Looking for something really different to give your loved one this Valentine’s Day? How about a roach?

How better to express your appreciation for that special someone than to name one of the Bronx Zoo’s 58,000 Madagascar hissing cockroach after them? Best of all, when you purchase this everlasting gift, you’ll help support the Wildlife Conservation Society and its five parks in New York City.

Ok, so technically, it might not be the most romantic gift, but it’s certainly something that won’t soon be forgotten, which is more than you can say about a dozed roses.

Link Via The Mary Sue

Hardcore gamers love expert mode because it provides them with such a challenge…but no matter how good you are at aiming, I don’t recommend trying out this advanced level -especially if you ever have any ladies visit your home.

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Of course, the problem here is that skin and again can be made to rhyme, so what will happen if you don’t put the dishes in the dishwasher…certainly you won’t get the hose again. Then again, do you really want to risk finding out what Buffalo Bill will do to you if you defy him?

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JADS International has decided to release a line of perfumes based on The Avengers, including a “Yuzu, bergamot and tarragon create clean, clear top notes along with unexpected accords of water lily and nutmeg,” scent that apparently reflects the scent of The Hulk. While the colognes probably don’t smell anything like the real heroes would smell like, you have to admit that it’s probably a lot better than the sweat, blood and testosterone scent the characters would probably have in real life.

Link via io9

We’ve featured some of photographer Slinkachu’s work here before, but of all his Little People Project creations, the Worst Wurst might just be the most disgusting. That’s because it features tiny people harvesting rat poo and then selling it at a food stand. The photos are great, but you might want to avoid looking at them while eating lunch.

Link Via Laughing Squid

I spent last Sunday in my kitchen, cutting Twinkies in half, scooping out the crème filling, and cubing and toasting the, uh, “shortcake.” I mixed those cubes with crumbled corn muffins and a chopped apple, stuffed it all into a turkey, and roasted at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

When the turkey was almost done, I mixed the reserved Twinkie crème with a quarter cup of honey, and used it to glaze the hot bird before popping it back in the oven for another 12 minutes. Suddenly, the smell coming out of the oven changed.

As for the taste?

I lifted a forkful of stuffing to my lips. Oh, dear God: cake doused with poultry grease. I quickly took a bite of turkey to try to erase the taste. Turkey, not too dry, normal flavor. And vanilla—sweet, sweet vanilla—mixing with the taste of roasted bird, the vilest thing I’ve eaten in a long time.

Would you guys rather have the Turdunkin or the Twinkie turkey?

Link

If art made from Thanksgiving food isn’t quite your thing, then what about delicious turkey dinner cupcakes? The bottom is made from turkey meatloaf, which is then topped with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce.

What do you think? Yum or yuck?

Link Via BuzzFeed

So, you know how nature is absolutely terrifying? Finally there’s a blog that details all the terrible ways that mother earth wants to destroy you. Filled with terrifying animal pictures and short details of how terrifying any given animal actually is, Nature Wants To Eat You might not have much content yet (it’s still new), but what it does have is a whole lot of promise.

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Dead Bodies Under The Mattress

This one involves someone checking into a hotel room and noticing that something smells rotten. Eventually, they realize it’s coming from under the bed. So they move the mattress and discover a dead body. This story has been going around forever and has even been featured in movies like Four Rooms. It seems like this story is pretty unlikely, particularly given that you’d at least think a hotel maid would notice the smell of a rotting body before a hotel guest enters the room, but if you believe that, you’re giving hotel staff too much credit. In fact, the most disturbing thing about this story is how often it actually happens.

In 1982, a few auto thieves killed an accomplice and left him under the bed of their hotel in New Jersey. Four days later, someone discovered the corpse, but the room had been rented three different times in the meanwhile and no one noticed they were sleeping above a dead body. In 1987, a drug user overdosed and his high friend stuffed him under the bed and then ran away. Three days later, a family reported a nasty odor in their room, prompting the hotel staff to discover the body.

In New York 1988, a murderer was clever enough to actually put the body inside the box spring. Even so, the smell still gave away the body’s hiding place only a few days later. This time, at least two guests slept on top of the mattress, not knowing what was below.

There are tons more stories like this. Apparently hotel workers often shrug off these types of odors and go on with their business until a guest complains or even refuses to stay in the room thanks to the smell. If there’s anything to be learned here, it’s that you should never stay in a hotel room with a funky smell. And, if you do notice something off, check under your bed or mattress…or you might not want to, that is, if you’d rather not know what’s below.

Source: Snopes

Image Via neekatnite [Flickr]

Spooky Acts Resulting In Death

Whether it involves a trained escape artist failing in his act or a Halloween stunt that goes awry, this tale revolves around someone dying while an audience watches, often thinking it is all part of the act. Eventually, everyone is shocked when they learn the performer has really passed away.

While it’s a chilling story that has been told over and over, even used in an episode of Tales From The Crypt, it is far from fiction. In fact, it happens more often then you would think. In 1984, magician/comedian Tommy Cooper had a heart attack while performing on a variety show. Unfortunately, because one of the staples of his act was his inept magic skills that resulted in things going terribly wrong, everyone assumed it was part of the act until it was too late.

October 1990 was a particularly bad month for these kinds of stunts. It started when teen Brian Jewell died while performing a hanging stunt meant to entertain guests on a haunted hayride. Only six days later, another teen, William Anthony Odom, died while performing a gallows scene at a Halloween party and the noose tightened around his neck, choking him to death. Days later, Joseph Burrus performed an act that involved him having to break free from a plastic coffin buried underground and covered in concrete. As spectators watched the concrete being poured into the hole, everyone noticed when the wet concrete level suddenly dropped two feet down –the coffin had been crushed. By the time they got Burrus out of the coffin, he was dead.

In 2001, haunted hayride worker Caleb Rebh died when he decided to take the place of a skeleton placed in a noose on a tree. When he struggled with the rope, guests and fellow workers thought he was acting and left him alone until he suffocated.

A good take away from these stories is to make sure your kids never think to do tricks that involve nooses. Also, don’t raise your kid to be an escape artist.

Sources: Snopes #1, #2

Image Via Sospitis [Flickr]

Dead Bodies Mistaken For Spooky Decorations

On a similar note, there have been many of occasions where someone thought something was a Halloween decoration, but it was really a dead body. Heck, this one even served as the basic plot for the Vincent Price classic House of Wax.

In at least two cases, one in 2005 and one in 2009, a suicide victim has killed themselves in October and been left for hours, even days, because people mistook the real corpse for a Halloween decoration.

One of the more interesting, slightly less gruesome stories in this vein involves the corpse of Elmer McCurdy. The outlaw was killed in a 1911 shoot-out. Afterwards, his undertaker went ahead and embalmed him, dressed him up, and started to charge locals $.05 to take a look at the bandit. Eventually, two men claimed McCurdy as their brother in 1915, but the men were actually carnival promoters who wanted the corpse for themselves. The body toured with his “brothers” for a few years and after a few stops at various other side shows it ended up in a Los Angeles wax museum, where those operating the attraction believed it was just another wax creation. It wasn’t until the Six Million Dollar Man filmed at the wax museum and a worker accidentally broke off McCurdy’s arm that people realized it wasn’t just a creepy prop. Finally, in 1977, McCurdy was given a proper burial. To ensure he would stay buried, the medical examiner ordered that two yards of cement were laid over the body.

Strangely, House of Wax was based on a Charles Belden’s story The Wax Works written in 1933. Both of these were made long before any of these stories hit the news, so either earlier news stories like this are now buried or else this one was an urban legend that eventually came true rather than a true story that became an urban legend.

Sources: Snopes #1, #2

Kidney Thieves

Just about everyone has heard the story of the person waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a note telling them to go to a hospital if they want to live. While the bathtub of ice  and note parts may be fiction, this kind of this has been known to happen in India, where a 1995 law requires organ donations to come only from closely related family members, creating a thriving black market for organs.

In 1998, three surgeons and seven accomplices were arrested after being accused of tricking people into having their kidneys removed without permission. The criminals would tell the impoverished victims they could get a good job, but first they had to undergo a medical exam. The exam would then reveal the “applicant” needed a small surgery. During the procedure, the doctor would remove one of the unconscious victim’s kidneys and then the victim would hear nothing more about a job offer. In 2008, a similar racket was discovered by authorities.

Like the wax museum stories, the interesting thing about these cases is the fact that the urban legend was around long before the true stories. In this case, the legend has been spread around since at least the eighties, but the problem in India did not start until after the 1995 law was passed.

Sources: Snopes, Washington Post

Image Via The Doctr [Flickr]

Intentionally Infected With AIDS

The most common version of this story involves a young girl dancing at a club when she feels a small prick on her arm or leg. Then she hears someone whisper “welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS,” before they escape unseen. At her feet, she discovers a blood-filled needle and when she visits the hospital, they confirm that she now has HIV. Another version involves a girl going to the movies and discovering a note informing her of her new status before she leaves.

The earliest version of this story has actually been traced back to the mid-80’s, when a man sleeps with a woman he’s only just met at a bar and then wakes up seeing the words “welcome to the world of AIDS” scrawled on the mirror in lipstick.

While the story of an anonymous stranger injecting someone at a club and the “welcome to the world of AIDS” line are both urban legends, the truth is that there are many stories of people who have intentionally been given HIV. In 2006, a woman in England was arrested for intentionally having unprotected sex with men in an act of revenge after she became infected with the disease.

Some people have even been intentionally injected with the virus, but not by random strangers like the victims in the legends. AIDS activist Brryan Jackson was infected as an 11 month-old baby by his father, who did not want to have to pay child support. By the time he was five, his infection was discovered and his father was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Fortunately, the nineteen year-old activist is still doing fine despite his condition.

Another person intentionally infected was Janice Trahan, who was given the virus, along with Hepatitis C, by her ex-lover Doctor Richard J. Schmidt who collected a samples from some of his patients and gave it to Trahan by claiming it was a vitamin B injection. Dr. Schmidt was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 50 years. It is unknown how Trahan is doing because the case was so long ago and there are no follow up new stories on her since 2000. This case was the first of its kind to hit the court system and it eventually inspired a similar Law & Order episode.

Sources: About.com, BBC, ABC News, Wikipedia

Image Via cooling [Flickr]

I know people always claim that urban legends are true and often claim that they know someone that was really involved with the story, but do any of you know any true urban legends that you can actually prove? Try to leave links to the news stories or other sources that prove your tale if you really want any of us to believe you.

These specimens in jars look pretty nasty, and the labels make them seem even worse. But believe it or not, they are all not only edible, but tasty! They contain unfamiliar fruits, or foods cut into odd shapes. Your Halloween guests will be delighted, if they can get over the willies and try them out. Get the recipes at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Link -via Buzzfeed

Ten years ago, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history. For most people, the memories inspire both pain and patriotism, but for some, they inspire thoughts of cold hard cash. Cracked has a collection of the most shameless attempts to cash in on the day of suffering, from video games to wine to cartoons, the money-making schemes are so tasteless they are simply depressing.

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Slap four leeches on your knee and after 80 minutes, the pain and stiffness of osteoarthritis melts away. Of the 16 patients in the trial, the 10 who received leech therapy felt instant relief after application, and the comfort lasted for four weeks. The control patients continued experiencing pain. Researchers claim the leeches’ saliva works as an anti-inflammatory.

I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do with a stranger is rub feet together. Apparently some people want to though or else there wouldn’t be any competitors in the World Toe Wrestling Championship.

Believe it or not though, that’s not even the highest rated in this list of weird world championships.

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What Simpsons foods would you want to try? Personally, I’m curious about tomacco.

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Humans might be one of the only animals to use tools as weapons, but Crack has a great list of animals born with weapons built right into their bodies -like the Giant Amazonian Centipede’s ninja skills, which allow him to catch and eat whole bats. Read about the rest at the link.

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While this picture is already enough for most people to realize this is something no one should ever do,the fact that there is actually a record for most rattlesnakes held in the mouth at one time is just plain wrong. For more bizarre records, check out this great article over at All That is Interesting.

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We’ve all heard about snakes eating food bigger than them, but this is just ridiculous. The black swallower eats fish that are 3 times larger than it by grabbing it by the tail and swallowing as the fish coils up inside the swallower’s stomach. The Proceedings of the Ever So Strange have more about this bizarre fish that has never been seen alive.

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I know it’s a heart attack on a plate, but this fried pound cake peanut butter and jelly sandwich looks so delicious to me -and I don’t even like peanut butter! Would you guys try it or is it just another nasty overindulgence that belongs on This Is Why You’re Fat?

Link Via Craftzine

(Video Link)

The video isn’t nearly as raunchy as my title might have you believe, but it can be even more disturbing. I’ll be honest, this video gives me chills every time I watch it. Even so, it’s fascinating to watch the surinam toad give birth, being as how the male embeds the eggs on the female’s back.

Via The Ever So Strange

Link Image via parl [Flickr]

Peep Show

This classic, sexy Peep diorama is probably the most famous ever made as it has spread its way across the internet for years. The oldest version I could find comes from Flickr user Amenhotep4, but I don’t think he’s the creator of the diorama. If you know were it comes from, please let me know in the comments.

Sweety Todd: The Demon Barber of Peep Street

This diorama by Flickr user mreraser’s friends Matt and Teresa is by far one of my favorites. There is so much detail in the decorations and I can’t help but love the blood on the decapitated Peeps and the maniacal look on Sweety Todd’s face.

We Come In Peeps

This adorable diorama was created by Dan Paddock and sent in directly to BoingBoing after the site posted this bizarre and slightly scary fake magazine cover called “Rest In Peeps, Anna Nichole Smith.”

Alien Peeps

Of course, not all alien travelers are peaceful as Daniel Spiess made clear in his chest-burstingly scary Peeps diorama, which was based on the movie Alien.

Peeparassic Park

This Peep-filled tribute to Jurassic Park by Flickr user babelglyph was so massive that one photo couldn’t capture the full detail. This Jeep attack shot is my favorite of the series as it shows just how terrifying the dinosaur attacks actually were.

The Village Peeps

This disco-themed diorama by Flickr user Chris Williams is great, but perhaps the best detail is the adorable little hats the Village Peeps are wearing.

Bacon Peeps

If you love bacon then you’re sure to love the bacon peeps featured on the Peeps Diorama Contest blog.

Fail Peeps

Twitter lovers everywhere are sure to recognize this symbol of failure, recreated in Peep form on the Peeps Diorama Contest blog.

David & Golipeep

That same contest blog also brought us this brilliant recreation of the classic biblical story of David versus Goliath. Golipeep is one intimidating marshmallow character, he almost looks like he should be the villain in a Ghostbusters movie instead.

Anniversary Apollo Peeps

If you think working at NASA was all serious science with no time for fun and games, you are wrong my friend. This adorable Apollo 40^th Anniversary diorama was put together by the space program’s printing and design team.

Peepcropsy

Ever wonder what the organs of the little sugary sweet candies must look like? Flickr users Ben+Sam did, which led to the creation of this detailed Peeps autopsy lab.

The Peeple vs. Scott Walker

This Peep version of the Wisconsin protests is so accurate that it actually incited quite the debate between our Neatorama commenters, just like the real protests. It was first uploaded by escapetochengdu, but it’s hard to say if he made it and, if not, who the real creator is.

Office Olypeeps

If you’re a fan of the office, then you’ll love The Office Peeps Contest held at Office Tally. While this one didn’t win, it’s still my favorite, not least of all because I absolutely love that episode.

If you’re interested in checking out more, the biggest Peeps diorama contest is the one hosted by The Washington Post, so you can see their past winners and current entries by clicking the link. And, of course, feel free to share any links to dioramas you have made at home.

Harry Potter Cockroach Clusters

You’ve probably all seen the Harry Potter jelly beans with such delightful flavors as earwax, pepper and vomit, but these cockroach clusters are equally disgusting although less popular. Like a real cockroach, they have a squishy center with a crunchy shell. Fortunately, these candy versions have a gummy underbelly with a crunchy candy shell on top.

Hotlix Suckers

If fake cockroaches don’t do it for you, perhaps real bugs will. Whether you like worms, crickets, ants or scorpions, Hotlix sells a variety of bugs sealed in a lollipop. All of them are entirely edible and utterly icky.

Image via Erin_M [Flickr]

Fear Factor Candy

With all the nauseating eating challenges in Fear Factor, it’s only sensible that the show spawned its own line of revolting treats. While there are way too many products to list here, some highlights include slimy gummy octopuses in syrupy goo and gummy frog legs with crunchy bones that come with a blood dipping sauce.

Chocolate Doo Drops

While this may look like dog droppings, it is actually made from one of Europe’s finest chocolatiers, Guittard Chocolate of California. Best of all, it’s over a 1/3 of a pound…yummy!

Chocka Ca Ca

Bodily functions are a huge seller in the nasty candy category, which is why it’s not surprising that there are not only dog poop candies, but chocolate turtles in baby diapers as well. On the upside, the diaper is still clean and usable, so many parents will find the packaging to be refreshingly useful.

Urine Sample Candy

Nothing like a sterile sample of urine to get your sweet tooth buzzing. Naturally the flavor is a slightly sweet and sour lemonade candy, just be sure not to get the candy mixed up with your company’s random drug test sample or you’ll have a terrible taste in your mouth while you try to explain the results to your boss.

Zit Poppers

Pus is yet another of those exciting bodily fluids that excite the gross candy maker’s mind. With gummy Zit Poppers, you can squeeze the pimples and enjoy the sweet strawberry and watermelon flavor of the bloody pus inside.

Candy Blood Bag

For aspiring vampires that haven’t yet acquired the taste for real iron-rich blood, these candy blood bags are a good stepping stone.

Lick Your Wounds Candy Scabs

Like real scabs are to blood, these candy scabs are essentially the same thing as candy blood, only in a dried version. They supposedly taste like cherry sweet tarts, but the real fun isn’t in the taste, but the design. The Band Aid part sticks to your arm and the bandage area opens to reveal the edible scab. You can even refill the bandage with more scabs so you can keep munching.

Ear Wax Candy

When you are ready to move from scabs to ear wax, try these utterly sickening ear wax candies instead. The plastic ear is filled with candy gel that you can enjoy when you pull it out with a lollipop stick shaped like a Q-Tip.

Hose Nose

If you would rather swallow snot than ear wax, then you may enjoy the Hose Nose. It pours liquid candy that can be squeezed directly into your mouth with the nose shaped dispenser which looks like a giant schnoz.

Chum Bucket

While the candies above are all gross due to the design, there are some candies that are just gross by nature (salted liquorice, I’m looking at you). While the packaging of the Chum Bucket is gross, the fact that the candies actually taste like chum is what makes them completely revolting.

There are tons of other gross candies out there, these are just the sickest ones I was able to find. If you know any others, feel free to add them in the comments.

Bloodletting

To be fair, bloodletting is far from a cure-all like medieval doctors believed, but it is still a useful practice in some cases. When someone suffers from excess iron, known as hemochromatosis, bloodletting is an effective means of releasing the built up iron. The treatment is also used to help people who have too many red blood cells in their blood stream, a condition known as polycythemia.

Maggot Therapy

I know most people think the last thing they should ever see at a hospital is a maggot, but they can actually be a quite effective and sanitary way to treat wounds that do not respond to conventional medicinal treatments. The bowfly larvae eat away dead tissue and bacteria, allowing the healthy, living tissue to thrive. “I call them microsurgeons,” said Edgar Maeyens, Jr., a doctor in Coos Bay, Oregon, who employs maggot treatment. “They can do what we can’t do with scalpels and lasers.”

In many cases, the maggots can help treat festering wounds that have been open for weeks, even years, within only a day or two. While the treatment is pretty gross looking, patients rarely feel anything and when they do, it’s generally an itching or tickling sensation and nothing more.

Leech Therapy

Image via OakleyOriginals [Flickr]

What happens when you cross bloodletting and maggot therapy, you get bloodsucking leech therapy. Of course, the leeches aren’t used for everything, including headaches and ear infections, like they were in medieval times; instead they are used to help drain blood from swollen parts of the body after reconstructive surgery. Doctors find they are particularly helpful when the areas contain many blood vessels that can easily clot up, like the ear.

New studies are underway to find the effectiveness of leeches in other treatments, such as the reduction of pain and inflammation of osteoarthritis.

Worm Therapy

Apparently there have been thousands of micro-surgeons swarming the earth before mankind began, we just never had the science to back them up until now. Worm therapy is yet another insect treatment that is quite promising, and incredibly disgusting. The treatment involves the use of a parasitic worm (the type depends on the specific condition) being intentionally released within the patient’s body.

While scientists have still not drawn any firm conclusions as to the effectiveness of this treatment and the reason it seems to work, preliminary studies have been largely favorable in showing the parasites do have a positive effect. The worms have been used in a variety of treatments including celiac disease, Chron’s disease, allergies, asthma, multiple sclerosis and ulcerative colitis.

Image via AJC1 [Flickr]

Malaria As A Treatment

How did they treat syphilis before antibiotics were discovered? With a little dose of malaria, that’s how. While it sounds crazy, this treatment is relatively effective. The high fever from the malaria kills the syphilis bacteria and malaria can then be treated with quinine.

If you ever find yourself suffering from syphilis and happen to have malaria treatments on hand, but no antibiotics, you can always try this treatment. Otherwise, it has fallen out of favor since we now have safer methods to treat the STD. Even so, it is still used in some parts of the world.

Fecal Bacteroetherapy

Image via psd [Flickr]

If you were grossed out by any of the other treatments so far, then you may want to skip past this probiotic treatment. Fecal bacteroetherapy is exactly what it sounds like, the treatment of certain diseases with fecal mater. It works by transplanting healthy fecal material from a donor and then inserting it anally via enema into the patient. The healthy bacteria from the sample are believed to help restore normality to the patient.

The treatment is considered quite effective for treating severe inflammatory bowel disorder and may be a good alternative treatment for Chron’s disease and a few other conditions.

Smoking Therapy

Image via locator [Flickr]

Smoking is a bad habit in most cases, but people at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s or Parkinson disease may find the benefits to be worth the risks as studies have shown a 50% reduction in these diseases in smokers.

What’s the weirdest treatment you’ve ever undergone?

Source: National Geographic, Live Science, Wikipedia, Neatorama, Health Mad

If you thought KFC’s Double Down was bad, just wait until you get your hands on the new Fried Cheese Melt from Denny’s. The heart-stopping monstrosity combines 4 fried mozzarella sticks and a grilled cheese sandwich. At only $4 with a  an included side of fries, it’s a lot more filling for the price tag than the Double Down. I have to admit, while I found the Double Down to be seriously nasty looking, I am a sucker for cheese, so this actually looks pretty good to me.

Would you eat it?

Link Via Consumerist

You’ll notice some of the flavors seen on other lists, like lychee, red bean and sesame, are not included here, as they are everyday dessert flavors in their country, and therefore, not all that strange as an ice cream flavoring. Instead, this article focuses on those flavors that make even the most native-son of a given region ask “what the heck were you thinking?”

Something’s Fishy

Agutuk

It could be debated whether or not this North American frozen treat is technically an ice cream, being as how it’s made without any cream or even vegan-friendly cream substitutes, but its nickname, “Eskimo Ice Cream” and its shocking ingredients certainly qualify it to be on this list. So what’s in agutuk? Snow, berries, seal oil and reindeer fat. If cute animals make delicious food, then this has got to be the best ice cream around.

Image via Andrea Pokrzywinski [Flickr]

Crab

As for more traditional ice creams with non-traditional flavors, this savory crab ice cream is described as more of a frozen crab bisque than what you would normally think of as ice cream.

Lobster

The lobster ice cream seems a lot more along the lines of a traditional American dessert product, as it has a sugary butter base with chunks of sweet lobster blended in. A Massachusetts dessert parlor started making the treat just to prove that they actually do concoct their own flavors. Surprisingly, the flavor took off and is now one of the most popular items served.

Caviar

For an equally luxurious treat, consider the caviar ice cream by Philippe Faur. If that’s not your style, he also makes mustard, Roquefort, black truffles, pepper and foie gras flavor as well. Unlike the lobster ice creams, these aren’t meant for dessert though, they are actually intended as a side dish or appetizer to tantalize the senses and prepare you for accompanying flavors to come.

Oyster

Apparently luxurious savory ice creams aren’t actually a modern trend, but an old time classic that has been long forgotten about. Lorraine Eaton discovered and posted a recipe for oyster ice cream that dates back to 1824 and was supposedly a popular treat amongst the upper classes in the time of the Revolutionary War. The dish itself is essentially just an oyster stew with the oysters strained out. Reviews from Eaton’s recreation of the dish seem fairly mixed and one tester nearly vomited after tasting it, but it would certainly be a brave appetizer for those who want to feel a gourmet connection with the founding fathers.

Shrimp

If you’re looking for a customizable fish-based ice cream, better head to Cold Stone Creamery in Florida’s Fernandina Beach during the local shrimp fest to try their shrimp ice cream with your choice of mix-ins. Apparently, the light flavor of shrimp makes this base a perfect compliment to tropical fruits like pineapple and coconut.

Octopus, Squid Ink and Eel

The Japanese are known for being very open to new flavors. In fact, ice cream itself is even a fairly recent addition to the national palate, which is why they are so open to experimenting with flavor combinations most Americans could never even imagine. Some fun flavors you might be afraid to try include octopus, squid ink and eel. Supposedly the octopus flavor isn’t too bad and it doesn’t have any chunks in it unless you buy it garnished with tentacles. Squid ink has a rather mild flavor, so the pitch black sweet also gets fairly high ratings, even from non-natives.

On the other hand, eel seems to be limited to those with more “acquired tastes” for the fish and is said to taste incredibly fishy, or as one reviewer put it, “imagine a section of the ocean where about eight thousand very large sea creatures have died and started to decompose.” I’m all for exotic tastes, but this is one I think I’d have to pass on.

Images via wilhelmja [Flickr], Katherine Donaldson [Flickr] and Associated Content

Where’s The Meat?

Beef Tongue, Pit Viper and Horse

The same Japanese ice cream company that brought you the aforementioned fishy flavors has also concocted many out of land-dwelling creatures, including cows, snakes and horses, yes, horses. All three flavors were present at The Yokohama Ice Cream Expo and Beef tongue was surprisingly one of the most popular flavors at the entire convention.

Pit vipers are one of the most deadly snakes in Japan, but they are also considered an aphrodisiac, which is perhaps the only reason an ice cream was made from them, as the flavor is said to be pretty nasty.

Perhaps the most disturbing of the ice creams though, at least to Western sensibilities, is the raw horse flesh ice cream, which is as disturbing as it sounds: a vanilla ice cream with chunks of uncooked horse meat. Apparently, it is not entirely uncommon to see horse meat served in Japanese restaurants as a type of sashimi.

Images via foxypar4 [Flickr], Kat the Acrobat [Vox] and Andrea RF [WordPress]

Taste The British Isles

Don’t think the Japanese are the only ones to make gross flavors of ice cream. Master ice cream maker Gino Soldan recently made headlines when he made creamy desserts from some of the best-known British cuisines, including haggis, pork pie, shortbread and sausages with mash. Soldan, who works in the Morelli’s ice cream parlor in Harrod’s, is no stranger to unique flavors. In fact, he’ll make just about any flavor you want as long as you give him enough advanced notice and once made a pickled onion and white chocolate ice cream as a special request for a party.

If you’re less adventurous, perhaps you’d like to try some of his easier-to-swallow gourmet flavors that include Yorkshire pudding, clotted cream and eccles cake.

Images via Opheliates [Flickr] and Mattingham [Flickr]

Pork Rinds

Here’s one from Mexico, I can’t find much info on it, but apparently the Central Mexican town of Dolores Hidalgo has recently had a huge tourism surge after setting themselves apart in the culinary world by suddenly creating hundreds of new ice cream flavors that you can find in parlors throughout the town. While the pork rinds flavor is one of the most notable, it isn’t one of the favorites, however the avocado and tequila flavors have pretty high ratings.

Candied Bacon

Of course, not all meat-flavored ice creams are necessarily bad. While I understand the frustration some people feel at the whole bacon in everything trend, I do think candied bacon ice cream sounds rather tasty. After all, with a touch of maple syrup and some brown sugar, it already has a very candy-like flavor which seems ideal for ice cream flavoring.

Eat Your Vegetables

Salad

Lest you eat too much meat ice creams and need to follow up with some healthy veggies, relax, you can still keep your meal sundae ready with this salad ice cream. According to Food Network Humor, it has a strawberry base with lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

Candied Mushroom

Like bacon, there appears to be some way to “candy” mushrooms (I’ve never tried this have any of you?) and once you’ve candied them, they are supposedly pretty tasty when added to ice cream. The flavor seems to be mild, but a little nutty and earthy, which sounds about right for mushrooms.

Chilies

If you ever have trouble deciding if you want your mouth to be freezing cold or burning hot, then Sunny Sky’s “Cold Sweat” ice cream is just what you need. Made with three of the hottest peppers on earth and two killer hot sauces, those who are brave enough to try the burning cold treat are required to sign a waiver before doing so and pregnant women and those with health problems are advised to avoid it all together.

Image via sisterbeer [Flickr]

Spices Are the Spice of Life

Curry

If peppers don’t provide enough spice to kick up your ice cream, perhaps curry will. This recipe sounds surprisingly good to me, though I am far more curry-obsessed than the average person, as it combines sweet Japanese curry and carrots.

Garlic

While many people shiver at the thought of garlic ice cream, it is somewhat well-known and loved, particularly in Northern California, where it is a traditional part of the Gilroy Garlic Fest and a popular menu item at the garlic-themed Stinking Rose restaurant in San Francisco. If you don’t live in the region though, you can always try making your own at home with this recipe.

Image via Mila Sogono [Flickr]

Wasabi

“Japanese horseradish” isn’t just for sushi anymore, you can now try it in ice cream flavor. I’ve seen a few Japanese brand names carrying the flavor in stores, but for those of us who live outside of the flavor-adventure island, we can still make our own with this helpful recipe.

Image via puck77 [Flickr]

Mustard, Roquefort and Grass

France has always worked to be the epicenter of culinary trends and while the Japanese have been munching wasabi and beef tongue, Parisians have been exploring their own unique savory flavors, including mustard,  Roquefort cheese, and even grass. They also have some sweet flavors that sound downright heavenly, like Earl Gray.

Image via roboppy [Flickr]

Barbecue Sauce

Delaware ice cream shop Udder Delight may not be the first company to experiment with bacon ice cream, but they are the first to make their own barbeque sauce ice cream. Cackalacky Spice Sauce is an award winning sauce made by a friend of Chip Hearn, the ice cream parlor owner, which is where Hearn got the idea to incorporate it into his ice cream line ups.

Udder Delight also has one other flavor you might be shocked to hear about –Viagra. It doesn’t actually include any of the miracle pill, but it is instead a blue ice cream with orange and pineapple flavors and the fizziness of Pop Rocks.

Other Weird  and Wacky Flavors

Beer

Beer drinkers rejoice, you no longer have to choose between a frothy cold one and a frozen cold treat. Ben and Jerry’s has a beer sorbet recipe in their cookbook and if you’d like some really gourmet flavors, there’s always the Raspberry Lambic Ice Cream, Apricot Ale Frozen Custard and Speedy Stout Mocha Freeze recipes available here.

Charcoal

Anyone who’s ever had to try activated charcoal tablets will gladly tell you just how gross the stuff tastes. So why someone would purposefully make an ice cream flavored with it is beyond me. Although, I guess if you had to eat charcoal after a potential poison scare, it would probably be moderately better in ice cream form. Maybe parents with nibble-happy children should start stocking their freezers now.

Stilton or Parmesan

I already mentioned the many Roquefort cheese ice creams on the market, but how does stilton or parmesan sound? While I love cheeses, I don’t know if I’m ready for them to start bombarding my ice creams just yet. Although the parmesan is described as having just a little salty flavor, the strong flavor of stilton is sure to be jolting to the taste. Perhaps it would be good as an appetizer with crackers though.

Topping It All Off

Toad Sweat

Toad Sweat is the ideal sundae topping for your cold sweat ice cream. It’s a flavored sauce with chilies so it’s creamy, spicy and sweet all at once. The company sells lemon vanilla, chocolate orange, key lime, and cranberry, all blended with habanero peppers.

I had something similar in the chocolate flavor before and while I’m not a huge fan of spicy foods, I have to say the flavor combination was actually quite good, as it left you craving more ice cream to cool the gentle burn of the delicious chocolate sauce.

Image via Stu Spivack [Flickr]

Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

This East Village ice cream truck offers up some of the most unique Sundaes around, featuring toppings such as caramelized bacon, olive oil with sea salt, curried coconut, pumpkin butter, cayenne pepper and wasabi pea dust. Have any of you seen these trucks around?

I would say the weirdest ice cream flavor I’ve ever tried would probably be aloe vera. While it sounds strange, it was actually quite good. So good, in fact, that when I couldn’t find a recipe for it online, I ended up experimenting until I found my own perfect flavor.

What’s the weirdest flavor you guys have ever tried, and would you try any on this list?

You pee, I pee, we all pee – but have you ever given thought to what exactly you’re flushing out of your body? In her book That’s Disgusting! An Adult Guide to What’s Gross, Tasteless, Rude, Crude, and Lewd, Greta Garbage explains all sorts of bizarre trivia about urine.

Warning: not for the squeamish. True to the title of her book, Greta Garbage’s book is like a No Holds Barred trivia book about really gross things. You’ve been warned (or if this sort of things interest you, then “urine” for a treat!)

Facts About Urine

Some people are totally fascinated with the useless fact their piss smells different after they eat asparagus. Indeed, one pundit suggested that it's just a matter of time until someone produces a cartoon Asparagusman, whose primary job it is to sniff out people who have just eaten that vegetable.

Technically, the asparagus doesn't make the urine smell, some people just have the fairly useless ability to pick it out. There have been at least three studies determining how many people have this claim to fame, as if it mattered.

Tens of thousands of words have been written on smell hypersensitivity - even Benjamin Franklin, who surely had better things to do, jokingly suggested that a drug be found that could make a fart smell like perfume.

But if you feel you must know more about asparagus and pee-smell, you're probably best off waiting for the cartoon.

Here's a wee bit more about piss. Actually, your urine is odorless until after it comes out of your body. What you smell then is ammonia - yep, the same stuff you clean with.

Asparagus isn't the only thing some people smell in urine. Drinking turpentine is said to make urine smell like a rose, so hundreds of years ago, women would drink turpentine so their piss would smell sweet.

One man claims that large quantities of onions, especially in curried rice, make his piss smell odd, but so far this claim has not been backed up by rigorous testing.

If you really want to know:
• Eating beets can turn your urine red.
• Vitamin B2 makes it bright yellow.
• Certain blue dyes make it blue-green.
• L-dopa makes it dark brown.
• Rhubarb sometimes makes it brownish or pinkish.

What's really important, though, is not color but intensity. A good clue to health is the darkness of the urine hue. Experts say that you should pee pale. (In other words, if you're not getting enough water in your system, your urine will be darker.)

Adult men usually pee in a narrower stream than women do because sex and children can affect the women's tissues there. This unusual fact was used to test virginity centuries ago: If a woman peed like a man, she was thought to be a virgin. (Some idiots in those days also thought they could just look at urine and tell if the woman was intact.)

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Piercing the penis may also affect the stream, since it can cause spraying, split-stream pissing, and so on. Indeed, after piercing, some men have to cover the hole with their hand in order to urinate normally. God knows what anyone next to them in a men's room thinks they're doing.

Urine: Practical Jokes and Assaults

For some people, sticking their hands in water makes them have to pee. Years ago, a man used to wander around beaches in Southern France, looking for sleeping women.
He carried a glass of water with him, and when he found an attractive woman, half asleep, sunbathing, he supposedly put her hand into the glass of water and then watched her pee. Well, it's a good story, anyway.

Remember the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and how he gallantly threw his cape down so Queen Elizabeth could pass by?

There are two things the history book probably didn't tell you about that:
• First, it was probably a puddle of urine, not water;
• Second, what did he do with his cape afterward?

Moo goo pee pan: Last year, after a tenant in Long Island became suspicious that her landlord was entering her apartment when she was gone, she installed a video camera.

She got a clear picture of her landlord, a forty-one-year-old computer programmer, removing a cardboard container of leftover Chinese food from the fridge, peeing in it, and putting it back.

This happened on three occasions in 1998, during which time let's hope she ate out.

Toilet water-literally: A Zimbabwean man was convicted (and sentenced to only a month) for selling perfume that was really his own urine. Fortunately, most women realized when they opened the package at home that it didn't smell like perfume and discarded it.

But one woman, who filed the complaint, applied it, took one whiff, and realized that what was on her wrists was more like Channel #1 than Channel #5.

A twelve-year-old boy removed the water from his teacher's water bottle and peed in it. Apparently the water didn’t taste funny to her, because she drank 8 to 10 ounces of it without ill effects. She only learned the truth because the boy bragged to his friends about what he had done.

She later sued the school, claiming the incident permanently damaged her ability to pee, and teach.

Waldorf Hysteria: In a very strange incident at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, a fifty-year-old New Jersey fashion consultant claimed a naked woman trying to enter her hotel room awakened her in the middle of the night.

Even odder, she said the woman (somehow) supposedly urinated on her door when she couldn't get in.

She sued the hotel-not for that, but for the food poisoning she claimed she got from the basket of fruit the hotel gave her to apologize for the alleged bizarre incident.

Moral of the story: Ignore people who piss at your door, and never eat free fruit.

A joke to play with urine is to freeze a small amount of pee in a shallow dish, take it out, and then slip the "pee puck" into the mail slot on someone's door, tossing it in as far away from the door as possible.

When the frozen urine melts, the person will find a mysterious puddle near the door, and forever wonder how in hell it got there when no one seems to have entered the house.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

The Anatomical Chart Company sells authentic urine specimen bottles to give as house gifts, so recipients can serve their guests wine like urine. (It could have been worse; they could have served Gallo.)

Uses for Urine

To us, a piss is just a piss, but historically, urine has been used in many unusual ways. For example, urine has been incorporated into wedding ceremonies. At weddings in North Africa, for ceremonial purposes, the bride's urine was sprinkled on the guests after the wedding. (Perhaps as a symbol of the sort of treatment the groom should come to expect.)

"You may now piss the bride": Sometimes, even in "civilized" countries like England and Ireland, the guests drink the bride's urine.

Because of its antiseptic properties, urine was once used to wash wounds on the battlefield. Centuries ago, when someone's nose was cut off during a duel, the surgeon peed on it to clean it before it was stitched back on.

Urine has been used to make tweeds. According to Almanac of the Gross, Harris Tweed is still made today in Scotland the way it was made for hundreds of years. From yarn dyed with lichen - that has been soaked in human urine.

Urine was used as an eyewash - recommended in the thirteenth century by Pope John XXI, no less! And one pharaoh claimed he got his eye cured with the urine of a woman - whom he later thanked by marrying.

A squirt a day keeps the dentist at bay: Long ago, urine was often used as toothpaste. It was believed that brushing one's teeth with urine would make the teeth whiter. It may have actually worked, too, because ammonia is a product of stale urine.

Urine has also been used as a mouthwash. Bad enough to swish it around in one's mouth, but it was said to be most effective if kept in the mouth for long periods of time.

Urine may also repel cats and dogs. (Not to mention brothers, sisters, boyfriends, girlfriends, and strangers.) In a bizarre letter to the editor of the New England Medical Journal, a doctor wrote that two of his patients who had applied urine around the edges of their gardens had successfully kept neighboring dogs and cats from entering them.

One man had poured sterile urine out of a vessel; the other had urinated every few steps until he had accomplished his goal. Not satisfied with merely freaking out his neighbors, he insisted on telling everyone about it.

A few other recorded uses for urine:
• To get rid of acne.
• To wash linens. The Romans used to do this.
• To tan leather.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Uncivil war: Richard Zachs, in History Laid Bare, reveals that urine was distilled into nitre for gunpowder during the Civil War. It seems that Confederate wagons went down the streets so women could donate the pee from their chamberpots. This inspired an amusing poem by an Alabama soldier, part of which went as follows:

We thought the girls had work enough making shirts and kissing
But you have put the pretty dears to patriotic pissing.
…But 'tis an awful idea…gunpowdery and cranky,
That when a lady lifts her skirts, she's killing off a Yankee!

This inspired a retaliatory verse from a Northerner:

... And vice versa, what would make a Yankee soldier madder
Than dodging bullets fired from a pretty woman's bladder?
They say there was a subtle smell that lingered in the powder
And as the smoke grew thicker and the din of battle louder
There was found to this compound one serious objection
No soldier boy did sniff the stuff without having an erection!

Urine Drinking

I.P. Freely: Urine is actually quite clean - 96 percent of it is water anyway - and there are no bacteria in it until it's out of your body. But although it's sterile, drinking it may carry a risk of transmission of the HIV virus, so it may therefore not be safe to drink someone else's urine.

Some also believe that drinking urine could strain your kidneys, since urine contains salts that your body is trying to get rid of. They suggest that if you're going to drink urine, you also drink lots of water as well. But if you're going to drink lots of water, why bother drinking urine?

Still, urine is currently considered a power drink that's free and has been recommended by several sources:

• Mahatma Gandhi, who drank it regularly.
• Euro-Peeins and English folks like the actress Sarah Miles, who helped make it popular.
• Elvis Presley's mother used to pee into a jar, and then put the pee in her beer with an eyedropper, believing it would confer health benefits on her, even if it wasn't all shook up.
• Pat Boone admitted on The Daily Show that he had tried it.
• Newsweek magazine ran a story about urine drinking.
• Environmental advocates occasionally publicly endorse it, advocating it as the ultimate in recycling.
• Kevin Costner drank it in Waterworld, whose title had nothing to do with that part of the movie.
• The leak(er) shall inherit the earth: The Bible says in Proverbs 5:15, "Drink waters out of thine won cistern." (It could have been worse. It could have said, "Drink water out of thine own sister.")

Don't say cheese: Occasionally other stories of historical urine drinking pop up. For example, a man in Germany was tried years ago for putting the urine of young girls into cheese to improve its taste.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Gee whiz. Is there a doctor in the outhouse? At an Auto-Urine Therapy conference in India in the late 1990's, 600 delegates from seventeen nations discussed the medical benefits of drinking their own urine.

Probably a nice bunch of people there, but would you really want to go to their cocktail parties?

The article above is reprinted with permission from That's Disgusting : An Adult Guide to What's Gross, Tasteless, Rude, Crude, and Lewd by Greta Garbage, published by Ten Speed Press.

Believe it or not, this is actually the "milder" subject that's suitable for printing on Neatorama. Greta's book is jam-packed with endlessly en"gross"ing (see what I did there?) info about things that are revolting.

Link: Amazon | Interview with Greta Garbate

French Fry Wrapped Bacon On A Stick

On second thought, why wrap everything with bacon when you could just put a thick slice of bacon on a stick? To make things even better, try coating it with French fries glued on with corndog batter and then deep fry it. As the creator says, you could make it a bacon wrapped hot dog on a stick, but why bother with the inferior hot dog meat?

Link

Angel Food, Bacon & Chocolate On A Stick

If you like your bacon to be served on the sweet side though, perhaps you’d prefer this delightfully disgusting treat. Simply take some thick-cut bacon and fold it around a stick, then wrap it in angel food, deep fry it all and then dunk it in chocolate. Got milk?

Link

Chicken Parts On A Stick

Perhaps fatty pig but isn’t your favorite deep-fried animal remnant though. Maybe you like chicken innards or blood. If you think gizzards and fried hearts are gross, you’d better stay away from the street food in the Philippines, where deep fried chicken intestines and gelatinous chicken blood are both served on sticks. At least the chicken blood is kind of good for you.

Link #1, Link #2

Oddities On A Stick

The street food of the Philippines has nothing on the diversity of the food stalls on the streets of Beijing though. Many visitors to the Olympics have written about their surprise about finding scorpions, dung beetles, lizards, starfish, seahorses and more on a stick. According to Sun Hainan, a young food trader in the area, “Seahorses are good for men’s kidneys and their virility, Crustaceans are good for girls  -they improve their skin and looks-  and lizards boost virility.”

Link Image via AudreyH [Flickr]

Tempura Octopus On A Stick

There’s something about batter that just makes things on a stick that much more delicious. Compare the image of seahorses on a stick to this delightfully Japanese treat of tempura octopus tentacles on a stick. It’s hard to deny this treat would only look half as tempting without the delightful tempura batter.

Link

Dressing On A Stick

While other countries may think they have the on-a-stick concept down, I’m still convinced it’s something Americans have in their blood. After all, who else but a Southern woman (namely Paula Deen) would think to pair her deep-fried turkey with stuffing on a stick?

Link

Meatball Dinner On A Stick

Americans even improve the foods of other nations. While the picture may look like a simple meatball on a stick, it is much more. There is actually pasta cooked right inside the meatball itself to create a full spaghetti and meatball dinner with just one stickful of goodness.

Link Image via Deacon Steve [Flickr]

Pies On A Stick

Of course, not all foods on a stick need to be deep fried. These minipies on a stick aren’t exactly great for you, but at least they’re baked rather than fried. Think of them as soft, chewy lollipops, or as pies you can munch on the go.

Link

Cinnamon Rolls On A Stick

Speaking of delicious sweet treats on a stick, how about some little cinnamon rolls? The creator, Zoe, apparently makes an array of bread products on sticks, but what could be better than a cinnamon roll pop? Zoe created these treats and others to compete in the prestigious Minnesota State Fair. Just check out some of their amazing stick-foods available.

Link

S’more On A Stick

The Minnesota State Fair’s Oodles of Noodle booth just might have been where This Is Why You’re Fat reader Emily Fredrix discovered this ooey-gooey deep-fried s’more on a stick.

Link

Hot Chocolate On A Stick

If you’re looking for a DIY on-a-stick project that makes a great gift, you might want to consider making some of these delicious and lovely hot chocolates on a stick. Simply use the stick as a stirrer in a cup of warm milk and you’ll have rich, creamy cocoa that’s sure to keep you warm in the winter.

Link

Your turn readers. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen on a stick? Also which of these would you most likely snack on? I have to admit, I think the s’more on a stick looks like pure heaven.

Groups at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and at Florida International University hope to isolate the compounds that give us each a unique aroma. The problem is that our diet, medications, toiletries and other factors make it difficult to discern natural scent from manufactured odorants. And so, since 1973, George Preti of Monell has collected human odors, recently focusing on the underarm, the mouth and urine.

You won’t want to read this while eating. However, as a bonus you’ll see what the best job in science is! Link -via Digg

A lot of people buy clothes and immediately wear them without washing them, but a recent study has come out showing that this can be an unintentionally filthy habit. Good Morning America went to a number of both high-end and low-end retailers and purchased 14 items of clothing, which they then sent to Dr. Philip Tierno, director of microbiology and immunology at New York University, to test. The results were surprisingly disgusting; many of the items had fecal germs on them and one blouse also had vaginal organisms and yeast on it. Some of the samples had many people’s secretions, while others only had one heavily contaminated person’s germs.

While this isn’t usually enough to make you sick, it could be and either way, it is certainly disgusting.

Link Image via Clean Wal-Mart [Flickr].

The following is a Neatorama Shop Story, a narrative starring the products carried in this blog’s very own online store.

I Once Had a Chum from Nantucket

Summer, 1975. Quint, Dreyfuss and I had just boarded the Queequeg, a bigger boat sailing out of Nantucket. As the lithe, long torsoed teen temptresses and the shoreline that was their spawning ground grew smaller, the salty sea spread herself avast before us, forcing us to feel the magnitude of our own smallness whilst we succumbed to her every swell. Three sailors bobbing alone at sea, chummy in demeanor and aroma, comparing conquests, cutoffs and scars.

As per our manly agreement, we each brought one piece of personal swag. Ever the practical one, I had stowed the largest and most atmospheric jug of rum my summer sundries stipend could secure. Quint’s contribution was a family-sized stick of Old Spice for our mutual use upon disembarkation. As the sun set on the darkened sea, Dreyfuss, whose method, it is widely known today, requires that he never break character from “creepy annoying guy who smells even worse than you’d think,” finally revealed his trade secret, a strict diet of Chum Bucket: green candies, the color of sea sickness itself. Wafting up from the hinged tin came a bouquet of the gutted remains of the day’s catch sloshed overboard and washed ashore, decaying in tide pools for a fortnight until the slurry has congealed into a concentrated algae-crusted outcropping that just might make you sick if you lick it, captured in an after-dinner mint. If you have ever wondered what a gentleman from Nantucket tastes like, but due to geographic limitations have been unable to sample one, now is your chance. (Disclaimer: unlike in an actual close encounter with Dreyfuss or Quint, crabs are not included).

Chum Bucket is canned with artificial seafood flavor, so it just might be safe for vegans. Probably better not to take the risk, since the charming graphics on the tin imply that pureed pirate may be the actual source of the synthesized swill seasoning and octopussy scent. These candies cast the distinct smell and aftertaste of canine glucosamine supplements (waste not, want not), so if you savor the aroma of seaspray-dampened elderly arthritic Portuguese Water Dog, then this is the perfect people treat for you. It is an appropriate gift for fishermen, briny sea hags, and anyone who has ever wished for a candy that looks, smells and tastes like sweetened sea scum. It is the must-have goodie bag item for your next pirate party.

________

The story above is written by the dynamic duo Drs. Ernest and Convalescence Bidet-Wellville (hey, I didn’t name ‘em) of the University of Self-Conscious Consumerism in Olde Busytowne, Connecticut. I suspect they write cover stories for the CIA, so if I’m inexplicably missing the next few days, you know what happened.

Available from the Neatorama Shop: Chum Bucket Candy | See also our vast selection of other Offbeat Mints and Candies

We’ve posted our share of artery clogging-fair foods before, including the deep-fried Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich, but now KFC’s giving them all a run for their money. This heart attack-waiting-to-happen is called the Double Down Sandwich and it’s made of two deep fried chicken breasts used as bread for a bacon and cheese sandwich. It’s apparently only available in limited areas, so I’m wondering, have any of you Neatorama readers tried it and lived to tell the tale? For those of you who haven’t, would you try this delicious, bacony, deathwich?

Link Via Consumerist

Did you know frozen peaches and peas can actually be healthier for you than fresh ones? Were you aware that Chicken McNuggets actually contain beef extract?

There’s a whole lot most of us don’t know about the foods we eat every day and HowStuffWorks is here to fill us in on some of that info. Of course, I don’t recommend reading this if you’ve just ate -particularly if you just ate canned mushrooms.

Link

These Japanese snacks are actually called “Sea Otter Boogers” and apparently are quite tasty treats made of candied black beans. They’re yours for only about $6, of course, you have to speak Japanese to order them.

Link

When you need a bandage your options are rather limited – the traditional boring old band-aid or some embarrassing cartoon character-endorsed variation. Sometimes you just want something a little different and what can be better than these twisted scab bandages. They’re gross, fun and are far better than having Hello Kitty cover your boo-boo.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

These soaps are really cool, in a disturbing, nursing home kinda way. Apparently, they even have a nice minty scent.

Link – via blog

Whatever happened to appreciating the search for alternate fuel sources?

Link Via Consumerist, Photo by dotbenjamin [Flickr]

There’s been an abundance of cute on the web, particularly lately. At least one site aims to counter this movement, and that is Ugly Overload. I’ve been waiting for a great post to share, and this quick collection of tongues is just what the doctor ordered…although, I have to say, I still find the giraffe tongue to be quite cute.

Link

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.

Source

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?

Source

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

[YouTube Link]

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.

Source

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Have any of you ever experienced these foods? What did you think of them? If not, what was the weirdest thing you ever ate?

The gold pills shown to the right sound exactly like an old Dave Chapelle sketch, as they’re supposed to bling out your “leavings.” I have to agree with MSN on this one, I certainly do not want this as a gift, even if the person giving them spent oer $400 on my present.

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