Image Via McDonalds

Fast food is a booming industry, not only in our country, but all over the planet. Now, you have fast food chains like McDonalds and Pizza Hut moving themselves to as many different locations as they can in the world. One thing they seem to notice is, there needs to be area specific food for wherever they are putting up a new chain, or the place just will not succeed.

This means, you have McDonalds in different countries serving things that they would never serve here whilst also making sure they still have some American standards available for their varied customers. While the above lobster roll may be familiar to some New Englanders and Canadians, that is not necessarily the case for every other location. Most chains have never carried it, and that is just one example of many. Heck, that example is mild. How about a pizza stuffed with barbecue sauce and cream cheese? Yeah, this gets pretty odd.

Mental Floss put together a cool list of 15 items you can get at other fast food places around the world. Some of the food is familiar, some of it, not so much. Burger King's pumpkin burger being a prime example of just how WTF some of this stuff gets. But remember the old saying: one man's yuck is another man's yum. Sorry, I just made that up, but it stays.

(YouTube link)

Oh, you think you know what a sandwich is. After all, we’ve eaten so many of them all our lives, from peanut butter and jelly in our lunch bags to foot-long hoagies. But along the edges, the definition can be blurry. Is an ice cream sandwich really a sandwich? Or a corn dog? How about a burrito? A s'more? The Atlantic turned to the legal definition (yes, there is such a thing) to give us the lowdown once and for all. It turns out that even some of the things named sandwich aren’t legally sandwiches! -via Buzzfeed

(Photo: NariNari)

We've seen hamburgers with black buns before. But this new burger offered by Burger King outlets in Japan goes even further. This is the Kuro Burger, which has buns and a cheese made with bamboo charcoal. The garlic and onion sauce has black squid ink and the patties have black pepper. You can see more pictures at Kotaku.

What other black foods could we add? Maybe caviar, Oreo cookies, and black beans.

YouTube Link

British confectionery brand Mr. Kipling used 13,360 cakes to make a billboard outside London's Westfield Center mall. The assembly of the billboard took seven hours, and after it was assembled, the public was allowed to sample the sweet advertising. The billboard was designed by food artist Michelle Wibowo, whose résumé also includes a portrait of Princes William and George made out of 16,074 pieces of Toblerone chocolate. Via Foodiggity.

 

After looking at these pictures, my daughters asked me to make Frozen pancakes. I should be able to do that by just downloading Nathan Shields's stencils, then applying powdered sugar and cocoa. The stencils come in pairs so that you shade light and dark portions separately.

Shields is a famous pancake artist whose work we've featured extensively. I can't wait to see what he can create when he combines stencil work with his sculptural pancakes!

Some fast food chains have always had secret menus, while others have recently come around to the idea thanks to In-N-Out’s success with their secret menu, which makes customers feel like they've really mastered the art of eating out.

You used to have to search around online for posts detailing the contents of these secret menus, but now there’s a website dedicated to these deluxe dishes, and they're doing their best to gather every secret menu in one place- Hack The Menu.

They've collected 15 menus so far, for places ranging from Jamba Juice to Sonic, and they've even put together a list of healthy secret menu options, in case you're looking for some guilt free drive thru.

-Via DesignTAXI

KFC Japan has come up with an appropriately Japanese way to promote their fried food product- computer peripherals and earrings shaped like their famous “keñtakkii sutairu” golden fried chicken.

Fried chicken fans can win a USB mouse or thumb drive shaped like a drumstick, or some shiny dangling drumstick earrings by following KFC Japan’s Twitter account and tweeting about the contest with the hashtag “#KFCカーナルズデー” (“KFC Colonel’s Day”).

One lucky winner will be selected for each item, while the rest of the entrants are left dreaming of a day when fried chicken isn't just for dinner anymore.

-Via Kotaku

More and more people are coming around to the idea of eating bugs, and that’s a good thing because when traditional sources of protein grow scarce chances are there will still be tons of bugs.

(YouTube Link)

SpaceX engineer Andrew Rader created this deliciously informative video to demonstrate how easy it is to prepare a meal made from mealworms and crickets (and a lone scorpion) and dine like a space colonist.

Here's what Andrew is proposing:

We're going to Mars - but what are we going to eat? If we want to become a spacefaring people, we should consider broadening our culinary horizons.

Non-synthetic meat in a space colony makes no sense. At least most kinds of meat: shellfish and some kinds of fish might be options, but the best option in terms of efficiency and ease of production is to do what billions of people on our planet already do: eat insects.

As I discovered, it takes some getting used to :)

-Via Laughing Squid

And besides that, it's got to be delicious! Foodinese has perfected the complicated art of combining two of nature's perfect foods. To make your own French fry pizza, build an even layer of French fries in a circle, breaking up fries as necessary to do so. Then add mozzarella cheese, which acts as the glue that holds your pizza together.

Bake the crust for a few minutes, then remove it from the oven. Add the rest of your ingredients and bake for a few more minutes.

Suggestion for improvement: add beef gravy and cheese curd to make this a poutine pizza.

-via That's Nerdalicious!

(Photo: Jean Trinh/LAist)

Alfred Coffee & Kitchen is a cafe on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. It offers a novel take on the espresso shot. You can buy your happiness fuel in little ice cream cones that have been dipped in chocolate.

It's like a chocolate-chip cookie shot, except with a lot more caffeine. In fact, I don't see why espresso couldn't be served in chocolate chip cookie shots, preferably ones dipped in chocolate, then wrapped in a waffle ice cream cones, then dipped in chocolate again.

-via First We Feast

As many of you know, the cronut has been a serious staple of the pasty world for the last few years. Part crossiant, part donut, and all delicious. Though the fervor has died down a bit, it seems now would be the perfect time for you to make cronuts for some guests, friends, or fellow revelers and blow their minds with your awesome culinary skills. The reality is, they are not has hard to make as the world wants you to believe. 

I thought to further reitertate this point, what better thing to do than to post a simple to follow YouTube recipe for how to make your own Cronuts at home. Sorted Foods on YouTube have some great stuff on their page, so when you are done whipping up your cronuts, you should go check it out.

(YouTube Link)

A couple of things I will warn you before making this recipe. One, these things are addictive, so don't make dozens (as you may eat dozens). Two, when you offer them to people, pretend making them was like trying to climb Everrest. It will just make them respect how good they taste even more.

Jessica Siskin, an artist in New York City, creates Rice Krispie treats that will make you pause and stare in wonder before gobbling them up. They're not just desserts, but works of art. From her studio dubbed "Mister Krisp," she takes custom orders, making special treats for birthdays and other celebrations.

My suggestion: a 1:1 scale sculpture of Clayton Rindlisbacher, the inventor of Rice Krispies.

Begin moving forward at any point on the bacon strip. You will continue forever. Behold the infinite supply of bacon! Thanks to Instructables member PenfoldPlant, the dream is no long just a theoretical model, but a reality.

PenfoldPlant made his möbius bacon strips by twisting rashers of bacon around a rolling pin, then gluing them in place with a meat adhesive called transglutaminase. After letting the glue sit for a day, he removed the bacon from the rolling pin and baked it.

This is an adequate temporary solution. But I would like to see--someday--pigs that are genetically engineered to produce bacon like this. That would be more natural than just gluing bacon strips into a twist.

(Funny or Die link)

Funny or Die brings us a parody movie trailer about a dystopian world where junk foods is king, but one girl stands out because she prefers apples. It stars Chloe Grace Moretz, Tyler Posey, and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Bloody Mary science has, in the past few years, surged forward. The current pinnacle of human achievement in the field is the Bloody Mary that includes a whole deep fried chicken. You'll notice that the man holding that Bloody Mary is happy, but is laboring under the weight of it. It is a fantastic Bloody Mary but, perhaps, a bit too cumbersome. If you were attempting to consume it while driving a bulldozer or performing eye surgery, it could get awkward and difficult.

Thankfully, Perry Santanachote of Thrillist has a solution. His Bloody Mary popsicle gives you the same effect, but is designed for one-handed operation. To make them, you'll need bacon and vodka, and probably more than you might expect because you'll want to have some of each while preparing the popsicles.

You'll lay a few strips of bacon in vodka so give the vodka that bacony goodness and vice versa. Then wrap bacon around breadsticks and bake them until they form a glorious spear upon which you will mount the Bloody Mary. Freeze the Bloody Mary mix and vodka in a popsicle mold with the sticks inside. Do so overnight so that they're ready in time for breakfast.

-via Foodiggity