Camel cheese – coming soon to a grocery near you

by Jeremy Kressmann on

As any proper Bedouin will tell you, camels are an essential part of a nomadic desert existence. They provide a convenient method of transportation, require little water and can stand up to great extremes of temperature. We now also know that they provide the perfect compliment to your next cheese and cracker platter. I’m talking more specifically about camel cheese, the latest delicacy to make its way to grocery stores here in the U.S.

The camel cheese trend started in the African nation of Mauritania, site of the world’s first and, to the best of my knowledge, only camel dairy farm. Mauritanians consume camel milk as part of their everyday diet, but it was a local expat named Nancy Abeiderrahmane who first got the idea to turn the milk into cheese to preserve its shelf life. The idea was a hit, and Nancy has been producing camel cheese ever since.

The cheese made its debut in the New York City area this past month. Connoisseurs compare it favorably to goat cheese, citing its subtle “barnyard flavors” and the ability to spread it easily on bread or crackers. When it comes to food, nothing wins me over quicker than when I hear phrases like “barnyard flavors.” Pick up some now for your Final Four party this weekend!

[Via Buzzfeed]

The painful, wonderful joy of Spain’s best tapas bars

by Neil Woodburn on

As a poor college student backpacking through Europe, one of the more painful ordeals I experienced was exercising enough self-restraint at Spain’s delicious tapas bars to not eat myself into even worse poverty.

The temptation was nearly irresistible. Let me set the stage for you: after a full day of walking for miles and taking in the sights, I’d find myself in an aged and weathered pub in the early evening, hunched over the bar and staring at dozens of small plates loaded up with the most tantalizing, bite-sized morsels–each of which pleaded seductively for me to wolf it down.

These compact, culinary masterpieces were dollops of perfection bursting with rich and addictive flavors that threatened to bleed my money belt dry. And, at a couple of bucks a pop, this was a very likely scenario considering that it would have taken a few dozen to satiate my appetite.

I’m looking forward to returning to Spain one day now that I have a real job and with it, the freedom to eat as many damn tapas as I please. In the meantime, I’m going to file away a wonderful Travel & Leisure article I recently came across featuring 36 of the very best tapas bars in San Sebastián, Barcelona, Seville, and Madrid. And then one day, I’m going to eat my way through Spain.

Food and travel writer website

by Neil Woodburn on

I think I just might hate Joe Ray.

It’s a professional hatred, of course, bred out of jealousy. That’s because Joe is a food and travel writer based in Paris. Wow. I can’t imagine a more perfect combination of careers in a more perfect location.

And yet, that’s what Joe does. He pens wonderful articles accompanied by fantastic photographs while soaking in all the gloriousness of Paris.

I bring Joe to your attention today because I recently spent some time browsing his website and reading a bevy of tantalizing articles such as, Tasting Welsh Tea in Argentina, A Sicilian gelato tour, Pigs’ ears, horse-sandwiches ‘n fritters: Italian street-food, and Whale carpaccio, reindeer filet: Greenland’s contemporary cuisine. Yum!

Joe does a marvelous job of combining a passion of travel with a love for local foods in a way that gnaws at my stomach and gets the travel bug biting. If you have a few moments, check out Joe’s website and travel with him around the world; you’ll soon be just as jealous as I am. And just as hungry.

Bon appetit on the Eiffel Tower

by Abha Malpani on

Taking further our kicks of eating things either made by someone famous or with someone famous, now eating on something famous takes a new turn. Friends, friends and friends, you can now dine in new style at 410-feet on the Eiffel Tower.

Called Jules Verne (after the famous French author?), the revamped restaurant on this monument is the brain child of celebrity chef Alain Ducasse that will serve authentically French food (duh!), and will seat up to 120 people. For safety reasons, there will be no gas-cooking and the food will be prepared in a kitchen underneath the Champ de Mar garden which is located at the base of the tower.

With the 6.7 million tourists that visit this monument every year, dine at the restaurant and you will be taken up in a private lift. Meals are priced at $108 for lunch and $216 for dinner, making them totally “accessible to everyone”.

Anyone enticed to go?

Known for his eccentric ideas of taking cuisine to new heights, Ducasse was heard saying “I don’t work, I dream…I illustrate my dreams” — the next one being a restaurant on Mars. Now that’s somewhere I would love to go for a meal.

German food does go beyond schnitzel

by Abha Malpani on


Michelin Guides have been compiling lists and reviews of the best restaurants in the world for over a century.

In their latest series of European restaurant guides issued yesterday, restaurants in Germany beat ones in Italy. Yes, the schnitzel beat the lasagna as more German food places (9 in total) got the coveted 3-star Michelin rating than Italian ones (only 5). French food aced the ratings with 26 French places given the highly aspired for stars.

I know it’s possible that these 9 restaurants could be a mix of Chinese/Japanese/German/Indian restaurants in Germany, but since we are talking about Germany, I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about typical German food.

Never having been to Germany, as far as I’m concerned German food is beef, potatoes, sausages and schnitzel. So to see how these items could beat anything that comes out of an Italian kitchen, I thought I’d enlighten myself on the subject. This is some of the interesting information I found:

  • There are over 1500 types of German sausages, and the country boasts over 6000 types of bread!
  • Germans also eat vegetables! The main vegetables in their diet are carrots, turnips, spinach, peas, beans and cabbage.
  • Asparagus can be a made into a full meal.
  • Potatoes are not included as vegetables.
  • They do use herbs and spices: parsley, thyme, laurel, chives are common and the most popular spices are black pepper, juniper berries and caraway.

So the Michelin rating, and knowing that German food does go well beyond the schnitzel, it looks like Germany is strengthening its position as a European Gourmet nation.

[Via Sydney Morning Herald]