TIL: Today I Learned

[hobbsyoyo]

Eww eww ewww ewwwwww

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Eww eww ewww ewwwwww

What? That seems a good strategy.

 

[HoloDoc]

What? That seems a good strategy.

I have a better strategy; don't go to Libya.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I have a better strategy; don't go to Libya.

C'mon man, maggots aren't exclusive to Libya.

 

[Hrothbern]

A couple who I worked with in the mid 80s had just recently worked in Libya.
She said that she used washing up liquid to get the maggots to come out of the meat before cooking it.

My mother did the same with lettuce etc, letting the loose leaves standing a while in the water to separate the slugs etc.

I did BTW read somewhere that a not ignorable part of the protein intake of many African tribes eating their more original diet, comes from insects within the cereal harvest.
Sounds uggghhh to us, but perhaps not so weird, because many eat insects as separate dish or snack as well.

It could very well be food for the future... beginning as food for farm fish like Salmon etc.
Roughly 75% of our global animal biomass is earthworms.

 

[Silurian]

Many foods have insects in them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels

 

[Timsup2nothin]

.
Roughly 75% of our global animal biomass is earthworms.

This is one of those statements that is so interesting I will almost undoubtedly repeat it. Can you give me some authoritative source in case I get challenged?

 

[cardgame]

If amended to '75% animal biomass is insectoid' then it passes the sniff test, but specifically earthworms is unbelievable to me without sauce

 

[Hrothbern]

This is one of those statements that is so interesting I will almost undoubtedly repeat it. Can you give me some authoritative source in case I get challenged?

From the top of my head is was more than 50% as rough indication from various articles that I did read... that's why I came to the idea to mention it... so I did a quick check on wikipedia from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#cite_note-Blakemore2017-27
From a table there it was terrestrial: 1860 million tonnes other vs 5700 million tonnes earthworms. that's more than 75%.

my bad to overlook marine animal life
And looking at not mentioning pigs and other insects than ants and termites (wild animals is small), that number goes down, but is still very high compared to mammals, reptiles, etc.

 

[The_J]

TIL that there is a Sardinian food specialty of cheese with life maggots.

There is in Malmo, Sweden until Jan 27 a museum expo on and with disgusting foods you can eat.
So... there is your chance to eat the famous well-aged shark from Iceland
(IIRC they burry it in sand to rot and dry it afterwards)

Exhibited delicacies include:

• Surströmming – fermented herring from Sweden.
• Cuy – roasted guinea pigs from Peru.
• Casu marzu – maggot-infested cheese from Sardinia
• Stinky tofu – pungent bean curd from China.
• Hákarl – well-aged shark from Iceland.
• Durian – infamously stinky fruit from Thailand.

https://disgustingfoodmuseum.com/
The link to the article and some nice pictures

One of my colleagues once brought some durian candy, and didn't tell the first people what it was before they tried it.... he couldn't get everyone to try it. The candy in the trash can already stank, and one of the guys described the taste as a mix between death, desparation and onion.

And from the rest... I guess I'll pass that expo (altough the guinea pigs are probably okay).

 

[Silurian]

but specifically earthworms is unbelievable to me without sauce

So no sauce then.

 

[HoloDoc]

So no sauce then.

Earthworms are probably best with gravy. Maybe with some mushrooms, a little bit of onion in there...

Damn it, now I'm actually getting hungry. For steak, not earthworms.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Earthworms are probably best with gravy. Maybe with some mushrooms, a little bit of onion in there...

Protein!

 

[Takhisis]

Once a person told me of an occasion in a then-remote part of the world where they were eating ham that had some sort of earthworm-like creatures in it and they were told (and it proved to be true) that it was no problem because the worms weren't the kind that grows in your belly and anyway they only ate ham so they tasted just like the ham this person was about to eat anyway.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Failed to connect

 

[Gori the Grey]

they tasted just like the ham

So earthworms turn out to be the one unfamiliar food in the world that doesn't taste like chicken?

 

[Takhisis]

Heheh, tasting like chicken and failure to connect made me think of The Matrix. But yes, those worms tasted like ham rather than chicken.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Heheh, tasting like chicken and failure to connect made me think of The Matrix.

So you were thinking what i was thinking....

 

[The_J]

So earthworms turn out to be the one unfamiliar food in the world that doesn't taste like chicken?

Apparently bear meat mostly tastes like whatever the bear is eating. So less like chicken, and potentially more like rotten carcass.

But the rest always seems to be chicken, yes.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

TIL the Netherlands had these cool little wagon carts that daycares and schools used to pick up and deliver children. They were poorly wired with inadequate brakes and 12 kids + a driver were killed in an accident. They are banned now.

https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-45717871?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQECAFYAQ==#referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45717871

Also today I learned Google Chrome can auto translate whole webpages. Or maybe that was just a feature of a specific webpage?