10 crazy cocktails from around the world

by Jessica Festa on

Whatever happened to the days of just drinking vodka mixed with juice? Maybe some fruit added in, a sugar stick, or a mint leaf garnish. Apparently, these simple recipes are being replaced with edible scorpions, dead birds, and fermented rodents.

Snake Wine, Vietnam

In South East Asia, snakes are considered to be good for the health, with the thinking being that a shot or two can cure all ailments. According to happyhourmagonline.com, this wine is created by infusing an entire snake into in rice wine or grain alcohol. Apparently, there is even a snake village in Hanoi, Vietnam, which features numerous bars and restaurants where customers can sample the wine, among other snake delicacies, such as snake steak and fried snake skin.

Scorpion Vodka, England

This vodka is five times distilled and is produced 100% from single grain wheat. Who really cares about that, though, once you find out it is also enhanced with a real, edible (farm raised!) scorpion. Right on the website, the company promises that the scorpion’s “diet and environment is controlled to assure their good quality” and is “processed for human consumption, according to high quality food preparation standards”. Thank goodness!

Lizard Wine, China

This unique wine, according to Florin Nedelcu, is made by fermenting Ginseng, Gecko lizards, and rice wine in a clay vat for a year. The final product is green liquid (hmmm, wonder what that’s from?) and is said to taste similar to brandy, as well as improve vision and ward off evil spirits.

Seagull Wine, Arctic Circle

While my mother always warned me never to touch a dead bird, the people living up towards the North Pole must have been taught differently. The recipe for this wine is very simple, take a dead seagull, stuff it into a bottle of water, and leave it to ferment under the sun for a few days. I am not sure how they discovered that drinking dead seagull juice could get you drunk, but it apparently does the trick.

Mezcal, Mexico

While many people have heard of the tequila worm, it is actually a bottle of Mezcal that you should purchase if looking to swallow the worm at the bottom. Like tequila, it is made by distilling the fermented juice of agave plants in Mexico. The worm that you will sometimes find in the bottle, according to tastings.com, is actually “the larvae of one of two moths that live on the agave plant”. While the reason for adding the worm to some Mezcals isn’t set in stone, it is believed that it shows drinkers that the proof of the alcohol is high enough to keep the worm in tact.

Deer Penis Wine, China

I’m sure you’re probably thinking that the name must be a joke but, alas, this drink is exactly what you think it is, a deer penis fermenting in wine. According to TreeHugger.com, the cocktail is said to cure sports related injuries, even being banned from athletes during the 2008 Beijing Olympics due to the fact that it is thought to contain herbal ephedrine, which would lead to athletes being disqualified if found in their systems.

Cricket Cocktail, USA, New York

Known as “Summer” at the bar White & Church in TriBeCa, New York, this Piña~Colada-type concoction is a frothy, sweet cocktail and comes with bamboo (inedible) and crickets (edible). In the mood for a different species of garnish on your drink? The restaurant also features a martini topped with scorpions and a frozen margarita-type drink containing spicy worms.

Baby Mouse Wine, China

Is there no end to the animals you can ferment to make wine? Like snake wine, the product of drowning a family of baby mice in a vat of wine and letting it ferment for a year is supposed to be good for your health, curing liver problems, skin ailments, and asthma. I think I’ll stick with taking vitamins.

Fermented Mare’s Milk, Mongolia

Called Airag, this horse milk is said to “refreshen and sparkle the tongue” and tastes “slightly sour”. With only 2% alcohol it probably won’t get you drunk, but you should get used to the taste anyway. According to happyhourmagonline.com, it is a tradition in Mongolia to offer guests this drink when they enter your home, and guests who refuse it are seen as impolite.

Snake’s Blood, South East Asia

Like many of these wild drinks, drinking snake’s blood is believed to have health and wellness properties, such as increasing sex drive, helping repair eyesight, and keeping hair loss at bay. According to treehugger.com, this crazy cocktail is made by slicing the snake’s body and draining the blood directly into a glass. While snake’s blood can be drank by itself, it can also be enjoyed with alcohol.

Cockpit Chronicles: Video—Food in the cockpit. How it’s prepared and what is served

by Kent Wien on

“I’m getting kind of tired of these chicken Caesar salads.”

I said those words just a few months into my career at American. The statement resonated loudly after I was furloughed and flying for a freight airline with barely a bottle of water on board, so I vowed that I would never complain about a crew meal again.

In fact, when I came back to AA I nearly cried when a flight attendant entered the 727 cockpit and asked us what we wanted to drink.

Now, after ten years of international flying, mostly to Europe, I’ve enjoyed more crew meals than I probably should have. Warm dishes on an airline flight might be foreign to today’s passengers and even some of our domestic pilots, but on the international side we still enjoy food just as it was in the earlier days of airline flying.

The usual transatlantic daytime flight might include appetizers, such as nuts and cheese, salads, a main course with an overabundance of bread and a slice of cheesecake perhaps, followed later by a Sundae or cookies. Before landing in the afternoon, there’s often a cheese plate or fruit dish, followed by a pizza or steak sandwich.

Honestly, it’s too much. But if you’re paying for a business class experience, over indulging every now and then isn’t bad. For pilots however, these crew meals can add more pounds in the first year of international flying than during a freshman year in college.

I limit myself to just the nuts as a starter followed by the salad. Later, if there’s any fruit available, I’ll have some of that, or if it’s morning in Europe, the cold cereal is a good choice. Anything more and I begin to feel overly tired during the overnight flight across the pond. Since I’ve cut back I’ve noticed a definite slackening of my uniform pants.

Typically three meals are put on for the three-pilot cockpit crew, two items the same, often chicken or steak and the third perhaps being a pasta dish.

Most co-pilots give the choice of meal to the captain, and the captain often defers back to the co-pilot. It can become comical at times; neither pilot wanting to make what is probably the least important decision of the flight. Alas, it’s typically decided that whoever is flying the plane for that leg should choose.

I’ve enlisted the help of our flight attendant Susan, who made a brief appearance in my Boston to Paris video seven years ago, to appear again in front of the camera to show how she manages the cockpit and passenger meals for a 10½ hour flight from Rio to New York.

Notice just how busy Susan is before boarding. As the “number five” flight attendant out of nine aboard our 767, she’s ‘the cook’ up front, responsible for not only preparing and cooking the meals, but setting up the galley on the ground.

Passengers in the back also enjoy a hot meal, and there’s another flight attendant with three ovens getting ready to prepare that food as well.

Every month the meal types and even the kind of cheese in the appetizer change. Some plates are exceptional-a white chocolate glazed chicken dish sounded terrible but turned out to be fantastic-and some I’ve avoided after just one bite, such as the foie gras stuffed chicken.

The ‘insert’ shown in the video is mostly an international custom. It keeps the pilots from having to call back every time they’re ready for more water or soda. It’s brought to the cockpit only after takeoff to prevent anything loose from bouncing around the flight deck.

The sundaes and baked cookies aren’t normally part of our meals, but some of the nicer flight attendants will still offer them.

In the past, no two pilots could eat the same meal, and they had to be served at different times. At my airline, these restrictions have been relaxed, however.

For the past year or so, I’ve taken to capturing some of the crew meals with a camera. Apparently I fall into the crowd that likes taking food pictures. The gallery below shows some of my favorite crew meals of all time:

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Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in New York. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the Cockpit Chronicles Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.

Falling in love with oysters

by Janelle Nanos on

The allure of the oyster always mystified me. For years, I’d wrinkle my nose when my tablemates would order the slippery creatures, put off by the texture of the little puddles of flesh. Don’t get me wrong: I like seafood. I grew up near the water, and I’ve scarfed down everything pulled from the sea ever since I could chew. And that’s not just fish–crustaceans are more than fair game, and I clamor to pry clams and mussels from their shells. But oysters always made me uncomfortable. It was something about their slimy, briny consistency–it seemed akin to willingly slurping down a slug.

So for a while I feigned interest. In New Orleans, I passed over the famous Oysters Rockfeller at Antoine’s, opting instead for a taste of something I thought would provide a perfect out: The Po’boy. A heaping portion of anything fried and served in a bun typically falls within my culinary wheelhouse, and the Parkway Bakery’s po’boy is considered to be one of the best in the city. The rubbery consistency of fried oysters was close enough to the clam rolls of my youth that I bit in without second thought. And to be honest, even mid-meal, no real difference between the two really registered in my mind; if anything there was a slightly creamier texture beneath the crispy oyster’s crust. I convinced myself that I’d overcome my aversion, but inside I knew the truth. I was still an oyster virgin. And for a while, I was okay with that.Then, earlier this year, I was offered an important opportunity that hinged largely upon my knowledge of oysters (or at least an appreciation for the creatures). So I did what most journalists do when encountered with an unfamiliar subject, and I dug deep, researching a foodstuff that I’d never really tried. I read that the Greeks worshiped the oyster and believed that Aphrodite, goddess of love, emerged the ocean in an oyster shell (which is the root of why they’re now considered aphrodisiacs). I found out that when the first colonial settlers arrived in the Chesapeake Bay, oyster reefs were so plentiful that they were considered navigational hazards (back then, they reportedly found oysters that were 13 inches long). Oysters, I learned, are an important part of the watery ecosystem, flushing out algae and pollutants from the water and creating reefs that help support other sea life. Groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Oyster Recovery Partnership have been working to repopulate oyster beds in areas around the country, as the conservancy estimates that in places like the Chesapeake, the oyster population is only one percent of what it once was. After giving myself a tutorial in all things oyster, my assignment thankfully worked out, and I was left feeling extremely beholden to the little bivalves. So I set out to get to know them better this summer.

In New England, where I live, oyster-selling establishments have history: The Union Oyster House is Boston‘s–and the country’s–oldest restaurant. It opened in 1826 and has been continuously operating ever since (J.F.K. apparently used to patronize a booth upstairs). It’s also a pretty crowded tourist attraction, but thankfully, one of Boston’s greatest oyster galleries is just a few blocks away, and it’s there that I had my official introduction.

Neptune Oyster bar is tiny and covered in white subway tiles that make you feel a bit like you’re dining in a fish market. Which in essence, you are. Their rotating menu of oysters are brought in daily from both coasts, and are served fanned out in circles and placed on a pile of shaved ice and rock salt. They’re elevated on the table on a little stand, not unlike the way pizza is served in certain restaurants, which allows you to get a closer glimpse of each variation. That was how I realized that I’d never really looked at an oyster up close: The ripples in the shells, the pearly white insides, the little pools of meat that admittedly still kind of creeped me out.

But I was there for the experience, and so experience I did. Aligning my mouth on the edge of the shell, I made my first fateful slurp. Salty and fresh, it tasted like the ocean. For the next half hour, as we worked our way through the plate, my friends and I explored the flavors as we would with wine. Earthy, mossy, bright, and fruity; who knew oysters varied so greatly? I spent the next few weeks ordering oysters on every menu I encountered, hoping to expand my palate. By summer’s end, I had not only gotten over my squeamishness, but landed on a favorite, the creamy, buttery Island Creeks, which are sustainably harvested in nearby Duxbury, Massachusetts.

I quickly learned that Island Creeks are a big deal in the Bay State; they have a new restaurant that opened in Boston this year, and are also the subject of a the book Shucked, out this month, about author Erin Byers Murray’s year spent working at the oyster farm. So I decided to complete my oyster appreciation tour with a pilgrimage of sorts.

Island Creek hosts an annual festival to raise funds for their charity, the Island Creek Oyster Foundation, which is working to build sustainably-grown oyster beds in Zanzibar and Haiti. So on a gorgeous afternoon earlier last month, I entered the huge tent that they’d set up on the beach in Duxbury, which was filled with outstanding chefs preparing oyster BLTs, grilled oysters, and hundreds and hundreds of raw oysters, shucked and served just out of the sea. “Look this one, it’s a porn star,” one shucker said as he handed an extremely large selection (apparently both oysters and porn stars are judged on the size of their cups). I eyed it greedily, and realized that when I comes to oysters, I’d finally come out of my shell.

An ode to the Hawaiian Plate Lunch

by Pam Mandel on

One of the finest meals I’ve ever eaten was on the island of Oahu at a fancy bistro called Chef Mavro. This place is expensive — It’s no problem to spend 100 dollars per person on dinner. But the beautifully sculpted little plates had melt in your mouth sashimi and delicately browned crab rolls in fine rice paper wrappers and, oh, truly, it was a memorable experience.

I can’t think of Chef Mavro’s pricey restaurant without, in the same moment, thinking of a meal I’d had not 24 hours earlier at a bright green diner in funky, hippie-crunchy Honoka’a on Hawaii’s Big Island. At CC Jon”s Snack and Shoppe I spent about 7 dollars on chicken katsu, rice, mac salad, and a huge Styrofoam cup of soda. And there, I fell in love with the plate lunch. For some reason, I mentioned this to our waiter at Chef Mavro. “You went to CCs!” exclaimed the self described Big Island boy. “I’m from Honoka’a, that place is da kine.”

Hawaii has remarkable food. Smack in the middle of the ocean, populated by Native Hawaiians, Europeans (predominantly Portuguese, at first), and people from around the Pacific Rim, it’s a melting pot of culinary cliches — fresh, fusion, Pacific Rim, organic, local…. There’s an abundance of tropical produce and the boats come in daily bearing fresh seafood. Hawaii Regional Cuisine — the combination of locally sourced ingredients combined with the chef’s own sensibilities — seems almost inevitable in a place where good ingredients are readily available.

But my heart and its hardened arteries belong to junkier offerings. Haupia malasadas: essentially, a donut filled with coconut pudding. Chicken long rice: Fried noodles with chicken and a passing acknowledgment to vegetables. Milkshakes from the Roselani counter in the International Marketplace, good lord, the butterfat. And all that takes back seat to the main course, the plate lunch.At its most basic, the plate lunch is two scoops of white rice, a scoop of macaroni salad, thick with mayonnaise, and a serving of meat. Fried, probably, though you can also get two grilled Portuguese sausage patties or a serving of garlic shrimp. Plate lunch typically comes on a flimsy paper or other throwaway plate, or in a Styrofoam container that you can carry across the street to that picnic bench that’s makai — ocean side — from the food truck. It generates a shocking amount of garbage, the containers, the napkins, the plastic forks and knives. The classic plate lunch is unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly, and awesome.

Historically, the plate lunch is attributed to plantation workers combining leftover rice with whatever meat or fish was available. It was the 1880s; sugar and pineapple magnates imported laborers from the Philippines, Portugal, Japan, China… they had to eat. The meal has evolved over time to include a green salad (probably with Thousand Island dressing) or brown rice in a nod towards taking the cholesterol count down a notch. On your plate lunch you can get fried chicken or teriyaki beef or kalua pork or any number of things. Can’t wait for lunch? There’s the breakfast plate lunch, loco moco. White rice, fried eggs, a burger patty, all smothered in gravy. I pass on that and go for either garlic shrimp or my favorite, poke — marinated raw tuna.

It’s easy to fall into metaphors that use the plate lunch as an analogy for life in Hawaii. A combination of cultures, all hanging out together and making something better for their merging. I don’t necessarily buy that happy idea. I think plate lunch is more of a delicious mess than a expression of cultural harmony. And wrapped up in that delicious mess is an experience that is quintessentially Hawaiian islands.

The wind picks up your napkins and hurls them down the beach, you have to run after them. Stuffed on rice, you bring your coffee milkshake the to car and leave it in the cup holder and then, in the mini-fridge in your room. Your fingers are sticky from peeling shrimp so you wash them in the surf and they are sticky from the ocean. You’re wracked with guilt over the staggering amount of mayo in the mac salad, and yet, you eat every last elbow shaped mayo coated piece of pasta. You swear that you will take a long walk to make up for the unbelievable amount of calories you consumed that afternoon, but when you get back to your rented condo or hotel, you are lulled into indolence by the evening light on the beautiful beach boys and girls. Somewhere, a kid who looks like a total bad-ass is playing the ukulele like an angel, the sweet sound of it floats on the breeze. Dinner time is coming and the L&L, Hawaii’s infamous takeout chain is right there.

“Plate lunch,” you think. “I could have that for dinner, right?”

Image: The Even More Legendary Giovanni’s #2 by Permanently Scattered via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Eurochocolate: Italy’s biggest chocolate festival

by Melanie Renzulli on



Italy may not be synonymous with chocolate in the way that Switzerland is, but it does produce one of the world’s most recognizable brands: Perugina Baci. Wrapped in silver foil dotted with blue stars and lined with a love note, the chocolate and hazelnut morsels known as Baci are the fortune cookies of the chocolate world.

Perugina, the company that manufactures Baci and a handful of other chocolate brands, is named after and based in Perugia, capital of the Italian region of Umbria and the home of Italy’s biggest chocolate festival: Eurochocolate. Each October, more than 100 artisan chocolatiers and European chocolate companies, such as Lindt, Milka, and Toblerone, set up shop along Corso Vannucci, Perugia’s main street, for nine days of chocolate tasting, cooking demonstrations, and clever exhibitions and activities centered around chocolate. For example, with each edition Eurochocolate features sculptures carved from blocks of cacao, ranging from medieval statues to chocolate representations of Italy’s major landmarks. During Eurochocolate, visitors can sign up for all-chocolate spa days or visit participating local restaurants to indulge in entire meals made from chocolate.

Eurochocolate 2011 begins on October 14 and runs through October 23. If you’re unable to catch Eurochocolate in Perugia, both Rome and Turin present their own Eurochocolate festivals at other times of the year.

Photo © Eurochocolate Perugia