Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Japanese Restaurant Uses Dirt as the Main Ingredient for Its Expensive Dishes

Posted: 23 Jan 2013 04:06 AM PST

While most chefs work hard to make sure no dirt winds up in their food, at French restaurant Ne Quittez Pas, in Tokyo, Japan, dirt is actually used as a key ingredient.

Mind you, this isn’t just any kind of dirt. It’s a special black soil from Kanuma, Tochigi Prefecture, that’s actually been tested for safety, but it’s still the thing most people use to grow plants in. So how did dirt wind up on the menu of this respectable venue? Apparently, Chef Toshio Tanabe once won a cooking competition with his signature dirt sauce, and from that point on he put together an entire menu based on the unusual ingredient. Now the restaurant is offering dishes priced as high as $110 with Kanuma dirt in them.

Dirt risotto

The guys at RocketNews24 heard about the unique restaurant and decided to sample some of the dirt-based foods on their menu. They started with a dirt soup, moved on to a salad with dirt dressing, an aspic made with oriental clams and topped with a layer of sediment, and finished off with dirt ice-cream and dirt gratin. Believe it or not, the reporter swears they all tasted divine, and had only a hint of earthiness to them. I guess Ne Quittez Pas’ Chef won that TV cooking show for a reason. Still, ¥10,000 ($110) for a dirt meal seems a bit steep.

Salad with dirt dressing

Although not considered a gourmet meal until now, dirt has been used as food before. Pregnant women suffering from a condition known as PICA sometimes eat dirt to soothe their stomachs, and in the Indonesian village of Tuban, people eat ampo – baked dirt.

Dirt soup

 

Dirt gratin

 Dirt ice-cream

Photos by RocketNews24.com

Japanese Restaurant Uses Dirt as the Main Ingredient for Its Expensive Dishes was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Vernon Spicer’s Incredible Pasta Paintings

Posted: 23 Jan 2013 02:57 AM PST

Self-taught artist Vernon Spicer, from Alabama, uses pasta like spaghetti, macaroni, lasagna and noodles to create his detailed paintings.

I’ve seen some pretty unusual materials used in paintings, but pasta is definitely a first for me. 71-year-old Vernon Spicer, a Vietnam veteran and pastor at a church in Selma, Alabama, got the idea of using the brittle material from a dream he had one night. It woke me up one night," he told the Montgomery Advertiser. "In it, I could see something that had a three-dimensional design, one that involved me using sticks to create." Instead telling him to get over it, wife Audrey encouraged him to pursue the vision and suggested he replace the sticks with uncooked spaghetti. That’s how Vernon’s career as an amateur pasta artist began. Now, six years later, Spicer can create some pretty amazing works of art.

He begins the artistic process by taking a photo of the landmark he wants to replicate with pasta. He then carefully starts arranging the various types of past onto a Plexiglas, making sure he doesn’t break too many pieces. Then, he starts applying enamel-based house paint to his pasta, making it hard for the naked eye to realize what the painting is made of until the person gets really close. It takes nerves of steel and mountains of patience to paint every little piece of pasta, especially when there’s a lot of spaghetti involved, but Vernon enjoys his work. "When I get started on one of my paintings, I put the TV on mute and use the light," he said. "Then, I put on a pot of coffee and head into another world, working through the night."

Although making one of these beautiful pasta paintings is no easy feat, the hardest part for Vernon is actually selling them. For his depiction of the Brown Chapel (AME Church), he’s asking $1,800, which is apparently a bit steep, since no one has made any offers just yet. He’s even tried lowering the price considerably, but still no bites so far. Some of his other pasta masterpieces include two paintings of Pettus Bridge, and the artist is preparing to start work on an image of Mount Rushmore.

Vernon Spicer says he probably spends more time answering people’s questions about his art, than he actually does working on it. "People ask me if I have to cook my pasta before using it, and I tell them that's the last thing to do because they'd be too soft," he said. "But, you've got to be careful because noodles can break into tiny pieces right out of the box."

Photos: Selma Photoblog via Weird Universe

Vernon Spicer’s Incredible Pasta Paintings was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Family Is Literally Living under a Rock in the Mexican Desert

Posted: 23 Jan 2013 02:02 AM PST

For the last three decades, Benito Hernandez and his wife have been living under a huge rock, in Mexico’s Coahuila Desert, 80 kilometers from the US border.

Benito Hernandez started visiting the 40 meter diameter rock that now serves as a roof for his sun-dried brick home when he was just eight years old. He liked it so much that he decided to one day make it his home. Many 8-year-olds have crazy dreams, but Benito’s followed him into adulthood. 55 years ago, when he and his family first discovered the remote rock formation, a man could claim a piece of land by settling on it for long periods of time, so during the many years they spent working in the area harvesting the Candelilla plant, he beat off other who would claim the rock for themselves and 20 years later he finally became its legal owner. He could finally build his dream house under the boulder that fascinated him all this time.

Photo: Daniel Becerril/REUTERS

The Candelilla harvester used sun-dried bricks and cement to build the walls of his desert home, and locally-sourced wood for the windows and doors. It took him a few years, but he managed to build a home for his family, although it doesn’t have a reliable energy supply or sanitary sewers. They use a wood-burning stove to cook the food, and get their water from a fresh-water spring in the area. Life is simpler during the summer, when they work hard to harvest the little desert plant used mostly in the production of chewing gum and in the cosmetic industry, but during the winter, when Candelilla doesn’t produce much wax and the desert spring freezes, they struggle to make ends meet. ”It gets very cold here and we struggle to get food. We have to work hard here on the Candelilla (fields). That’s the only job we have. That’s what we live from,” Benito said. Despite being the only ones still leaving in the remote area, he and his wife won’t leave the rock house they raised seven children in.

Source: International Business Times

Family Is Literally Living under a Rock in the Mexican Desert was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

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