Illegal Foods and How to Eat Them

by Neil Woodburn on

Sometimes traveling abroad means engaging in certain activities that might be considered illegal back home. Nothing very serious, mind you, like smoking a Cuban cigar for example (if you happen to be American).

The alluring of that which is forbidden seems even stronger when it involves food. This, of course, makes crossing international borders to place contraband in your mouth all the more exciting.

Flirting with the Forbidden, a recent article in Travel and Leisure, discusses the attraction of such culinary adventures. The article kicks off with an illegal dinner in New York in which a dozen ortolan were smuggled into the country and consumed whole. Ortolan are small, endangered songbirds which bring a $10,000 fine if one is caught hunting them in France.

Ortolans are illegal to eat regardless of where they are consumed. Flirting with the Forbidden, however, mostly focuses on food which is prohibited in certain parts of the world but which can be consumed legally in other parts. Foie gras, for example, is becoming increasingly difficult to buy in America as various states have begun prohibiting its production and sale.

Foie gras is just one of many delicacies that foodie Roberto Badin sheds big crocodile tears over. New legislation in the States has recently been preventing a whole host of exotic foods from entering our mouths; beluga caviar, wild mushrooms, live lobsters, Brie de Meaux, jamon iberico, and even unpasteurized milk. Badin even laments over the impossibility of buying a hamburger in the United States cooked rare as many regional health ordinances require the patties to be heated to 160 degrees at the minimum. “Every week, it seems, another menu item–from foie gras to Chilean sea bass, trans fats to organic spinach–is ostracized as unhealthy, environmentally destructive, morally shameful, or downright lethal.” Badin comments. And it’s true.

So what steps can a foodie take to indulge in such culinary contraband? Smuggling is one option slyly suggested. In fact, Badin goes so far as to actually confess his contraband of choice: mangsteens. I sure hope that’s a pseudonym, Mr. Badin! Otherwise customs is going to have some fun with you the next time you return next from Thailand.

America has a lot of silly and also a lot of very legitimate food laws that should be honored or broken depending upon what they are. We here at Gadling certainly don’t suggest you go smuggling in your favorite unpasteurized French cheese next time you fly home, but we do suggest that you travel abroad to exercise your food rights and chow down on all those goodies you can’t have back home in America.

Just don’t sue us if you get sick.

Pee Cocktail?

by Erik Olsen on

The gross-out quotient on this one is pretty high, but it’s an interesting question.

Let’s say you are Aron Ralston, the guy who got stuck in the Utah wilderness and had to saw his own arm off because he got it stuck under a rock. There you are, stuck alone somewhere (a desert, an island, in a refrigerated boxcar) and no one knows where you are. Did you know that the most likely way for you to die is dehydration? OK, that’s unless you’re in the refrigerated boxcar in which case death will most likely come by hypothermia or having a side of beef fall on you…BUT the point is that dehydration is a serious problem. And if you happen to be in a place without water, you’ve get very few choices for how to replenish your precious bodily fluids.

You can catch bugs and suck the juices out of them, I suppose. You can use a divining rod to find hidden underwater aquifers. Or, and here comes the gross part, can you drink your own urine? To do so and to stay healthy requires you to have one amazing filtration system. Are those on the market good enough? Well, the good folks at Outside Magazine in this old post address that very issue: are today’s portable filtration systems good enough to allow you to drink you own pee?

That is about as interesting a question as there is, and the answer may surprise you.

Parisian Sites, Parisian Pastries

by Neil Woodburn on

We’ve all been there before. You’re in some foreign city admiring a famous tourist site when suddenly you get hungry. The problem is that tourist dives, by their very nature, flock to where the tourists are. That is why I almost never eat within spitting distance of a major tourist attraction.

But now there is a book which aims to steer hungry travelers in the right direction.

Paris by Pastry: Stalking the Sweet Life lists the city’s best patisseries in conjunction with nearby tourist sites. If you happen to be visiting the Louvre, for example, the book reveals the tastiest pastry shops within walking distance of the famous museum. This way you can gorge on culture and then stuff your face silly afterwards.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me!

Battles over Budweiser

by Iva Skoch on

Yesterday was a good day for beer lovers. After almost a century of disagreements between Anheuser-Busch and the Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar (BBNP) over the name for their beers, the two brewers have formed an historic alliance in which Anheuser-Busch will become the U.S. importer of Czechvar Premium Czech Lager. Now that both parties have figured out a way to make money, pride suddenly went aside.

The new alliance does not stop any existing legal proceedings, but it is a step towards a reasonable agreement. Budvar cannot legally use the name “Bud”, “Budvar” or “Budweiser” (which they use throughout Europe) so they use the brand “Czechvar” in the US market. Czechs are claiming that Americans “stole the name” from the centuries-old brewery in Budweis (town in southern Bohemia). Americans, however, have invested too much into the brand to give it up. Maybe it is time that Anheuser-Busch started investing in the taste of their beer, not the name.

Food Poisoning: Meet the Bugs

by Iva Skoch on

There is nothing like an episode of food poisoning that can wreck one’s trip, change priorities, or–if it takes more than two days–even reconsider one’s view on euthanasia. I have been there many times, either myself or in spirit with other people. Yes, there was the cheap sushi in New York, the grocery store pre-cut water melon in Portland, the chicken satay in Amsterdam, the sandwich at Arby’s, and the Lord-knows-what in Egypt (this one lasted for weeks and I contemplated death several times).

Because I like to know my enemy, I enjoyed this article on ivillage.co.uk entitled “How to avoid food poisoning while travelling”. Most of the tips are quite obvious, although often hard to fully control: washing your hands, avoiding tap water (ice, fresh vegetables washed in fresh water), avoiding uncooked meat and unpasteurized milk, etc. The piece I found interesting is the description of the different “bugs” and their symptoms: Norovirus, E-coli (see picture), Salmonella, Campylobacter and Bacillus cereus. The little buggers look so harmless on screen…