using seasonal ingredients from Katchkie Farm in Columbia County, NY. Great Performances’ CEO, Liz Neumark, will give us the story behind the food.

Event Name: Eating Locally Thinking Globally
Date: Sunday Sept 19 1-3pm
Location: Mae Mae Cafe, 68 Vandam Street, between Varick and Hudson Streets, New York, NY
The event is open to the general public. Continue...

Blood dishes fantastic and real

As I was watching the latest True Blood episode (S3:26) this Sunday I was impressed by the creativity behind the sumptuous vampire meal made out of human blood: carbonated blood wine willingly donated by a human that ate tangerines all week, blood bisque with rose petals, and blood gelato.

I'm no vampire, but a meal out of willingly donated human blood would definitely pique my interest, and I wouldn't be surprised to find a chef who has experimented with the idea, especially with this trend of making dishes out of human bodily fluids (see post on human milk) Next thing you know, we'll be seeing human shirako (a.k.a. cod milt a.k.a. fish sperm), the difference of course being that there would be no shortage of supply no matter the season.

Back to thinking about blood. There are plenty of dishes that can be made out of it. We've documented a couple on this blog that we tried at Congee Village (100 Allen Street): congealed duck blood and the various pig's blood porridges.

However, much more can be done with blood than we could ever imagine! Cate Newton of phlebotomist.net documents recipes for 6 unique dishes from around the world in her post: blood milk (Kenya, Tanzania), blood pudding (Western Europe, Korea), blood tofu (China), blood soup (Sweden, Poland, Vietnam) - this is beginning to sound a bit like the vampire blood bisque, blood pancakes (Finland), and blood bread (Finland). Those Finns sure love their blood...

Blood pudding (a.k.a. blood sausage/boudin noir/Blutwurst/Morcilla/Soondae) is actually one of my favorite dishes. You can have some at Casimir (103 Avenue B) and plenty other French restaurants in New York.

The most creative and palatable of the 6 recipes Cate listed is probably blood pancakes (Veriohukaiset). Finally, a Finnish dish that's NOT boring! Moreover, if you want to have it the real authentic way, this one requires reindeer blood, which makes it ever more exciting than pig or duck. That's what I call a proper and delicious cure for anemia! If you're ever low on iron, you know what to get.

Unfortunately, the few Finnish restaurants that exist in New York don't serve this incredible delicacy, but you can always make it yourself. You can procure blood at butcher shops, most likely in Chinatown somewhere, and blood labs.
Continue...

Human breast milk worth trying again in your lifetime

Someone commented on my last post that jackfruit wasn't weird enough to write about on this blog, so I decided to step it up a bit: I tried human breast milk!

I've been meaning to try some ever since I read about 2(!) restaurants that served food made out of human breast milk: Storchen in Winterthur, Switzerland and Klee Brasserie in New York.

Storchen was banned from serving breast milk dishes in 2008, and Klee chef Daniel Angerer didn't even attempt to serve it to the public, he merely documented his attempts at making cheese on his blog.

In hopes of trying his amazing maple caramelized pumpkin encrusted "mommy's milk" cheese with texturized concord grapes, I emailed Angerer about a month ago to have a private tasting. Alas I did not receive a response. So I gave up on the idea until this weekend, when a friend of mine who recently had a baby offered a taste of her breast milk, which turned into a spontaneous tasting party.



Neither the other tasters nor I had any problem with tasting our friend's milk, and the parents were cool with it. The baby seemed fine with it too (she's already been fed and was happily sleeping beside us).

The milk tasted like 1% cow milk but a little sweeter. Interestingly, the consistency (i.e. fat content) of breast milk can vary depending on the length of time since last feeding. Unlike sheep's milk or horse milk, it was quite pleasant and mild. If you've ever tried baby formula, it tastes a lot like the real deal.

While I can't recommend a source of human breast milk in New York other than your own network of recent moms, I do want to mention that if you do try this out on your own, be aware that certain infections can be passed with breast milk.

If you know anyone with excess breast milk, (which tends to happen, unless you have twins, triplets or octuplets!) you can encourage them to:
1. experiment with making spectacular dishes out of it
2. donate it to a milk bank.

Yes, I agree that I've reached a new level of depravity, however the benefits are undeniable:
1. satisfying curiosity
2. supporting local and sustainable eating.

Something else to chew on: Since no animals were harmed, would PETA approve?

Answer: yes! In fact, in 2008 PETA sent a letter to Ben & Jerry urging them to use human breast milk. Unfortunately, B&J did not see this as a viable business opportunity, even though 17% of consumers (including me) voted that they'd like that. So... who wants to start a new ice cream company with me? ;-)


EDIT: a new ice cream parlor called "Baby Gaga" in London serves breast milk ice cream! If you've tried it, comment! Continue...

Man, I wish I was in China...

...to try this bacteria dictyophore wu chicken soup.


Click on the image to see other funny Chinglish signs in Shanghai. Continue...

Jackfruit, Durian, Taro and Okra Chips

I've been searching for jackfruit products in NYC after trying it fresh in Thailand. Yesterday I stumbled upon Danielle Sweet Jackfruit Chips by New England Herbal Foods. I found these at a random deli in Williamsburg, but they're also available at Whole Foods.



Jackfruit is the largest fruit that grows on trees. The fruit is about the size of a watermelon and is covered in hard cone-like points. Some describe the smell of the unopened fruit as rotten onion, but not as strong as that of durian.

It is worth noting that jackfruit and durian look similar with their green hard pointy shells and people often confuse the two. Unlike durian (soft wet texture with sweaty sock/rotten onion smell), the flesh inside jackfruit has a much more appealing bubble-gum taste and rubbery texture.

Danielle Sweet Jackfruit Chips (9/10) have a mix of banana and pineapple flavor; they are crunchy, naturally sweet and totally addictive. Plus, you don't need to feel guilty eating them since Danielle's vacuum frying approach using no ingredients other than the fruit or vegetable and non-hydrogenated palm oil makes these healthier than most other chip snacks.

To our pleasant surprise, this line of chips includes other Weird Food Club-worthy flavors: durian, okra, whose texture reminds me of snot, and wild taro, a root vegetable that is toxic raw. I might stop by a Whole Foods to check out these other flavors as well. See list of all flavors here. Continue...

I guess we won't be eating monkey any time soon...

Researchers found a strain of a virus related to HIV in the flesh of primates illegally imported into New York City for human consumption.



Apparently, there's a whole underground market for bushmeat in the US. Bushmeat is a general term that used to refer to terrestrial wild animals (think "game") but now usually means endangered species hunted unsustainably, especially in Central and West Africa. Meat from some of these animals (monkey, cane rat, Malayan fruit bat) is considered a delicacy by West African communities and are consumed cured or smoked. The meat is smuggled into the US via parcels and personal suitcases, sometimes uncooked (blood and all).

Due to the virus, I'll pass on monkey meat at this point, but I wouldn't mind trying cane rat and/or the fruit bat. Those don't sound like endangered animals to me - any NYC-based West Africans want to volunteer to cook me one?

Read more about this here. Continue...

Dim Sum at Jing Fong

Last Saturday we ate to our heart's desire at Jing Fong (20 Elizabeth Street, 2nd fl), a dim sum house. Dim Sum is an ideal way to sample a large number of small dishes in one sitting, and it works out even better in large groups of friends. It is recommended to arrive at Jing Fong before noon, and Saturdays tend to be less crowded than Sundays. We arrived a few minutes after 12, and the place was already packed. We got a table at the elevated portion of the gigantic over-decorated ball room, and felt like we were part of a wedding party.


Duck feet: 3/10
My most anticipated dish was the chicken feet, however, duck feet looked much more interesting. While chicken feet were covered in sweet and sour sauce, duck feet were steamed and doused in soy sauce. Becauase of this, duck feet looked much like they should naturally, with webbing between toes and all! Despite WFC member Josh's pleads that duck feet were terrible compared to the chicken feet, I had to get them anyway.

The duck feet didn't taste bad per se, but neither did they taste good. There wasn't much to eat on them and the skin was a bit tough. We only got them so we could pose with them for photos - they are very photogenic. (I can't say the same about myself though)


Tripe: 4/10
I loved the look of this tripe dish, because you could see the honeycomb texture of the reticulum (the second chamber of a cow's stomach). The dish came with a stew of cabbage and cassava. The peculiar cow smell of the tripe was too overbearing for me so I didn't eat much of this dish, but WFC member Anastassia loved it!


Sesame seed balls with durian paste: 4/10
These looked promising until you bit into them and tasted the durian. I've had fresh durian before and it actually was significantly less horrid than I had anticipated, having heard that the smell of durian was so offensive that it was illegal to eat it in public places in Southeast Asia.

The durian paste in the sesame seed balls had a sweet rotten onion taste, but it developed only a few seconds after you bit into it. To Josh, the durian paste literally tasted like garbage. Food critic Richard Sterling's description of durian is much more colorful: "its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock." This sounds a little bit like my description of huitlacoche. To me, durian seemed better tasting than huitlacoche, especially concealed in sweet dough and covered in sesame seeds.



Our Dim Sum experience was not all bad. We also had some palatable food, my favorite of which were pork (7/10), fried tofu (6/10), and pastry dough with honey(7/10). The best part, of course, was snatching up dishes we liked from the moving carts and the buffet, and the bill at the end (~$13 per person)! Continue...

A grocery store that has everything

Being Russian, I occasionally go to Net Cost Market @ 8671 18th Avenue, Brooklyn. People refer to it as "the Baza" (base) because it contains absolutely everything. They have another location at 608 Sheepshead Bay Rd.

Here is a sample of disturbing things you can find in the meat section.


"Pig Baby by pc $65.39"

"Pork Pig Feets $3.24"



"Beef Tongue $9.45"

"Beef Liver $2.46"

"Beef Cow Feet Frozen $2.24"

"Turkey Neck $3.30"

"Turkey Gizzards $4.40"

"Veal Brain $3.67"

"Veal Heart $4.82"

"Veal Kidneys $1.91"

"Veal Tail $5.69"

Interestingly, the veal tail and the baby pig are the most expensive items per pound ($4.99 per pound).

Disclaimer: I did not purchase any of these items.
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Wild Game Festival @ Henry's End Part 2

We went back to Henry’s End to try other items on the Wild Game Festival menu: turtle soup and ostrich. We tried to pry out of the waiter what kind of turtle meat they use for the soup, but it turns out the turtle meat already comes in ready-to-cook form, most likely from 1-800-ExoticMeats, Exotic Meats and More, Gourmet Wild Game or from any number of other online wild game and unusual meat dealers.


Turtle Soup: 5/10
WFC member Jaclynn said that “the turtle soup tasted like Chef Boyardee” -- a spot-on assessment! The turtle chunks were small and barely noticeable, and the soup itself was quite saucy. There was nothing special about this soup and it was tepid in temperature, so it gets a relatively low score.


Ostrich: 2/10
Whenever I try something that tastes bad, I have the urge to give it a 1/10 score. But then all I have to do is remember natto and huitlacoche to realize ostrich that tastes like rotten meat is relatively palatable. I’ve had ostrich burger before and it was fine (although on the dry side), but there was something seriously off with these ostrich filets. They were like the BeanBoozled jelly beans with rotten egg and vomit flavors that taste good for a few seconds, but then the actual flavor hits. The ostrich seemed tasty the instant you put it in your mouth, however, a few seconds later turned into something only a bear would eat (bears like slightly rotten meat). It was truly bizarre. Logically, most of the dish was left uneaten. We're not sure if all ostrich meat tastes like this or if we just got a bad batch. Anyone care to weigh in on this?

Wild Menu Plate: 7/10
This was a sample plate containing elk, quail, and boar belly. I second our earlier review of the elk chops – these are delicious. Boar Belly and Quail seem like an odd couple. One is very fat and wild, and the other is skinny and timid. Elk was just a third wheel in this dish but clearly the attention whore.

We knocked down a few points off the rating for this and other dishes for being served barely warm and for no signs of any thought behind presentation. Continue...

Wild Game Festival @ Henry’s End Part 1

Whatever you do, get to Henry’s End (44 Henry Street, Brooklyn) before the end of the month for the annual Wild Game Festival. Not only will you get to eat some unique dishes but you’ll get to do so in an elegant, yet comfortable atmosphere with above average service. Four star restaurant it is not, but it is definitely worth the trip.

We decided to pair our wild game with one of several Belgian beers available, which is recommended if you prefer a substantive beverage with your substantive entrée. Otherwise, make it a full bodied red.

Manuel ordered the bison, Merillat and Jessica the Elk Chops, and Antelope for myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try any of the bison since Manual had a “no sharing” policy. It’s important to note that Manuel and Merillat came to Henry’s End on their first date, they are now married, and make the pilgrimage back once a month. It’s that good!

The Elk Chops were AMAZING! Tender. Juicy. Flavorful. Jessica claimed it was the best dish she’s ever had and that is some statement considering we have dined at many of the city’s top restaurants and her brother is a chef.



Elk Chops: "best dish ever!"












My antelope was very good, although just a tad shy of excellent. Is antelope, by its very nature, more gamey than elk? That got me wondering, what exactly is antelope? Sort of like reindeer? Will it taste like venison? So I did what I always do when I’m curious about something, I opened my Google homepage:

Antelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species found in the family Bovidae. The term refers to a “miscellaneous” group within the family encompassing the species which are not cattle, buffalo, bison, or goats.

Thanks, Wikipedia!


Mmmm....Antelope, a "miscellaneous" animal


Very tasty!









In any event, the miscellaneous meat was terrific. However, don’t forget the Elk was better and the bison might win out. Continue...