Convicts and the Culinary Arts: Italy’s Jailhouse Restaurant

by Neil Woodburn on

Prison food, from what I’ve been told, is never very good–unless, of course, you happen to be dining at Fortezza Medicea in Volterra, Italy.

Fortezza Medicea is a real life prison where convicts operate a fully functioning restaurant that serves meals to those civilians brave enough to venture into the prison for a surreal evening of dining.

Oh man! Leave it to the Italians to replace the traditional license-plate making industry normally found in prison with a restaurant!

According to Budget Travel, the program was created to provide training that would help convicts land jobs in the food industry once they leave prison. Plan well in advance, however, if you are planning to visit: prospective diners must pass a two-month background check before reservations are accepted.

Bizarre Foods From Around The World

by Martha Edwards on

What constitutes typical North American food these days is kind of gross, if you ask me. I’m talking about all the processed junk we put in our bodies. But compared to some other ‘regional’ cuisines that are mentioned in this article, I guess we’re pretty lucky. Need examples?

  • In Iceland, for instance, Hakarl is made of putrefied shark meat. Sheep’s head (served in its entirety) is also popular.
  • In Saudi Arabia, camels are a popular item — camel’s feet and sour camel humps in particular.
  • Fried grasshoppers, earthworms and locusts are all the rage in Africa.

Want more info on bizarre foods? Check out The Weird Things People Eat Around the World. Ugh!

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve heard of or eaten? For me, it was a four-course meal made from a snake that was killed right in front of us in Vietnam. Dessert was a shot of snake’s blood mixed with whiskey. I was also a little grossed out by the pictures of black chicken in Taiwan that an old co-worker showed me. But although it looks like it’s rotten, it’s not — it tastes like … well … chicken!

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How Much Would You Pay for Dessert? $14,500?

by Martha Edwards on

There’s a lot I would do for the perfect Creme Brulee. You see, I’m a bit of a dessert fiend and it’s certainly my all-time favourite. In fact, I ate more than my share at the last wedding I photographed. But I digress. What’s the most you would pay for a dessert? $5? $10? $25? $100? How about $14,500? That sounds a bit excessive, but that’s what the most expensive dessert in the world recently is valued at in at a luxury hotel in Sri Lanka.


If you’ve got $14,500 to spend on dessert, why not consider a stay in a $30,000 hotel room, a luxury wildlife tour, or some chill-out time in a luxury holiday inn.

The dessert in question is Sabayon, a Italian dish made from eggs, sugar and liquor, among other things. This particular version is made with Dom Perignon and flakes of silver and gold. It also includes a Valrhona chocolate figure holding a 14-carat aquamarine gem valued at $14,000, which the diner of course gets to keep.

Ok, so fancy jewel aside, the dessert still costs $500. Which is a little too rich for my tastes — and others must agree, since no one has ordered it yet.

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The Best Hostels to Get Wasted In

by Catherine Bodry on

Martha’s post on her drunken debauchery across the globe got me thinking about the hostels I used to seek out in my infant days of traveling. Eager for familiar accents and the kind bonding that 10 hours of drinking will bring, I was drawn like a mosquito to juicy flesh to any establishment my trusty Lonely Planet profiled as “full of drunken American college students.” While those descriptions were probably meant to deter travelers from that type of lodging, they served as guiding lights for me. I’m a little bit ashamed to admit all this now, but at the time I fully embraced being such a cliché. (Although now I’m probably just a different cliché.) But staying at places like these made me feel a little less lonely (and a lot less sober). And I had a great time.

A few that come to mind are Balmer’s Herbage in Interlaken, Switzerland; the Pink Palace on Corfu, Greece, and the Flying Pig in Amsterdam. The photos on the front pages of their websites ought to clue you in as to how you’ll sleep if you’re hunkered down in one of their bunks.

I know these aren’t the only three; where are the other party hostels?

Big in Japan: World’s Oldest Man is Japanese (What a Surprise!)

by Matthew Firestone on

Last week, the world’s oldest man, who needless to say happens to be Japanese, turned an astonishing 112 years old. Tomoji Tanabe, who was born in 1895, proudly told to the Kyodo News Agency: “I want to live indefinitely. I don’t want to die.”

To mark the occasion, Mr Tanabe received a check for 100,000 yen (US$900) and flowers from the mayor of his hometown, Miyakonojo.

When asked about the secret to his longevity, Mr. Tanabe told reporters that avoiding alcohol and not smoking keeps him young. He also stressed the importance of keeping to his daily routine, which involved writing in his diary and reading the newspaper.

Mr. Tanabe was declared the oldest man this past January by the Guinness Book of World Records after the death of Emiliano Mercado Del Toro, of Puerto Rico, at 115.

Due to improvements in healthcare and lifestyle, lifespans in developed countries around the world are on the rise. This, combined with better record keeping, means that the number of supercentenarians or people who have lived 110 years or more is also on the rise.

Japan is said to have the largest population of centenarians in the world, with some 30,000 citizens aged 100 and over. The country has also laid claim to some truly mind-blowing supercentenarian records.

Shigechiyo Izumi, who grew up in the Southwest Islands of Japan, lived from June 29, 1865? to February 21, 1986. Assuming his claimed birth was correct, he would have attained an age of 120 years, older than any other recognized male, and be the second-longest lived human ever, second only to Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment.

Although there is some dispute as to his actual birth date, Mr. Izumi was recorded as being six years old in Japan’s first-ever census, which took place in 1871. At his death, Mr. Izumi stood at 1.42 meters (four feet, eight inches) tall, weighed 42.6 kilograms (94 pounds) and lived through 71 Japanese Prime Ministers.

Mr. Izumi also holds the record for the longest working career for a person, which spanned 98 consecutive years. He began his career in 1872 goading draft animals at a sugar mill, and retired as a sugarcane farmer in 1970 at the age of 105.

As he frequently told reporters, Mr. Izumi attributed his long life to “God, Buddha and the Sun.” Of course, unlike the teetotaling Mr. Tanabe, Mr. Izumi loved his drink.

According to the Kyodo News Agency, Mr. Izumi drank copious amounts of shōchū (焼酎, a Japanese alcoholic beverage distilled from barley) on a daily basis.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of drinking shōchū (indeed it is one of my favorite tipples), let me be the first to tell you that its tastes like rubbing alcohol and smells like turpentine.

But oh lordy – that stuff will make get you off your rocker in 10 seconds flat!

So, I guess the morale of today’s post is that it if you want to live to be a supercentenarian, it doesn’t matter whether or not you indulge in the occasional drink. Of course, it certainly helps if you happen to be Japanese!