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Death comes in many guises. But if death by carrot sounds just plain silly, try a blow to the head from a frozen fish!

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Clodagh Phelan

Our relationship with food is complex – we love it, hate it, overindulge in it, deprive ourselves of it. Whether we see it as a pleasure or a curse, we all have an opinion about it. The Internet is stuffed with blogs about bacon, cup cakes and capons.  With food fads and fashions and freakish diets – recipes for unachievable weight loss that may even lead to disaster.

And that’s just what food has proved to be for some. From the ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ to the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, food has been the cause of many deaths in film, in literature and indeed in life.  Far from life imitating art, with food it’s often the other way around.  For every fictional death by espresso machine or garlic canapé there’s a real life death by cocoa or carrot. Yes, really!

La Grande Bouffe, a classic film from 1973, sees a group of friends get together with the express purpose of eating themselves to death. Distributed in the UK as ‘Blow Out’, its comic depictions of sex and gluttony were highly controversial. Nevertheless, whether deliberately or not, some of the crowned heads of Europe have equalled, even surpassed, that level of gormandise. Take our own dear Henry I, for example, said to have died after stuffing himself with lampreys, his favourite food. His tastes appear somewhat peculiar, since lampreys are an extremely ugly, primitive fish that feed on the blood, body fluids and muscles of bigger fish.  Thankfully, they’re not something we’re likely to find at the fish counter in Waitrose.

Fast forward to 1771 for yet another monarch setting a bad example. Remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as ‘the king who eat himself to death’, Adolf Frederick died after scoffing an enormous dinner. If the lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne didn’t do the damage, then maybe the pudding was the coup de grâce. Greedy Adolf finished his meal with Selma, his favourite food – a sweet spiced bun, stuffed with almond paste and whipped cream, served with hot milk. Nice. But fourteen bowls of the stuff! No wonder he didn’t make it to 1772.

Perhaps these monarchs brought misfortune on themselves, but that’s hardly true of the victims of London’s Great Beer Flood. Though maybe there are worse ways to die. Death by carrot or death by beer? No contest, I’d say. The tragedy happened at a brewery in London’s Tottenham Court Road on October 17th, 1814. Some huge vats ruptured, sending a wave of beer gushing into the streets, destroying homes and a nearby pub. Nine people died but, although the Meux Brewery was prosecuted, no one was held responsible. An early example of the need for a corporate manslaughter law.

The Boston Molasses Disaster in 1919 gave a whole new meaning to the saying ‘meeting a sticky end’. On an unseasonably hot day in January, a storage tank exploded, sending a wall of molasses coursing through part of Boston, Massachusetts. Between 8 and 15 ft high, travelling at around 35 mph, it killed 21 and injured 150. The force flung people and horses into the air, hurled a truck into Boston Harbour, snapped the girders of the elevated railway and swept buildings off their foundations. People were ensnared in the sticky mess as if they were flies on flypaper.

If that could form the plot of a zany horror movie, death by carrot sounds downright silly. But this unassuming vegetable, generally considered to be good for you, can in fact turn out to be lethal. And not just in implausible fiction.  Perhaps the craziest carrot death is that in the opening scene of the movie, ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’ when Clive Owen brings down the baddie with a stick of carrot. Less well known is the sad case of Basil Brown, a 48-year-old health food enthusiast. Having swallowed excessive amounts of vitamin A and drunk ten gallons of carrot juice, he ended up bright orange.  And dead. So be sensible – stick to your five a day.

Of course, most crime related to food is fictional. Not to be outdone by the vegetables, meat also figures in these tales.  Fish too. There’s the infamous Roald Dahl story, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, where a wife bludgeons her husband to death with a frozen leg of lamb, swiftly defrosts it, roasts it and serves it up to the investigating constabulary. A great way to destroy the evidence.  There’s a similar idea in an episode of ‘Murder She Wrote’. Here the weapon was a frozen fish, which, after it had served its purpose, was served for lunch.

Although the murderer is generally unmasked in the end, the primary aim in detective fiction is to fool the reader. Which leads to some truly ingenious plots. Like cleverly using the victim’s own weakness to engineer death by anaphylactic shock. Strictly speaking not all allergies are food related – bees are not food, not in Europe anyway. Honey is though, and so are peanuts. Ruth Rendell used a bee sting in ‘To Fear a Painted Devil’, as did H.F. Heard in ‘A Taste of Honey’ and Julie Parsons in ‘The Courtship Gift’. In ‘If Looks could Kill’, Kate White used peanut butter.

In that case the victim didn’t die; such deaths are not that easy to pull off, even in a book. So a word of advice – don’t try this at home. As to that death by garlic canapé, I cheated. The victim was a vampire. And the unfortunate who met her death at the espresso machine? She was fictional too and she was electrocuted, not scalded or smothered by coffee. However, truth is stranger than fiction. In 1975, in the charmingly named Peachtree City, Georgia, two kitchen workers thought it might be fun to throw cocoa power at each other.  The room was small. The powder got in their lungs. They died. But don’t let that put you off your hot chocolate – unless of course you’re in the habit of inhaling it!

©  Clodagh Phelan, October 2010 – this article first appeared in Issue 4 of Eat Me Magazine

 

 

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“One always looks neat in a hat made of meat.”

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Clodagh Phelan

Mark Twain may have had a point but it’s not just hats they’re making out of meat nowadays.  And as for vegetables -

Fashion has always gone to extremes. Lady Gaga may be the latest exponent of edible fashion, but she’s not unique. She has plenty of competition, some from fellow musicians. The cover of the Beatles Yesterday and Today album featured raw meat as well as baby dolls with decapitated heads. The Fab Four weren’t actually wearing the flesh but there are plenty who are, and loads of Internet sites to prove it.

Among the garments on offer are the bacon bra and the bacon bikini. Lie in the sun a while     and there’s no need to cook breakfast. The ‘Hats of Meat’ website has a section devoted entirely to pictures sent in by aficionados. Among them an American Indian headdress composed of sausages and bacon, hamburger earmuffs, kebab dreadlocks – even an entire cooked turkey.

Carnivores haven’t got it all their own way.  You’ll find clothes made from lettuce, artichokes, chilies, fruit, licorice and, would you believe it, skimmed milk! Designer Casey Larkin even found a way to do that – with a Prom dress! If you can eat it, or drink it, someone’s bound to have made a dress from it.  Or a hat, a handbag, a belt or shoes. PETA, the animal rights organization, have used greens in their vegetarian media campaigns. As an alternative to the bacon bra, the lettuce bikini doubles as a salad provided you stay out of the sun, which rather defeats its purpose.  Let it wilt, however, and you might end up a tad embarrassed.  Unless you’re a naturist as well as a vegetarian

For chocoholics, there’s a veritable feast. One site even has models dressed in Bond-girl style holding chocolate machine guns.  Decorative, perhaps, but about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. The Lindor dress, on the other hand, has the advantage. The chocolates are wrapped which will at least prevent them sticking to your skin.  The disadvantage? The dress contains over 79,000 calories. Get too carried away and it might not fit you for very long.

Of course you’ll want to accessorize. Fancy a Louis Vuitton bag?  Or one of Gucci’s creations? An American bakery is making copies – in cake.  Unfortunately they don’t come cheap. At around $6,000 for the Vuitton you might be better off buying the original. Even designer Nancy Wu’s Chanel bag, composed of 100% beef jerky, will set you back a bit. There’s plenty of footwear to choose from too. Like Olle Hemmerdorff’s hamburger shoe for Nike? Or just use your loaf.  A Lithuanian designer team has come up with edible, wearable shoes created from bread. Every pair is unique and comes with a handpicked cardboard box.

When Parisian chef Valentyn Shtefano popped the question, he showed his love in a special way – he baked the wedding dress. No, not a meringue – a cream puff. 1500 cream puffs to be exact and even the necklace and crown were edible. It’s not every groom who can tell his bride she looks good enough to eat.  And mean it.  Literally.

© Clodagh Phelan  – 19/09/10

This article first appeared on the Eat Me Magazine website

 

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One Man’s Meat

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Clodagh Phelan

Moose nose jelly anyone?

If you really are what you eat, there must be some very strange people walking about out there.

Discovering the world’s weird and wonderful foods is like opening a can of worms.  Literally. They range from the slightly odd to the ‘oh my God!’ with just about everything in between. Yak butter may not be everyone’s cup of tea, tripe may turn your stomach unless you are a cow and reindeer pâté may seem a trifle exotic. But they’re nothing compared to some of the things on offer. Moose nose jelly anyone?

Some foods are positively anti-social.  Take durian, for instance.  Or perhaps don’t.  Certainly not in confined spaces or on public transport – you’ll get arrested. This Asian ‘king of fruit’ is adored by orangutangs and by a surprising number of people. Smelling of sewers and decaying carrion it’s said to taste like custard, almonds, sherry and ice cream rolled into one. It’s an extreme marmite sort of fruit.  But even durian has its rivals. Among them chou dofu or ‘stinky tofu’. Its sharp scent, reminiscent of baby pooh, is so pungent street hawkers have been fined for breaking the air pollution laws. Another contender is hákarl. Not content to simply eat the shark, Icelanders bury it for months until it’s good and rotten.  Then they eat it.  Yum!

If smelly doesn’t do it for you, try some street food. In Indonesia they serve rat on a stick. If you’re squeamish, go for bat instead. Beijing traders put fried starfish on their sticks. Mexico offers the tequila lollipop complete with worm. Insects and bugs abound. Scorpions, grasshoppers, tarantula, whichetty grubs, crickets, silk worms – roasted, fried, marinated and even alive.

To quench your thirst there’s some treats in store. Kopi luwak is made from coffee berries eaten by the Asian palm civet and its friends and relations. The big cats gobble up the beans, nature takes its course and voilà – you have the makings of the most aromatic and most expensive coffee in the world!  After all the beans are washed thoroughly, several times, and dried in the sun before being roasted. In India they love cola and revere cows. The logical extension is gau jal, a cola made of from cow’s urine. Sounds unhygienic but this cola has no toxins – more than can that be said of some Western carbonated drinks!

In the USA, not content with McDonalds, they’ve come up with tinned cheeseburger as well as tinned creamed armadillo, Cajun style alligator, buzzard gizzards in cream sauce and elk au jus! A company called ‘Road Weary’ sells potted possum – one can’t help wondering if it’s road weary or just road kill.

While we shudder at the thought of cocks combs or camel tendons and get all smug, perhaps it’s as well to think of some of the things we eat. Which is better for your health, a starfish on a stick or chocolate covered bacon? Roast pigeon brains or an American pizza? The toppings include two cheeseburgers, a six-piece box of McNuggets and medium fries.  All covered with gloopy, fatty cheese. Now who’s weird!

© Clodagh Phelan 12/9/10     This article first appeared in Eat Me Magazine online

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A bid for world domination – or are they just homesick?

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Clodagh Phelan

From Ansbach to Yokota wherever you find a US military base, you’ll find a McDonalds.

US Military bases dot the globe – army, navy and air force.  Spreading the Stars and Stripes the way Britain’s Empire once coloured the map red.  And where you’ll find the Stars and Stripes you’ll also find McDonalds and Burger King, Wendy’s and a host of others. Some in the most unlikely places.

McDonalds have been at Guantanamo Bay since 1986. The first and only one in Cuba.  Other franchises followed. Subway, KFC, A&W, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Starbucks.  It’s said that if prisoners co-operate they’re rewarded with Happy Meals. If that’s true, then they have a privilege not accorded to the Cubans. For these eateries are all off-limits to the indigenous population. A minefield and the ‘cactus curtain’ stand between the base and Cuban soil.  OK, it’s not a curtain as such but it is a cactus barrier planted with the express purpose of keeping the Cubans out, akin to the Berlin Wall or the West Bank barrier.

The base at Guantanamo is not unique.  From Afghanistan to Guam, Iraq to Kazakhstan you’ll find little pieces of downtown USA, close to romantic cities such as Heidelberg, on remote Pacific islands and plonked in the middle of deserts.  Bagram Air base is a typical example with its multiple bus routes, more than 30,000 inhabitants, PXes, Internet cafes, fast food outlets – and let’s not forget the barracks and the trappings of war.

Leaving aside the vast and complex question of the US military presence, why this need to replicate their culture and specifically their food culture? Granted local produce isn’t always available or desirable in a war zone, given the current paranoia that sees a terrorist behind every crate of carrots. Nevertheless, even in Iraq steaks, squash and fresh romaine lettuce are brought miles across the dangerous desert so that the troops can eat hearty, healthy food. So what’s with the fast food? Especially since the first warning US troops often get in Baghdad isn’t about being blown up by IEDs but ending up with PCPs: “pervasive combat paunches”.

Is this yet another example of the McDonaldization of the world? It may look like it at first. Go a little deeper and the argument doesn’t stand up. The bases are off limits to locals unless of course they are part of the workforce.  That’s no way to spread the word – or the stomach. Then again, not all US operated bases are filled with fast food franchises. Some, like Afghan-run ones, are more basic; in some cases consisting of no more than a cluster of mud and stone buildings.

Gastronomic outposts are nothing new. It all started long before Ronald McDonald flipped his first burger. In the Second World War, the Americans flew cakes and cookies to the troops and during the Viet Nam war huge recreational facilities were set up on the beaches. At one time the US operated its own autobahn rest stops in Germany, where GIs could get gas and a burger. Once more, these were off limits to locals.

Many Americans enjoy European, Asian and other ethnic foods. Besides, throughout the world, McDonalds has adapted its ‘burgers’ to other cultures. Almost certainly driven by commercial imperatives, and giving the lie to any imperial ambitions. In India, in deference to the Hindu religion, the chicken based Maharaja Mac replaces the Big Mac.  In parts of Canada there’s the McLobster roll.  Japan has totally reinvented McDonalds with its shrimp burgers and mashed potato and cabbage burgers. In Chile you can substitute avocado paste for ketchup. In Greece pita bread replaces the bun, in Israel it’s kosher, in the Middle East halal.

What’s really going on? As long ago as 1987, in testimony before a House Subcommittee, Admiral Rodney Squibb told congress that on-base fast-food restaurants not only generate millions of dollars in ‘recreational’ funds for servicemen but also boost morale among the troops. It seems Congress agreed with him and for nearly thirty years the presence of fast food franchises on US bases has just grown and grown.  In war zones, in particular, fast food such as McDonalds act as “comfort” foods in what is often a very frightening environment. Studies are now finding a rising number of cases of new-onset depression in combat-deployed troops; the availability of such familiar fare back at the base may help soldiers adapt and provide an antidote to feelings of gloom and dejection.

There’s no doubt that morale is crucial, but there is another equally compelling argument.  Recruitment. Today’s US military is not a conscription army; it’s a volunteer army. In the past, standards were low and pay was poor. The generation who served in Vietnam and Korea had to clean toilets, polish brass and peel spuds. There was nothing they could do about it except get on with the job. It’s all very different nowadays.

Today’s young recruits were raised in a world of iPods and the Internet. They’re the Xbox and Wal-Mart generation.   They expect, and get, creature comforts and that includes Big-Mac’s and pizzas. If they don’t get them, there’s nothing to stop them walking when their term is up.  In a four-year period the US government spends an average of $100,000 on training a soldier (and the figures are similar for the other services). It’s in its interest to keep the troops happy.  Should a recruit not re-enlist, not only is that money down the drain but it will cost another $100,000 to train a replacement. So what if it costs $6,000, $8,000 or even $15,000 more– do the math!

Nevertheless, according to Sgt. Major Michael Hall, General McChrystal’s top enlisted advisor, that’s all about to change – in Afghanistan, at least. ‘This is a war zone’ he wrote in his blog earlier this year ‘not an amusement park.’ His reasons have nothing to do with diet or morale or even recruitment. It’s about the resources involved in getting those burgers, fries, pizzas and nuggets to the bases. Mothballing Burger King and the rest will free up prime storage space, more essential than ever with nearly 40,000 additional coalition forces heading for Afghanistan. Equally important, it will make it easier to get essential supplies to the front line.

Judging by the furious reaction on the Internet, they’ll have a job pushing this policy through.   The consensus being that the troops need and deserve their treats. I’m cynical enough to believe that ordinary people’s opinion counts for very little with the powers that be.  However, in seeking to shut down these concessions, the US military may find it has a different fight on its hands. One some say it can’t win. For it’s up against an opponent mightier than the Pentagon, mightier than the White House – the almighty US dollar.  Who constructed the bases? Who manages them?  Who decides what goes on there? Not the military and not Ronald McDonald.   Not even Uncle Sam.  Powerful corporations built, maintain and provision US overseas bases. It will take more than a General to shut them up.

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Footnote: In March 2010, in spite of the furious reaction on the Internet and elsewhere, General McChrystal imposed a ban on the franchises. It didn’t last long; nor did he. When he resigned in June last year for being rude about the Administration, his successor Gen. David Petraeus wasted little time in reversing the ban.

©  Clodagh Phelan  2/9/10 – this article first appeared on Eat Me Magazine’s blog.

 

 

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Eat Me!

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Clodagh Phelan

Alice would be at quite at home in these whacky restaurants!

Tenniel/Operina

In Lewis Carroll’s famous tale, Alice sipped from the bottle labelled ‘Drink Me’ and grew smaller and smaller. ‘Eat Me’, enticed the cake – one bite and she grew bigger and bigger. But that was fantasy right? Well, maybe, but I tell you, there are some weird and wonderful things happening out there in restaurant land. They’d challenge anything that Alice found down the rabbit hole.

In true ‘Wonderland’ style, the owner of the Spirite in Montreal is, by all accounts, more than a little loopy. Don’t bother to ask for a menu – chef cooks only one dish and that’s vegetarian. Portions come in two sizes and with one proviso. You have to eat up; if you don’t clean your plate, you won’t get any pudding. Yes, really! And if you don’t eat all your pudding – then you’re barred for life. Crazy? Perhaps. But people still flock there! Maybe they like the restaurant’s mission – to draw attention to world hunger and food waste. Or happen they’re just masochists.

Chew Chew in Sydney adds a whole new meaning to the expression ‘doggy bag’. Here the rule is ‘dogs only’, though cats are allowed in after 2pm. Humans are welcome to eat with their pets but must get their food from the café next door. At Zauo, a fish restaurant in Fukuoka, you’re offered a rod, so you can catch your own meal. The pool’s well stocked so, even if you’re no fisherman, you won’t go hungry. At the Taj Banjara in Hyderabad you can choose your dishes according to your blood group. Great for vampires, although they may prefer to fly to Japan to dine at Nyotaimori. Named after the tradition of eating sushi and sashimi off a naked woman, it’s a vampire’s paradise. The ‘body’ is offered on a hospital trolley, the hostess makes the first cut in the dough skin with in the scalpel, then the patrons join in. There’s plenty of ‘blood’ and the organs are edible.

Did you know that there’s a McDonalds, a Subway and a Starbucks at Guantanamo Bay! How’s that for surreal? Admittedly they serve the military personnel on the base but, apparently, if the internees behave themselves they are sometimes treated to a Big Mac. They don’t say if they’re allowed fries!

At the Ostfriesland Hotel in Norden, Germany you have to get on the scales before they’ll let you in. The Black Frog in Maine offers a free sandwich if you’re prepared to strip off and skinny dip. There’s a restaurant in Japan where you’re served by real monkeys and a pub in Britain where they confiscate your shoes. Toilet themed restaurants, birth control restaurants, dining in the dark or suspended in the sky – think of something crazy, you’ll find someone’s got there first. And yes, there is an Alice themed venue. More than one, in fact. You’ll find them in Tokyo and Manhattan. The former comes complete with a Glass World and Fantasy Forest. As far as I know, no one’s has disappeared down a rabbit hole. Yet!

© Clodagh Phelan 8/2010 This article first appeared on the Eat Me Magazine blog

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