Welcome to ‘Are you Going to Eat That?’ The latest instalment in an occasional round-up of weird food news found down the back of the internet.
Last week, several news sources reported that seafood fans in the Japanese city of Gamagori were worried after poisonous portions of fugu fish were sold by a supermarket.
If consumed, the liver, skin, testicles and ovaries of fugu have damaging, often fatal, effects on the nervous system.
Normally, before the fish goes on sale or is served, the poisonous parts are removed by specially licensed chefs. Unfortunately for fugu fans in Gamagori, a couple of untreated portions got onto the supermarket shelves.
Even carefully prepared portions of the very expensive delicacy are said to retain traces of the poison. This is considered desirable as it makes the lips and tongue of its consumer tingle and then go numb. Some diners report mild feelings of euphoria or intoxication as the toxins kick in.
The thrill of dicing with death is supposed to be part of the pleasure of eating fugu. In Gamagori, it seems that the stakes have been raised considerably.
Weird food news: how long for a coffee?
Closer to home, The Daily Mail has been getting in a froth about the London-based Rail House Café which lists its prices in 24 hour clock format.
So, quinoa and coconut porridge – add avocado and this would be a strong contender for the most hipster breakfast ever – is priced as 06:50.
A full English is 14:50 and a hot chocolate is 02:60.
The paper gleefully repeated a handful of outraged tweets claiming that the café was trying to pull the wool over its customer’s eyes.
Other, equally as outraged, tweets reckoned that the café was treating its customers as morons who were being distracted from the prices by the unconventional way they were displayed.
Fortunately, before hostilities could escalate, a spokesperson for Rail House Café said: ‘The prices are presented that way to resemble train timetables, being “Rail House Café”.’
We like to imagine that the spokesperson was inwardly rolling their eyes.
Buckie drinkers easily angered
Sticking with easily fomented false outrage, The Scotsman has a cute story about a tweet which claimed that the alcohol content of Buckfast was about to be slashed.
The tweet was not from the makers of Buckfast and the brand’s company swiftly rebutted the claim.
Although not before many commentators lamented the latest act of aggression by the nanny state.
This blogger hates to make assumptions. However, do you think there might be any overlap between the people mistakenly lamenting the reduction in the ABV of Buckie and those who were gnashing what was left of their teeth at the news of Irn Bru’s reduced sugar content?
On a more serious note, we were sad to see that Epoch in Glasgow has closed. As have both Edinburgh’s Earthy and Vin Caffe. The latter was the last independently owned shop on Multrees Walk.
The 5pm Dining blog will return with more weird food news as we dig it up.
[1]: http://Wikimedia Commons