Archive Category: Food & Drinks
Kitty Loves Him Some Broccoli
“Nom nom” says the little one. Two handed munching, who can resist?
Link Via I Can Has Cheezburger
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Camera Birthday Cake

We have seen a lot of fun, cool, weird and beautiful cakes here at Neatorama throughout the years, but I think this is the first time we’ve covered a birthday cake in the shape of a camera. The neat creation belongs to Flickr member fsumaria.
It is from a bakery in emmaus, pennsylvania called granny schmidt’s. The outside was made of fondant and the inside is red velvet cake.
Link [Flickr] – Digitalkameror via Pusha
Katamari Damacy bento box

I’ve long admired Anna’s incredibly complex geeky bento boxes. She’s now blogging, and describing in detail how she achieves such incredible results. Here’s the direct link to the Katamari Damacy bento, but I highly recommend a stroll through her blog and Flickr galleries.
Christmas Song Played With Broccoli
If playing clarinet with a carrot wasn’t cool enough for you, how about playing flute with some broccoli? It looks to me like the broccoli is stuffed with a carrot, so I guess the real lesson here is that carrots are the most musical vegetable around.
Link Via Tokyo Mango
World's Heaviest Potato
Lebanese farmer Khalil Semhat dug up what is probably the world’s heaviest potato:
"This giant weighs 11.3 kilos (24.9 pounds)," Khalil Semhat told the AFP news agency at his farm near Tyre, 85 kilometres (50 miles) south of Beirut.
"I’ve been working the land since I was a boy, and it’s the first time I’ve seen anything like it." Mr Semhat, 56, said he had to ask for help from a friend to get the huge vegetable out of the ground.
He insisted that he had used no fertilizer or other chemicals to produce it.
We’re still looking for the world’s heaviest couch potato: Link – Thanks Jez!
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White Bread Wrist Support

Do all those web browsing and mousing around make your wrist tired? Perhaps you’re not getting the necessary wrist support. Well, you can remedy that with this brilliant product: the white bread wrist support! Link
The Dixie Cup Prank

What could you do with thousands of dixie cups? Here’s a teacher-pranking-teacher moment, photographed for your enjoyment:
Every single one of those 10,000 dixie cups was full of water. It took 10 people 3 hours to painstakingly set those things up and fill them. Every single horizontal surface we could get to was covered. There were even dixie cups in the desk drawers.
Strange Kit Kat Flavors

It’s obvious that Jon C. of Overoften’s Kumamoto Diary loves Kit Kat. He has what is probably the largest selection of strange Kit Kat flavors on the Web. His Flickr photoset includes pineapple, green tea, melon-flavored snack and many more!
Here are his picks of the strangest Kit Kat ever (soy sauce Kit Kat, no kidding!): Link | Flickr Photoset
Edible Books

Pelican Beef, by Emily Love

Lard of the Rings, anonymous

Clockwork Orange, by Julia Kenner
Every year, the Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne holds its Annual C-U Edible Book Festival.
Around the world on April 1st bibliophiles, book artists, and food lovers gather to celebrate the book arts and the (literal!) ingestion of culture. Participants create edible books that are exhibited, documented then consumed.
Here are the winners of the 2008 competition: Link – via Boing Boing
Orange Wedges

These orange slices are made of jello! Instructables tells you how to make them. This might be neat with lemons and limes, too. It would certainly impress guests at a holiday party! Link -via Unique Daily
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Side Show Bob Carved out of a Mexican Turnip

Remember our post about Jar Jar Bink carved out of a jicama? Well, the guy who did that made another one. This time, it’s Side Show Bob of the TV series The Simpsons , carved out of a Mexican Turnip! Link – Thanks Ken!
Weight Watchers Recipe Cards From 1974

Yummm. Delicacies include Bean and Mushroom Salad, Fluffy Mackarel Pudding, Caucasian Shashlik (I don’t know either), Snacks on a Stick, Jellied Tomato Refresher, Mackerelly and Melon Mousse. Oh, and maybe my favorite: Frankfurter Spectacular.
Fruits vs. Vegetables: The Deathmatch

Think you know your fruits from your veggies? Slashfood doesn’t think so. Take their quick quiz – just scribble your answers down on a scrap piece of paper or remember them in your head. I have to admit, I did worse than I thought I would. Photo via Wikipedia user Gpics.
Alien Coffee Press and Other Gifts for Geeks
Psst! Wondering what you should get for your geek for Chistmas? Take a look at this article that our very own Jill Harness wrote for Inventor Spot.
This one to the left is the Inka, the alien coffee press, by designer Guido Venturini (if that isn’t an alien’s name, I don’t know what is) for Italian design studio Alessi.
How Physicists Make Lunch
For coffee, a pot just won’t do. Neither will a microwave oven. How about a YAG laser beam? For hot dogs, forget the grill or toaster oven. Cook them with a 10-foot tall Tesla coil! See videos of both procedures at Talk Like A Physicist. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
Truffle Brings $200K
That’s one expensive chunk of fungus! A 1.08 kilogram white truffle was sold at an auction Saturday for $200,000. A total of $284,000 was raised for charity at the auction held simultaneously in Abu Dhabi, Macau, London and Rome.
Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho was the highest bidder for the 1.08-kg white truffle. The tycoon was also the highest bidder for last year’s largest truffle, a 1.5-kg piece that fetched a record $330,000.
Truffle is a precious ingredient in Italian and French gourmet for its pungent aroma and taste. White truffle is considered the best truffle; a kilogram of normal size white truffle could cost over $5000.
Link (with video) -Thanks, Jee!
(image credit: Xinhuanet)
Crying Caterpillar Ad
You know…I love the Japanese sense of humour when it comes to their advertisements. They can be funny, bizarre and sometimes insightful. This ad is the type that makes me laugh out loud because of its adorable nature. A father caterpillar and his son just want to get the best tea leaves at the top.
Now that's an Apple Pie!

Windell and Lenore at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories used a 45 watt carbon-dioxide laser to score an Apple logo on the top crust of an apple pie. They used a square springform pan to get the crust centered just right, and kept a crust lattice inside the logo to prevent it from distorting while it baked. I heard it was delicious, too. Link
How To Cook on Your Car Engine While Driving
(Video Link)
Howcast shows you how to bake a meal on your car engine while driving. At the end of a long workday, you can wrap a few ingredients in tin foil, toss it on your radiator, and have a hot meal waiting you when you arrive home. Run time: 2.5 minutes.
Via Bits & Pieces
The Best Super Mario Galaxy Cake EVAR!

For his daughter’s fourth birthday, Will Turnbow decided that he’s going to make the bestest Super Mario cake EVAR! Behold the Super Mario Galaxy cake, complete with spinning Luigi, flying Mario, and a rockin’ Bowser! It. Is. Simply. Awesome. Link
Here’s a YouTube clip of the cake "in action"
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Dinner Set in Rocks, Gems and Minerals

The folks at Extreme Craft blog spotted a dinner at the Eureka Gem Show at Redwood Acres fairground, California, that rocks (literally!) The food are made of rocks, gems, and minerals. I think they cheated on the parsley, but who could resist that yummy rock bacon?
Ju Duoqi's Vegetable Art

Mona Tofu by Ju Duoqi
Chinese artist Ju Duoqi, 35, specializes in a unique art medium: vegetables! (well, technically digital veggies – but who cares?). Behold her masterpiece above, the veggie Mona Lisa ("Mona Tofu") made out of rice, sea kelp, and tofu.
In The Vegetable Museum series, she revisits in a stunning way some masterpieces of the western painting. Making use of vegetables and food of China’s everyday life – tofu, cabbage, ginger, lotus roots, coriander, sweet potato… – and through digital manipulation, she presents a puzzling series of vegetable compositions representing world famous paintings like Mona Lisa, The Cene by Leonard Da Vinci, The Dream by Pablo Picasso or Marilyn Monroe by Warhol.
Here are a few more:

Napoleon on Potatoes by Ju Duoqi

Van Gogh made of Leek by Ju Duoqi
See many more at Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery: Link – via Compass WebWorks
Previously on Neatorama:
Jello Turkey-Shaped Mold Contest

In a recent Jello mold competition, some of the entries were mighty interesting. This one won third place over all, it is a pumpkin pie and twinkie turkey. Can you say yummy?
Link Via BoingBoing
Turgooduccochiqua
Forget the turducken, here’s the turgooduccochiqua by Wil Shipley of Call Me Fishmeal blog. It’s a quail inside a cornish game hen inside a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey inside a goose. Oh, and with bacon between the layers.

Photo: wjsdelicous [Flickr]
Can you identify which bird is which by looking at the fowl strata?

Photo: wjsdelicious [Flickr]
The entire Flickr photoset: Link | CNN video calling it a "hoax" (Oops!) – via reddit.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Charles Phoenix's Tiki-Turkey Dinner
(YouTube link)
L.A. personality Charles Phoenix turns the traditional Thanksgiving feast on its ear by tikifying it. More Kahlua! Link to recipes. -Thanks, ZZalgern0n!
10 Weird Gourmet Foods
The luxury world of the couture is an interesting place. People are always on the search for the newest, most shocking art or fashion to impress their other rich friends. The culinary world is no exception. While there are still people who love their lobster and fillet mignon, many modern chefs like to experiment with the newest and craziest ingredients, while others like to reach back deep into the past -say, the middle ages- for inspiration. As a result, there are some gourmet foods that are just too out there for the average man and woman to even begin to comprehend. I invite you, my friends, to travel this weird world with me, the strange land of the couture gourmets.
10. Ortolan
Eating a roasted bird isn't really that crazy, but the process leading up to the roasting of Ortolan birds has actually caused France to declare it illegal for humane reasons. Ortolan birds are nocturnal, sparrow-like birds. To prepare them for cooking, the live birds are trapped in a dark box. The darkness messes with their eating schedule and causes them to continually eat until they are about two to three times their original size. After a proper level of obesity has occurred, the birds are drowned in brandy or other liquor and then, finally, roasted.
Funny how a country that defends fois gras even finds this practice too barbaric. If tortured animals make yummier meals, than this little guy must be quite a treat.
9. Canard à la Rouennaise (Duck in Blood Sauce)
Have
you ever ate a duck and thought, “I could get so much more out of those
bones and guts?” If so, Canard à la Rouennaise is right up your alley.
Basically, the recipe takes a nice roast duck, then places the carcass
in a press and crushes the juice out of everything left over. The result
is a very bloody, very rich “sauce” that can cost around $1000 a plate.
While the presentation may be quite interesting, as they crush the duck right at your table, I just can't understand paying that much for some blood. I know a lot of people love marrow, but isn't this just too crazy?
8. Huitlacoche (Corn Fungus)
Corn
smut is a fungus that destroys corn crops. Like many indigenous people,
early villagers decided to make the most out of a bad situation and ate
the fungus that took over their crop. Nowadays, the smut is considered
to be quite a delicacy and sometimes costs more than corn itself.
This is the only thing on this list I have actually ate, of course, that's probably because I don't have the money to be a real gourmet foodie. Surprisingly, it's very delicious if you get it from a good restaurant -preferably one actually in Mexico. It's similar to mushrooms and quite has a nice aroma.
Source (Photo: Zampano [Flickr])
7. Durian
Many
people claim durian is quite good. The smell however, is one of the worst
things on Earth. It is said that you can smell the durian fruit stands
from all the way down the street. Some hotels and airports refuse to let
people bring the fruit inside for fear that it will chase away their customers.
While many people hate the fruit -smell is closely associated with taste after all, many people are quite passionate about their love of durian. The fruit is said to be strongly flavored and savory, with a custard-like texture. Anthony Bordain may have described it the best when he said, "its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."
Source (Photo: Sama Sama - Massa [Flickr])
6. Live Baby Octopus
Here's a food that wouldn't be so strange if it was served in any other manner. Even other foods eaten alive, like shrimp aren't that strange, the main thing here is the whole life-threatening thing. Live octopi can choke you with their moving tentacles. It's a real-life kill or be killed situation.
Dipping your dinner in alcohol is said to help knock them out momentarily and make them less deadly, but that is to be debated. Truly skilled baby octopi eaters will barely chew their meals before gulping them down, but amateurs generally choose to chew them thoroughly -which can take up to 15 minutes. As you can see in the video, eating the treat can be quite a challenge for a novice.
5. De Jaeger (Snail Caviar)
French
foodies flip over a lot of things, but two things they hold close to heart
are caviar and escargot. So a pair of snail farmers thought, “why not
combine them?” The flavor is said to be delicate and quite nice, but from
what I hear, most people still prefer caviar.
The process to making snail caviar is a carefully guarded secret by the couple who invented it. We do know it involves very happy snails getting freaky in a huge barn and a hand review all of the eggs to make sure they are up to par. Between there being only one supplier and requiring quite tedious harvesting, all done by hand, the price of the snail caviar is quite high -about $82 an ounce to be more specific.
Source (Photo: Fr Antunes [Flickr])
4. Bird Nest Soup
Bird
nest soup, as the name suggests, is created using nests created by the
nests of cave swifts. These specific birds create their nest from their
own saliva, which hardens into a sort of shell. When boiled, the nest
creates a unique flavor and jelly-like consistency that is quite popular
in many parts of Asia -at least, amongst those who can afford it. The
nests are one of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans.
Just one bowl of the soup costs between $30 and $100 American dollars.
Of the multiple species of cave swifts that create these nests, the most expensive nests come from in a red shaded and are said to have additional medicinal qualities. These health benefits range from curing asthma to boosting the immune system to aiding digestion. Like many medicinal meals from the East though, this has not been scientifically proven as of yet.
3. Balut (Duck Fetus Egg)

Photo: Chadedwardxxx
[Flickr]
Surely you've heard the urban legend that someone bought a carton of eggs, cracked one open and found a chicken fetus inside? Well, this is sort of the same thing, except it's not an urban legend and it's a duck instead of a chicken. Oh yeah, and it's on purpose.
Basically, you take your fertilized egg, boil it and there's your meal. Most people seem to eat the egg around the fetus and then snack down the baby duckling bones and all. The “ripeness” of the egg varies from country to country, but it can be eaten any time from being boneless and tiny to pretty much being baby ducks with tender bones and beaks.
2. Kopi Luwak (Poop Coffee)
I
must admit, it was hard to choose the ranking positions for this list.
It's hard to compare duck fetus to corn fungus to killer octopi, but I
have to say that coffee beans that have been partially digested definitely
deserve a place in the top three. If the title or photo of this one hasn't
given it away already, let me be clear. Kopi Luwak is a very popular coffee
blend right now, despite the fact that the beans get their special flavor
by being eaten and then pooped out by a civet -a cute mammal from South-east
Asia.
The coffee is one of the most expensive brews in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 a pound. Because the digestive enzymes of the civets break down the proteins in the beans that ordinarily make coffee bitter, the blend is naturally sweeter.
1. Casu Marzu (Maggot Cheese)

Casu Marzu is a sheep's milk cheese loaded with writhing, live fly larva. It is illegal in many countries for its obvious health dangers, but for some reason, foodies still actively seek it out. Even worse, the cheese can become toxic after the maggots die, so it has to be eaten while they are still very alive. The texture is rather creamy and it is generally served on Sardinian flat bread. Dinners are expected to keep their hands over the cheese as they place it in their mouth because these larva can jump up to 15 cm -potentially right into dinner's eyes.
This is one of the only things on this list that makes me want to throw up just by looking at it. I mean, this is one food that almost makes Gordon Ramsay puke -that alone says how disgusting this specialty is. Flies are filthy and eating the living bodies and excrement of their larva is just not right, regardless of where you're from.
Have any of you ever experienced these foods? What did you think of them? If not, what was the weirdest thing you ever ate?
50 Thanksgiving Cupcake Ideas

AJ at Thingamababy saw the Neatorama post Mini Thanksgiving Dinner and was inspired to look around for more Thanksgiving cupcakes. The result: 50 different cupcakes, about half linked to recipes. Link -Thanks, AJ!
Canstruction 2008

Canstruction is an international charity competition that opened last Thursday at the Winter Garden and Courtyard Gallery of the World Financial Center, featuring giant structures built entirely out of cans of food. Top architectural and engineering firms in over 100 cities across North America participate in Canstruction, collecting millions of pounds of food for local food banks — the New York City show features local architectural and engineering talent. At the close of the competition, all of the food from the show will be donated to City Harvest.
See pictures of quite a few can sculptures at Eat Me Daily. My favorite is this scene from a recent movie you might recognize. Link
The Hot Dog Launcher: Everything You Always Wanted to Know
It’s all about turkeys this time of year, blah blah blah. What about the hot dog?
Slashfood found a great video about the effort it takes to design the Phillies’ air cannon that shoots hot dogs at games. This is scientific stuff – they go through small trial runs and even position people in an otherwise empty stadium to gauge how far they can launch and figure out the angles. But you can see that they have a lot of fun with it.
Even better, Red Tettemer, the ad agency that created the video, has redesigned their home page to reflect their dog dedication.

Via Slashfood
Mini Thanksgiving Dinner
If you can’t make it home to Thanksgiving dinner, here’s an adorable set up to make you feel nice and cozt anyway. Can you tell what it is? Here’s a hint, it’s a cake in a cup form. Yup, it’s a cup cake Thanksgiving dinner.
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