7 frightening foods for the fearless eater

With a picture of a woman selling grilled spiders. Big-ass, grilled spiders.

Re: sea cucumbers:

One major issue, as the Oxford Companion to Food dryly notes: “It is distinctly phallic in appearance, a feature which is underline by its habit of ejecting sticky threads ... when squeezed.”

The Ortolan (a small songbird):

Once captured, the ortolan would traditionally be left in a dark box, where the lack of light would prompt it to gorge itself. When plumped up to three or four times its normal size, the bird would be drowned in a snifter of armagnac, then quickly roasted for six or eight minutes and served hot.

It's the brandy part that usually raises eyebrows; in an era of bolt guns and humane slaughter, drowning your food seems a tad gratuitious. The only obvious corollary is drunken prawns, found on some Singaporean and Indonesian menus, drowned in rice wine. Drowning a rare songbird somehow seems more sadistic than dunking a shrimp in booze.

The traditional means of eating the ortolan is whole — bones, innards and all, except the head or beak, which is bitten off — with the diner's head covered by a napkin.

The upfront explanation of the ritual? This impromptu headgear allows the diner to inhale all the roast bird's earthy, rich aroma.

Huh. That article is the perfect way to temporarily eliminate your appetite.

Still more appetite-ruining goodness:

Many Icelandic delicacies sound bizarre to the American palate, like puffin and svie (singed, boiled sheep's head). But none have more of a reputation than hákarl [HOW-kurl]: quite literally shark meat that traditionally was allowed to rot in the ground. It's typically prepared by burying a washed, gutted side of shark in gravel for six to eight weeks — or more likely nowadays, by soaking it in large plastic vats filled with brine — then allowing it to cure in the open air for another two months. One original purpose of this Viking-era process was to purge urine from sharks' blood and skin. (Sharks have no urinary tract and must secrete urine through their skin.)

After curing, the resulting slab of fish, which has an aroma often described as ammoniac, is covered with a thick brown crust. The crust is cut off and the white flesh inside eaten.

Why is the diner's head covered by a napkin?

Why is the diner's head covered by a napkin?

This impromptu headgear allows the diner to inhale all the roast bird's earthy, rich aroma.

eta:

"It is really like you are praying, see?" Palladin apparently said. "Like when you take the Mass into your mouth from the priest's hand in church and you think about God."

The alternate explanation is that a priest developed the custom to shield his gluttony, and shame, from God. You decide.

You want someone to see you eating that?

I can't remember having had a problem smelling my dinner before. My nose, see, is right above my mouth.

Now, if I were eating that bird, I might put a napkin over the dinner, and I was really looking to be told it was a typo.

I might put a napkin over the dinner, and I was really looking to be told it was a typo.

That was my first thought. Like, you'd cover up the bird before biting its head off.

Condi photo manipulation controversy: [link]

A manipulated photo of Condi appeared in USA Today - she looked like she was possessed, or about to shoot death-rays out of her eyes. Eventually, USA Today replaced the picture.

USA Today had this to say:

Editor's note: The photo of Condoleezza Rice that originally accompanied this story was altered in a manner that did not meet USA TODAY's editorial standards. The photo has been replaced by a properly adjusted copy. Photos published online are routinely cropped for size and adjusted for brightness and sharpness to optimize their appearance. In this case, after sharpening the photo for clarity, the editor brightened a portion of Rice's face, giving her eyes an unnatural appearance. This resulted in a distortion of the original not in keeping with our editorial standards.

[link]

I have to say, intentional or unintentional, that's a pertty hysterical photo.

Of course, I am blue-eyed and come from a long line of people who look like demons when photographed with flash, so I have no sympathy for Condi at all. My mother has a 4-generations family photo of about 30 people (I am a toddler in the foreground), with 60 points of demon-pink light brightening the family fun.

The death-ray shot is quite something, but the corrected one is hardly reassuring, which is what was supposed to be going on according to the caption.