unorthodoxchef

There is no recorded history of the age of cheese; however it’s believed that cheese originated in the Middle East or Europe. Archaeologists have found evidence of cheese making in Egyptian tomb murals, dating back to 2000 BCE, however their findings were never conclusive.

The earliest cheeses were likely to have been quite sour and salty, similar in texture to rustic cottage cheese or feta, a crumbly, flavorful Greek cheese.

It is possible that milk was left in a food storage barrel, made out of the stomach of an animal, and it turned into curd and whey by the rennet. When individuals realized that by adding salt to the curd the result was a more solid texture, they kept the tradition going by adding the rennet deliberately.

By Roman times, cheese was an everyday food and cheese making was an art. However, I don’t think they ever planned for it’s purpose to be purely decorative. This is what has happened now a days. More so than not, we are accustomed to seeing carvings of cheese, as opposed to the simple cubes accompanied by an assortment of crackers.

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Cheese carver Troy Landwehr brushes oil off a rendition of the signing of the Declaration of Independence carved out of 2000 lbs of cheese in New York, July 3, 2008. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

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This cheese sculpture of part of Cardiff Castle has been made to highlight its new status as host to the Great British Cheese Festival, on 27-28 September. Cardiff sculptors Ice2Art made it from a 2m x 1.5m block supplied by Carmarthenshire Cheese and Dairy Farmers of Great Britain. A time-lapse film showing its creation can be seen on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/BritishCheeseFest.

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Every year  farmers, gardeners, hobbyists, chefs, cooks, and vegetable lovers compete for the coveted title of the largest vegetable, food, or fruit on record for that particular year. Interestingly enough, each grower uses his or her own secret recipe of fertilizers whether that be a mixture of cloves and garlic or horse manure from the local field. One never knows what makes these freaks of nature explode into various shapes and sizes, however they do make for a pretty good story or possibly even a feast for a huge group of friends and family.

Largest Tabbouleh

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The largest recorded bowl of tabbouleh was made on June 9, 2006 in Ramallah, in the West Bank. It weighed 3,348 lbs.

Largest Chocolate Bar

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The biggest chocolate bar in the world weighed more than 4410 pounds. It was at the International Milka Choc. Festival on 7/11/98.

Largest Stuffed Cabbage

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Chef Lazar Kovacs’ of Hajduboesoerrmen, Hungary’s 2002 Guinness attempt at the largest stuffed cabbage measuring 288 meters long.

Largest Slab of Fudge

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In 2007, the Northwest Fudge Factory prepared this slab of fudge in Ontario, Canada weighing 5,050 pounds.

Largest Hershey Kiss

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Not far from were I was born, the biggest hershey kiss was constructed which took over three miles of foil to cover in Hershey, Pennsylvania, 2007.
The Hershey kiss weighed 30,540 pounds, had a 7-foot-long plume, was 12-feet high, and it measured 12-feet wide.

Largest Pumpkin Pie

The world’s largest pumpkin pie, assembled in Windsor, Calif., in 2005, took six hours to bake and five hours to cool off. It measured 12 feet in diameter and 2,020 pounds.

 Strongest Pasta Bridge

The winning bridge was built by Bala’zs Botka of Hungary’s Budapest Polytechnic, weighed 994.9 grams and held 352.62 kg before faltering.

Largest Chocolate Egg

In 2005, 26 Guylian chocolatiers took eight days and 50,000 chocolate bars to construct this chocolate egg in Sint Niklaas, Belgium. The egg weighed 4,299 pounds and measured 27 feet tall and 21 feet wide.

Largest Gummy Bear

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This massive Gummy Bear was created in 1999 in Hagenow, Germany and weighed in at 1395 pounds.

Largest Pumpkin

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Still holding strong, the great 1689 lb pumpkin was grown by Joe Jutras from North Scituate, Rhode Island at the Topsfield Fair on September 29, 2007.

Largest Potato

The 24.9 pounds potato was dug up by Khalil Semhat in his farm near Tyre, 50 miles south of Beirut.

My day started out completely normal. I started updating my blogs and writing a few articles. I was even on the look out for some more Museum links for my site Ancient Digger, an Archaeology focused website. However, what I found when I was stumbling around on one of the sites was a really strange food festival including all types of insect specialties. I know people all around the globe partake in different sorts of cuisines, but never did I imagine that there were festivals celebrating the consumption of grasshoppers and meal-worms. Gross!

This sparked my interest, so I started rummaging around the net to find some really interesting and bizarre food festivals. And you thought your meal last night was innovative and special, think again!

BugFest North Carolina

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This sounds like too much fun. The Museum of Natural Sciences in North Carolina hold this festival every year around September. You can enjoy all types of entertainment including displays and presentations about arthropods. You can taste “delectable dishes featuring creepy crawlers as a major ingredient at Café Insecta.” All of these samples of insects are absolutely free. This is a wonderful,kid friendly festival. I only wish I lived closer to savor some of the strange delicacies.

Check out all the Buggy News

Waikiki Spam Jam

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Spam may just be one of the only foods I have never tried, although it seems to be quite popular with the people of Hawaii. They even have a street festival that celebrates the people of Hawaii’s love for SPAM®, a canned meat from Hormel Foods.

“This street festival is great for all ages, as the event includes Hawaii’s top restaurants, two stages with free entertainment,and a variety of Hawaiian crafters. This is also a special event that benefits the Hawaii Food Bank, the largest non-profit in Hawaii that feeds the needy. Please take a look around our website for more information on this annual cultural tradition in Hawaii.”

Check out their website full of recipes and pictures of the festival

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Click on the picture above to their library of photo’s.

The first Salley Chitlin’ Strut was planned for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 26, 1966. The festival featured country music acts including Greasy Medlin, Dixie Four, Snuffy Jenkins and the Strange Sisters.  Thousands upon thousands of people in South Carolina and the surrounding areas flocked to the Chitlin’ Strut where they consumed hundreds of pounds of chitlin’s, and barbecue, among many other food items.

“The Town raised enough money during the festival to purchase new decorations in time for Christmas. The Chitlin’ Strut proved such a success, the Mayor and Town Council decided to make the festival an annual event, to be held each year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.”

Check out all that the Chitlin Strut of Sally has to offer

Turkey Testicle Festival

Woodruff, Utah

Testicle Festival 2009 Olean Missouri, Producer Shawn Kober

You may this is strange, but there are Turkey testicle festivals all over the United states including one in Illinois, Misssouri and  Montana

My very first hotel position consisted of an enormous kitchen that catered to banquet halls. Every day, I would spend my morning making butter molds for the afternoon luncheons. How interesting that butter has become so fancy and oddly placed in unique forms for the sole purpose of spreading it on rolls and breads.

In fact, I never really knew that the origin of butter sculpture came from the Tibetans who took  Yak butter and dye to create “temporary symbols for the Tibetan New Year and other religious celebrations.” 

by pwbaker(PA)

Even in the United States, butter sculpture was making it’s debut at state fairs in the 19th century. The first recorded sculpture in the US was created by Carolyn Brooks for the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.

by pwbaker

In 1910 the first Butter cow was created by Mr. Daniels at the Iowa State Fair. The exhibit was a way to promote the dairy industry to visitors to the fair. It was so popular that it continued every year. During the 1940’s, following in Daniels footsteps in 1910 and starting a revolution on his own, JE Wallace started making sculptures out of butter to depict life and nature.

“Frank Dutt became the official sculptor. Dutt was trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and had experience sculpting many materials, from plaster and clay to lard. Over the next few years he sculpted cows in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, spreading the love of the Buttercow throughout the Midwest United States. His additions to each year’s exhibit were far more cartoonish than those of J.E. Wallace, depicting such things as a fight between political party mascots or a parade of smiling pigs.”

Butter sculpture by artist Jim Victor in The Great New York State Fair 2007

Interestingly enough, many people assumed that these amazing sculptures were crafted out of a solid block of butter, but they were wrong. Most sculptors won’t admit that the butter is placed on wooden and wire molds in large amounts to achieve the shape, then smaller amounts are used for detail. Several layers of butter are used to build up the large mass that we see in the picture above.

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The Minnesota State Fair  showcases butter sculpture in the Princess Kay of the Milky Way contest. A 90 lb block of butter is taken and carved in their likeness. It’s so bizarre really. I had the opportunity to see this several years ago with my sister. It’s funny that pageant finalists spend their whole lives avoiding fat, and at the fair their faces are full of it.

Butter sculpture also made it’s way to Canada, with the Ontario Cream Producers Marketing Board and the Dairy Producers of Canada campaigning to promote their products after World War II. Butter sculptures were displayed at both the Canadian National Exhibition and Royal Agricultural Winter Fairs in Toronto. Ross Butler (artist) was the first Canadian artist to sculpt in butter at these fairs.

The Butter Wagon

by jmgold (Springfield, MA)

The Great New York State Fair (Cow Jumping Over Moon)

by brauksieck

Harrisburg, PA

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by Robbie1

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