WARNING!!!...to those with sensitive noses.

To the people that need to smell their food before they eat it... this food is not for you!!!

This week's bizarre food is none other then the strong smelling Durian! With its potent smell of what some refer to as rotting fish or garbage. I find it bizarre for a fruit to smell so bad, maybe a vegetable but not a fruit, because when one thinks of fruit we think of sweet or sour but like anything, life makes exceptions and the durian fruit is certainly that the exception of fruits smelling only sweet or sour.

If your able to not get KOed by the strong potent smell of the Durian. The taste of the fruit is supposed to be a creamy sweetness that just melts in your mouth... my thoughts on this are, if its smelling that bad it best taste really good. I'm sure many others are thinking...no if it smells bad its gonna taste bad...duhh! But in the Durian's defense people from other regions of the world eat some of the stinkiest cheeses and say its delicious.

Durian is mostly grown in South East Asia like the forests of Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo. The Durian tree itself is something special because it will only start to bloom when the tree has finally hit the age of 15 years old...so if your thinking about growing one of these tree's its gonna be a while before you get any stinky fruit. Which makes me ponder if i go into the forest where there is a forest of Durian trees is that part of the forest going to smell just rotten and dying? 

  (The Durians on the tree look like lanterns...well to me at least)   

Here are some health facts about Durian :D

...oh stinky fruit you are good for us none the less :P

• Durian is rich in dietary fiber, which makes it a good bulk laxative. The fiber content helps to protect the colon mucous membrane by decreasing exposure time and as well as binding to cancer causing chemicals in the colon.
  
  
• Durian fruit is a good source of antioxidant vitamin-C (about 33% of RDA). Consumption of foods rich in vitamin C helps body develop resistance against infectious agents and scavenge harmful free radicals.
  
  
• The fruit is an excellent source of many health benefiting B-complex groups of vitamins; a rare feature among fruits, such as niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), pyridoxine (vitamin B-6) and thiamin (vitamin B-1). These vitamins are essential in the sense that body requires them from external sources to replenish.
  
  
• It also contain good amount of minerals like manganese, copper, iron and magnesium. Manganese is used by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase. Copper is required in the production of red blood cells. Iron is required for red blood cell formation.
  
  
• Fresh durian fruit is a very rich source of potassium. Potassium in an important electrolyte of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure.
  
  
• It also contains high levels of essential amino acid, tryptophan (also known as "nature's sleeping pill") which in the body metabolizes into serotonin and melatonin; these neuro-chemicals have an important functions like sleep induction and in the treatment of epilepsy.
  
  
  The last fact about Durian I found to be really interesting that the fruit contains high levels of tryptophan. I guess i find it interesting because many of my friends are having a hard time sleeping and the fact that how could something so rotten smelling but you to sleep...maybe KO you but not put you to sleep.
  
  
  Here is a little video about Durian fruit:
      (This video is actually very educational and you can learn a lot about this fruit in the short video.)

NATTO!!!!


or as i say "nat to those beans"


This week's bizarre food is natto or fermented soybeans. Natto is a real hit or miss with its consumers some people absolutely love it and can it eat for breakfast every single day, while others like myself run for the hills when we get the slightest hint that someone is eating natto. 

Yahhhhhh doesn't that just look so good >.< it looks like super spider web that has caught a bunch of bugs in my view.


When people ask me about natto my first thoughts are oh monk food? ... actually my first thoughts are the smell of the beans that just hits me like a brick wall. With this bizarre food i can say i have tried it, my friend had invited me over for lunch one day and I knew he was Japanese but i didn't know we were going to have an all monk/veggie lunch, i have nothing against vegetables because in my view they're the sources of great flavors! But that lunch i pretty much ate rice and norri which is just dried seaweed :D RICE BALLs were my saving grace that meal.




Looking around online i found a little fun fact about natto:


"Some manufacturers produce an odorless or low-odor nattō. The split opinion about its appearance and taste might be compared to vegemite in Australia and New Zealand, blue cheese in France, lutefisk in Norway and Sweden, Mämmi in Finland and Marmite in the UK. Even in Japan, nattō is more popular in some areas than in others. Nattō is known to be popular in the eastern Kantō region (Tokyo), but less popular in Kansai (Osaka, Kobe). About 236,000 tons of nattō are consumed in Japan each year."


I have nothing against natto or he people that eat it but please don't bring it over to my house and put it in my microwave it will STINK UP THE HOUSE!!! One of my childhood friend's younger sister did that and i just remembering her mom complaining about the smell and how it just lingered for days. Honestly though if you can get over the strong smell of natto its really not that bad tasting. And its very healthy for you its source of vitamin K and because its a bean its packing with protein!


"Nattō also contains large amounts of Vitamin K, which is involved in the formation of calcium-binding groups in proteins, assisting the formation of bone, and preventing osteoporosis. Vitamin K1 is found naturally in seaweed, liver and some vegetables, while vitamin K2 is found in fermented food products such as cheese and miso. Nattō has very large amounts of vitamin K2, approximately 870 micrograms per 100 grams of nattō." 


And here's a little video on natto...excuse the voices they can be a bit annoying -___-

Enjoy your fermented soy beans :D just DONT microwave em D;
  

Eye Eat You

Everything in EYE's sight you eat!!! 
I guess this includes the eyes of the blue fin tuna O.o 


This week's bizarre food is a blue fin tuna eyeballs....doesn't that sound just oh so....well different to say the least but yes people in China and Japan both eat the eyeballs of this fish.

I'm sure most people the only thing we hear about tuna is well a tuna fish sandwich...  yay for going back to our childhood memories...well not really my own seeing how i hated the smell of a tuna fish sandwich blaaaaaa it just smelled like yuck with the mixture of tuna and mayonnaise. Even to this day when my mom makes my dad a tuna fish sandwich for his lunch and i come home and i say "ewwwww did you make dad tuna fish?!" 


The only other time I'm sure some people think of tuna is when they go out for Japanese or Hawaiian food and they grilled, poached or have  poke ahi...ahi = yellow fin tuna...it almost looks like steak doesn't it? I'm planning on tricking my friend who isn't a really big fish fan and have her eat grilled ahi and just say its steak, I'm curious to see her reaction when she eats it.




So I'm sure after seeing these 2 lovely photos of delicious food you have forgotten what the topic of this post was all about but remember its about the EYEBALL!

Look at it...its just staring at you with its eye. A lot of friends have told oh i don't like to eat fish or see fresh fish because they look at me well getting them to eat this....well I'm almost certain i can say would be impossible.  

Its a little uncertain on how to eat this or even how to cook it but apparently after boiling it, the eye is kind of on the fatty side but the dark muscle is supposed to taste "okay" my judgement of "okay" my fair from someone else's, i feel like the eyeball maybe used as good source of flavor since it fatty so making a soup with it would probably be the best way to go if your going to try this.


Heres a little video of tuna eyeball with Andrew Zimmern, though in this case it actually sounds really delicious but then again how can something thats been braised in miso and red wine taste bad mmmm...can't wait to go Japan and try tuna eyeballs prepared like that :D

Eggs as old as 1000 years old

An egg as old time 

an egg as old as rhyme...

wait eggs can last longer then few weeks and be editable O.o

Thats right, this week's bizarre food is 1000 year old eggs. A Chinese cuisine that is made by preserving a duck, chicken or quail egg in a special clay mix for months at a time. The process makes the egg yolk turn black, and its supposed to enhance the flavor of the surrounding egg white, which becomes clear and gooey. The process goes a little like this...

Bury the eggs in a large crock that's been layered and lined with garden soil, and then store in a cool dry place for 3-4 months. Ingredients include a blend of equal parts of ash from charcoal, pine wood, and fireplace, along with salt and strong black tea.

SO... you start with EGGS

Add TIME with a few ingredients

                               

And your end results are called 1000 year old EGGs

                  and heres a little video about the 1000 year old egg

I have seen these eggs before but thats about it I've never smelled one or ate one, but the way people describe the way it smells and taste I don't know if I'm going to jump at the opportunity to eat one of these 1000 year old eggs. This is mostly due to food psychology. Foods that have strong unpleasant odors and are colors that are darker like Black, Blue or Purple we as people usually stay away from because these darker colors are related to raw or uneatable foods. 

So i guess you can add another style of eggs to your list theres;

Pouched

Scrambled

Sunny side up

Hard Boiled 

Hard Boiled with ingredients and then stored for pretty much ever.

and if you wondering how many other ways to prepare an egg visit this site:

http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2009/04/16/100-ways-to-crack-an-egg/

An Aspic

This week's bizarre food is one that i saw from one of my favorite movies: "Julie & Julia" directed by Nora Ephron and staring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Based on two true stories.

Watching this movie always brings me so much "joy" with its scenes of laughter and jokes its a movie one can easily just enjoy. 


ANYWAYS back to the bizarre food... an ASPIC 


Not an aspect nor and asset, but an aspic is a "jelly made with meat or fish stock, usually set in a mold and used as a garnish" well thats what the dictionary at least says in my personal opinion from what i seen from the movie and other lovely pictures to me it looks like a beef jello mold. It gives me shivers of the idea of jello plus beef equal actual food for people to eat. 

The red food like "thing" on the plate is an aspic...well an aspic that has fallen apart.

This is an aspic that hasn't fallen apart! and is made with spam chunks yahhhh not going anywhere near a spam aspic haha.

If you don't find beef and jello put together bizarre, well all i can say is...what is bizarre to you? and please share I'm curious :D

Dancing Squid

Its dead... and it dances O.o 

This dish is called:Ika odiri don common in Hakodate.
BUT. 
I find this dish to be completely bizarre, I'm no where near used to my entree being able to start dancing or to run off my plate. Though i understand how this works its still something different to say the least. Its all due to the soy sauce and its high sodium content. The sodium ions create a cell voltage differences. Because the squid is served fresh, the cells inside the squid are still active and when the soy sauce is poured on to it, the signals cross and the nerves are temporarily reactivated causing the squid to move or in this case dance.