The latest gross-out food email going around involves a Chinese restaurant in Atlanta supposedly caught accepting shipments of rats and mice. These rats would, I guess, be served to people who enjoy rodents as a delicacy. Some photos accompany the email (rats1, rats2, rats3). The email says that:
I, like everyone else, should stop posting about these miracle foods that keep appearing on eBay. It's only encouraging their proliferation. But I just can't stop myself. So here's the latest one: A Miracle M&M. The seller says:
My wife is a big fan of fruitcakes, though only of the British variety. She tells me that American fruitcakes have too much weird stuff in them (maraschino cherries, etc.). But fans of American fruitcakes can find people of a like-mind at the Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcakes. "The Society's goal is to protect and preserve fruitcake, not in the pouring on more brandy or rum type of preservation but in the 'spread the gospel' way. By providing information and links about fruitcake, it's hoped we can provide safe haven for fruitcake lovers and some encouragement for others to give it a try." Unfortunately the Fruitcake Society is only a society in spirit, not in fact, since it doesn't appear to have ever had an actual meeting. But still, for those who love fruitcake it's a start. In other fruitcake news, those who don't look forward to this holiday treat, but who have fruitcakes forced upon them anyway as gifts, will be disappointed to learn that Buffalo, New York does not seem to be repeating its Fruitcake Amnesty Campaign. Last year this campaign provided a home to hundreds of unwanted fruitcakes, no questions asked.
Following the $28,000 sale of that Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich, it seems like it's been loony season on eBay (if it was ever NOT loony season on eBay, that is). Among the more memorable Grilled Cheese Mary Wannabes have been the Jesus Fish Stick, the NutriGrain cereal that looks like ET, and the piece of popcorn that looks like the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus. Buck Wolf, in his weekly column on ABC News, points out some miracle foods from years past that have beguiled the public, including the Tennessee Nun Bun (a cinnamon bun that looks like Mother Teresa), the Miracle Tortilla of New Mexico (a tortilla that looks like Jesus), and the Holy Eggplant of India (an eggplant that spells out 'Allah' in urdu script).
For the past week (ever since Nov. 14) Brian has been drinking nothing but Pepsi Holiday Spice. He will continue to drink nothing but Pepsi Holiday Spice until Christmas Day. It's his strange, self-appointed mission for himself, apparently inspired by the movie Supersize Me (as well as the fact that his friend bet him $1000 that he couldn't do it). On his blog he's recording the health effects of all this Pepsi Spice drinking. Now, I've never had the stuff myself (though I plan to get some), but I seriously doubt that any soft drink is so bad that it would cause all the health problems he's experienced in the nine days since he started the project. For instance, he's already gained twenty pounds. He's started sneezing. He's developed a strange cyst on his neck. And his urine has turned red. He's blaming all this on the Pepsi Spice. The red urine... maybe. But I don't understand how anyone could gain that much weight in nine days just from switching what they drink, unless they were consuming huge amounts of the new drink (which he doesn't claim to be doing). So I'm guessing that he's making up most of the stuff on his blog. Either that, or he's allergic to the drink (in which case his health problems should be worse than they are).
Just in time for Thanksgiving, I give you the Turkey Testicle Festival. Actually, it was held on October 9, so it's already over this year. But there's always next year to look forward to. I love the motto of the festival: Come and have a ball. Now I never knew that anyone ate turkey testicles, but I'm assuming this is real (that people really do eat them), since I know that sheep testicles are considered delicacies in various places. This festival should think about partnering up with that Cow Manure Tossing contest held in Oklahoma.
The auction of a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary has been pulled from eBay. The sandwich was put up for sale by Diana Duyser who claims that in the ten years since she made the sandwich and took one bite out of it (before noticing the face of the Virgin), it has miraculously never grown any mold. eBay pulled the auction because it claims that it doesn't allow joke listings (that's news to me). Looking at the sandwich, I can definitely see a face, but it doesn't look like the Virgin Mary. To me it looks more like a movie star from the 30s or 40s. Myrna Loy, perhaps. She should have said it was haunted. Would have been no problems then, because eBay definitely allows haunted stuff. 
Could the makers of Boo Bee Juice Drink really not realize the double meaning of the product's name? Or do they realize perfectly well and are going for the titillation/subliminal advertising thing? I'm sure even kids would pick up on what the name means, especially when they hear the adults giggling behind their backs. I suspect it all could be another Haribo-Fruit-Chews-type marketing ploy. (via Boing Boing)
A fire at the only factory that produces Branston Pickle reportedly sparked panic buying of the popular brown relish, spurred on by a comment from Premier Foods (its manufacturer) that within two weeks stock levels would run out. So sellers of Branston Pickle began asking as much as £16 or £25 for the stuff on eBay (a jar usually sells for less than £1). For Americans who don't know what this stuff is, it's kind of like a savory brown chutney, very popular in Britain, and often spread on ham and cheese sandwiches. It's good stuff. But now it seems that Branston Pickle isn't in imminent danger of disappearing from stores. Premier Foods will be able to maintain supplies of it. And this article in The Guardian implies that the Branston Pickle Panic never really materialized anyway. Buyers weren't flocking to the stores to snatch up the last remaining jars of the stuff. The Branston Pickle panic was mostly an invention of the media.
Virgel Fisher owns a hand of corn. He inherited it from his grandfather. But this is the part of the story that I don't understand. He says that when his grandfather found the 'corn hand' two of its fingers were missing, "so his ancestor searched until he found them, using pins to reattach the dismembered digits". Does this mean that the fingers were an artificial add-on? Or had they simply broken off? Either way, Virgel could probably make a bundle if he sold his 'corn hand' on eBay, especially if he claimed that it was haunted. (via The Anomalist)
German artist Karl-Friedrich Lentze has applied for a patent on his new invention: a banana-straightening device (thanks to Hairy Houdini for posting this in the hoax forum). Obviously this is just what the world needs. Basically Lentze's idea is to chop off the bent bits and then seal the banana back up with a "biologically safe plaster." Here are some of Lentze's other projects: 
