Hoax Museum Blog: Food

‘The Can’ — It all began when Bill and Diane Finc bought a can of tomato juice. When they shook it before opening, they heard a metallic thud. There was something inside.

Now, instead of doing what I would do and very hesitantly opening it, trying not to let the possibilities of what could be in there run through my mind, the Fincs, residents of the somewhat eccentric town of Jarbridge, kept it for a year. Over that time, bets were placed on what the mysterious item could be.

After a day of impromptu partying and picnicking, the can was ceremoniously opened to reveal... a smaller can.

I can't have been the only person desperately hoping that, if someone had shaken the smaller can, there might have been a metallic clunking...

(Thanks, Phred22.)

Frog Salad Surprise — A lot of sites have been linking to this photo of a frog inside a bag of salad. Could the photo be real? Well, I don't think it's photoshopped, this being a case where it would be a lot easier to stick a frog inside a bag rather than go to the trouble of photoshopping it in. But there have been reported cases in the past of frogs showing up inside packaged salads. For instance, a few months ago (April 12, 2006) The Daily Telegraph in Australia reported a case: I don't think the photo here is from the Australian case. Also note that in the Australian case the frog was dead, which is a lot more believable. The frog here looks alive. However, I think it is possible that this is real. Although I'd be more comfortable listing this as real if there were some contextual details (such as when and where this photo was taken.) (Thanks to Doug Nelson for the link)

Quick Links: Card Trick, etc. —
Card Trick
YouTube video of a well performed card trick. I think it's a version of the "ambitious card" trick, in which one card keeps coming to the top again and again. I don't know how it's done, but I'm guessing it involves double-lifting cards and using a false shuffle to keep certain cards at the top (or bottom).

Tom Dundee Condoms Banned in Thailand
Thai authorities have banned a line of condoms named Tom Dundee, since Dundee in Thai means "Good Penetration," a phrase that they regard as "ambiguous, boastful and provocative." Big Gary notes: The only interesting thing about this story is that country singer Tom Dundee's real name is Puntiva Poomiprates, but "Dundee" is the name the authorities thought was "too suggestive."

Dalai Lama Moon
People throughout India and Tibet have been reporting seeing "the reflection of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the halo of the moon." The Dalai Lama's office would not confirm whether he was really the man in the moon.

Fake Fish
The St. Petersburg Times visited 11 restaurants featuring grouper on their menu, and found that 6 of them were surreptitiously serving cheaper fish instead. "One Palm Harbor restaurant charged $23 for "champagne braised black grouper" that actually was tilapia." This doesn't surprise me at all. As I noted in Hippo Eats Dwarf, snapper is another often-faked fish. PoynterOnline writes that the National Seafood Inspection Laboratory found, after testing samples from random vendors, that "80 percent of the red snappers tested have been mislabeled.

Quick Links: Square Watermelon, etc. — Flora and I have decided on a more efficient way to post links that really don't need (or don't deserve) an entire post of their own. We'll just dump them together in a "quick links" post whenever we accumulate a bunch of them. Should mean more stuff gets posted. Here's the first such set of links:

Square Watermelon
Soon to be on sale in Britain. Really. "Boxes are placed around the growing fuit which naturally swells to fill the shape." Buy two and get a bonsai kitten free! (Thanks, Lou)

Reuters admits altering Beirut photo
Bloggers spot repeating symmetrical patterns in Beirut smoke. Cry photoshop.

Amazon Milk Reviews
Amazon now selling groceries. I suspect some of these user reviews for "Tuscan Whole Milk" might not be completely serious. (via Metafilter)

Tom Cruise Can't Throw a Baseball
YouTube video offers slow-motion analysis of the scene in War of the Worlds where Tom Cruise throws a baseball. Or rather, pretends to throw a baseball.

The Ring Prank
Annoying online prank inspired by "The Ring." Enter your friends phone number and email address in the online form. Your friend will receive an email with a link to "The Ring" video. Once they watch the video, they'll then receive a phone call with a computer-generated voice telling them "You will die in seven days." The best way to get revenge on someone who does this to you is to fake your death after seven days. They'll feel guilty then.

Popularity Dialer
Mobile phone application allows you to pre-plan excuses to escape from unpleasant meetings. "Via a web interface, you can choose to have your phone called at a particular time (or several times). At the elected time, your phone will be dialed and you will hear a prerecorded message that's one half of a conversation. Thus, you will be prompted to have a fake conversation and will easily fool those around you." Reminds me of Escape-a-date. (via Boing Boing)

The Butter Trough — The Butter Trough, located in Atlanta, Georgia, is a great concept for a restaurant. First of all, the menu is simple. They only serve bread, butter, and sweet tea. But best of all, it's all free! It's the world's first advertiser-supported restaurant: Is this place real? I don't think so. Clues that it's fake include the google ads on the website (though this would make sense given that the restaurant is advertiser supported), and the obligatory CafePress t-shirts they're selling. But the biggest clue is the address: 6346 Lynch Avenue, Atlanta GA. There doesn't appear to be such a place. At least, nothing comes up on Google Maps when I type in that address.

I'm guessing that the Butter Trough site was created by Joseph Donaldson, because a) Joseph Donaldson's homepage is hosted on the same server as The Butter Trough site and b) he links to the Butter Trough. A few other sites (all of which link to the Butter Trough as well) hosted on that server include: Circus of the Damned, and the Just Ducky Guild. (Thanks to Doug Nelson for the link)

Hair-Made Soy Sauce: An Update — Back in January 2004 I posted a short entry about a factory in China that had been caught making soy sauce out of human hair. I also mentioned the incident in Hippo Eats Dwarf (p.76). Now more gruesome details have emerged, published in the Internet Journal of Toxicology (link via Boing Boing): An investigation led by TV journalists then revealed why the soy sauce was so cheap. It was being manufactured from an amino acid powder (or syrup) bought from a manufacturer in Hubei province: Lovely. But what the article doesn't mention, but which I believe to be true, is that soy sauce isn't the only food product made out of this cheap hair-made amino acid powder. The stuff is also sold in large quantities to the bakery industry which uses it as a source of L-cysteine to make dough softer and more elastic. Think about that next time you're chewing on a bagel.

Magic Cheese — Chilean police have arrested a pair of con artists who had constructed an elaborate pyramid scheme based on the sale of "magic cheese". OhMyNews reports: Ponzi would have been proud. I think someone should collect samples of all the worthless junk that's been sold through Ponzi schemes (magic cheese, bioperformance pills, etc.), and then display it all in a Ponzi Museum. Or this would be a cool gallery to have in an actual Museum of Hoaxes, should such a thing ever come into existence. (Anyone want to donate a million dollars or so to help me build it?)

The Vegetable Orchestra — Vienna boasts the world's only vegetable orchestra. Members of this orchestra play only instruments made out of vegetables. Among their instruments: the cuke-o-phon, the radish-marimba, and the carrot-flute. (A few kitchen utensils such as knives and mixers are also used, on occasion.) And I love this part of the concept: "the instruments are subsequently made into a soup so that the audience can then enjoy them a second time"

In their FAQ, the vegetable orchestra reports that yes, they are serious about their music. It's not just a gag. And they seem to have quite an active tour schedule. They also report that the freshness of the vegetables makes a big difference in the quality of the sound.

I wonder if throwing tomatoes at them at the end of the concert would be considered a compliment? (via the Salvador Dali Museum)

Farm-Raised Salmon Scam — It was only in the course of writing Hippo Eats Dwarf that I became aware of how widespread the use of deceptive marketing is in the food industry. 'Chicken nuggets' often contain mostly ground-up skin and bones from cows and pigs. Order veal at a restaurant and there's a good chance you'll be served cheap pork. And fish restaurants are notorious for serving cheap fish to their patrons, having creatively renamed it to sound more appealing. So, for instance, Pacific Rockfish becomes 'snapper,' and very often lobster is really South American langoustine. So this news from Consumer Reports about a widespread farm-raised salmon scam didn't really surprise me: So how do you tell if your salmon is farm-raised or wild? They recommend two ways. First, if it's from Alaska it's probably wild, since Alaska doesn't allow Salmon farming. Also, "CR's expert tasters noted that wild salmon has a stronger flavor and firmer flesh than farmed." Of course, you also have to hope that your 'salmon' isn't really pink-dyed tuna.

The Cumato (Cucumber-Tomato) — The Alvin Sun-Advertiser reports on a rare hybrid found by a local gardener — a tomato-cucumber. They're calling it a 'Cumato': Unfortunately the photo of Rodriguez holding the cumato is pretty bad. You can't see any details of the rare vegetable. I also want to know if he's cut it open. What's inside of it? Is it simply a tomato, or is it a combination of both? For now I'm skeptical of this. (Thanks to 't' for the link)

Arômes Artificiels — The latest scandal in the world of French gourmet cuisine: the use of artificial bottled flavors (aka arômes artificiels) to substitute for high-end ingredients such as truffles, wild mushroom, caviar, prawn, crab, shallot, scallop, saffron, and even wine. The London Times reports: Many of these aromes can be purchased at chefsimon.com. Their pictures of the flavorings, such as the artificial wine powder, are kind of interesting. But their product page also bears the warning: USONS SANS ABUSER! (Let us use without abusing!)

Frog Salad — A few days ago a Burger King restaurant in the Netherlands debuted a new dish: frog salad. The first customer of this dish, a 23-year-old woman named Astrid Roek, had not realized what she had ordered. ABC News reports: So just to clarify: Burger King hadn't intended for the frog to get in the salad, but somehow it got there anyway. They're not really serving Frog Salad. (Though that item might go over well in France.) The question is, did the woman put the frog there, or was it Burger King's fault? It sounds like BK is taking the blame for this incident. Given the frequency of these gross-stuff-found-in-food stories, I think I'll soon need to devote a separate page to them. (Thanks to Stephen for the link.)

The Extreme Cuisine of Chef Kaz Yamamoto — Todd emailed me a link to this Phoenix New Times article about rogue chef "Kaz" Yamamoto, whose specialty is creating dishes from "meat, game and vegetation that's considered off limits, immoral or even illegal." We're talking about dishes such as Tenderloin of Bichon Frise, monkey brain stew, Arizona saguaro cactus salad, Yosemite brown bear, rhino genitals, giraffe tongue, Sea World sea lion (supposedly obtained by bribing a Sea World employee), etc. Yamamoto even claims to serve human flesh, obtained by paying Mexican immigrants a handsome sum for their kidney, arm, or leg. These delicacies are all served to a rich and powerful clientele who have a taste for forbidden food.


As Todd points out, this sounds a bit farfetched (and very reminiscent of the plot of The Freshman), but then again the Phoenix New Times is a real, credible paper. So why would they be making all this up? The answer is that the Phoenix New Times occasionally likes to print hoax stories. Back in 2004 I posted about their article on human taxidermy, which described a company that offered freeze-drying of corpses as an alternative to burial or cremation. (You could stand freeze-dried Grandma in the corner of your living room.) Human taxidermy was a hoax, and so is the extreme cuisine of Kaz Yamamoto. Clues (besides the outlandish nature of the article itself) are the photoshopped pictures (such as the one of Yamamoto cutting down a protected saguaro cactus) and the "Details" box which reads "Special Reports: As If. . .".

Love Spud — A rare heart-shaped potato has been found by Linda Greene of Moon Township, Pa. She found it in a sack of potatoes back in February and emailed the Idaho Potato Commission about it in March. For some reason it's only making headlines now. What makes the discovery of the potato strange is that irregularly shaped potatoes are supposed to be removed during the sorting process and used for french fries. The potato commission president said: "I would guarantee someone saw it and thought, 'This is cool, we'll let this go through.'... Typically, unique shapes will go into processing _ dehydrated or cut up into french fries." To those who suggest the love spud is a plant (pun intended), being used by the commission to drum up publicity, the commission president says, "We didn't plant it. We'll have to start sorting for heart-shaped potatoes." (Thanks to Big Gary for the story)

Inflatable Pub — Speaking of fake Irish bars, now it's possible to have an instant fake British pub, anywhere you like. It's advertised as "the Worlds first fully functioning Mobile Inflatable Pub." This comes from the same people who brought us the world's first inflatable church. Ideally it should come with a bartender who fakes a British accent.

Human-Flavored Rum — This could be the next big thing: Soylent Green Human-Flavored Rum. Reuters reports: You could prepare a dinner starting with human-flavored tofu, seasoned with some human-hair soy sauce (and a little bit of bread made from human hair as a sidedish), and then wash it all down with this human-flavored rum. Yum! (Thanks to Big Gary for the link.)

Update: As Joe points out in the comments, this story sounds an awful lot like the tapping the admiral legend, which involves Admiral Nelson's body being preserved in a cask of rum while at sea, and the cask slowly being drained by sailors on the voyage home. World Wide Words points out that: "Jan Harald Brunvand, the American academic who has made a lifelong study of such legends, has told versions in one of his books, including a related one dating back six hundred years about some tomb robbers in Egypt. Other tales tell of containers holding similarly preserved bodies of monkeys or apes that spring a leak on their way from Africa to museums; the leaking spirits are consumed with a gusto that turns to horror when the truth of the situation emerges." So given the relatively flaky source on the Reuters story (a Hungarian website), it's probable that whoever runs the Hungarian website got taken in by an urban legend, and then Reuters in turn was taken in by it.

Finger Served To Diner — Taking a cue from Wendy's (see gross things found in food, TGI Friday's served a diner a piece of a human finger. Except in this case the finger piece really did get on the customer's plate as a result of a kitchen mishap, not because the customer put it there himself. Apparently one of the kitchen workers had sliced off a bit of his finger by mistake, and while everyone was rushing to help him, no one noticed that the finger piece had landed on a plate of food, which was then served to a customer. The customer noticed right away. But it doesn't look like the diner will be able to make millions off of this, because the police told him it wasn't a criminal matter. (Thanks to Big Gary for the link.)

In related news, the suspects in the 2004 Cracker Barrel Soup Mouse case (also described in my post about gross things found in food) have been convicted on felony charges of conspiracy to commit extortion because of their demand that Cracker Barrel pay them $500,000 after they falsely claimed to have found a mouse in their soup while dining there.

Casu Marzu (aka Maggot Cheese) — Thanks to Mark Holah (aka Rennet) for bringing the Sardinian specialty known as Casu Marzu to my attention. Casu Marzu is a type of pecorino cheese infested with thousands of wriggling maggots. If the maggots are still wriggling, then it's okay to eat (if you have a strong stomach). If the maggots aren't wriggling, that means the cheese has become toxic. The wikipedia entry for Casu Marzu is so bizarre, that you'd swear it has to be a joke:

Derived from Pecorino Sardo, casu marzu goes beyond typical fermentation to a stage most would consider to be decomposition, brought about by the digestive action of the larvae of the cheese fly, Piophila casei. These larvae are deliberately introduced to the cheese, promoting an advanced level of fermentation and breaking down the cheese's fats. The texture of the cheese becomes very soft, with some liquid (called "lagrima") seeping out. The larvae themselves appear as transparent, white worms, about 8 mm (1/3 inch) long. When disturbed, the larvae can jump for distances up to 15 cm (6 inches), prompting recommendations of eye protection for those eating the cheese. Some people clear the larvae from the cheese before consuming; others do not.

However, Casu Marzu is quite real. It's been described in a number of newspapers and magazines including The Wall Street Journal and Bon Appetit. Taras Grescoe recently wrote about it in The Devil's Picnic: A Tour of Everything the Governments of the World Don't Want You to Try.

Apparently Casu Marzu isn't even the most disgusting food Sardinians eat. According to a 2004 article in Australian Magazine, that honor goes to 'tordi':

These are small, 10cm-long songbirds that feed on the island's plentiful myrtle berries. They are netted and poached, then served cold, three or four at a time, garnished with myrtle leaves. Their eyes are black, haunting, their necks spindly. They look like a plateful of baby dinosaurs. You are supposed to eat them whole - everything but the beak - in a few crunches.

If one is going to try some Casu Marzu, I think the perfect drink to wash it down would be some Army Worm Wine.

Microwaved Water Kills Plants — I've posted before about theories that microwaved food is bad for you, but this is slightly different. Some guy has posted pictures of his granddaughter's science fair project in which she tested the effect microwaved water would have on a plant. The result: the plant died. (Yes, the water had been cooled before she watered the plant with it.) But the plant given water that had been boiled on a stove did just fine. So what does this prove? That microwaved water is toxic? Not necessarily. The guy notes:

We have seen a number of comments on this, such as what was the water in the microwave boiled in. The thinking is that maybe some leaching took place if it was in plastic. It was boiled in a plastic cup, so this could be a possibility. Also it was not a double blind experiment, so she knew which was which when watering them. On top of that she was wanting the microwaved ones to do poorly, and although most scientists would dismiss the idea, it is possible that her thoughts toward each plant had an effect as well. Bottom line is, the results are interesting, and duplicate the results that others have reported (try Googling '"microwaved water" plants') more experiments need to be done with better controls and as a double blind study. But this was a simple 6th grade science fair project, and was never intended to be anything more than that. The plants were genetically identical, they were produced from graphs from the same parent plant, so that variable can be eliminated.

Intriguingly, the Straight Dope (a source I usually trust) has written an article about the controversy over microwave cooking, and he notes that scientists actually do not fully understand the chemical changes that take place when food is microwaved, and so there may indeed be some kind of "microwave effect." He notes a 1992 Stanford study that found microwaving breast milk mysteriously reduces its infection-fighting properties, as well as studies that have found that microwaves can accelerate certain chemical reactions. He writes: "'One suggestion,' a bunch of chemists wrote recently, 'is that this is some form of 'ponderomotive' driving force that arises when high frequency electric fields modulate ionic currents near interfaces with abrupt differences in ion mobility.'" He doesn't attempt to explain this theory.

I would repeat the girl's experiment myself, but everything I try to grow mysteriously dies, so there wouldn't be much point. (via The Greener Side)

Boston Couple Eats Glass — When I was in elementary school, I often heard a rumor that if you ate chalk you could fake the symptoms of being sick, and thus not have to go to school. I never tried it, but this couple seems to have taken the same idea and advanced it a step further:

A couple has been charged with filing fraudulent insurance claims that said they had eaten glass found in their food at restaurants, hotels and grocery stores, federal prosecutors said... The couple used aliases, false Social Security numbers and identity cards, and in some cases, had eaten glass intentionally to support their insurance claims, prosecutors said. The glass did not come from the food they had bought, prosecutors said.

On the other hand, this couple could also suffer from hyalophagia, a medical disorder characterized by the eating of glass. (Thanks to Joe Littrell for the link)