Welcome to Tasting History. I'm your host Max Miller
and today's episode is a little bit different because there is no cooking,
only tasting and of course a little bit of history.
See I was sent a box with three bags of chips that contain the flavors
of three foods that are illegal here in the US:
horse meat,
casu marzu
and fugu.
So I want to thank my Patreon patrons who support this channel's regular episodes
as well as helping me test recipes for my upcoming cookbook
and they stick with me when I do things like taste three illegal flavors,
this time on Tasting History.
So it was the folks over at illegalchips.com who sent me this box
with these three chips that are flavored like illegal flavors, or illegal foods here in the US
and they assure me that they have been working with people who know the real foods to replicate the flavors.
I guess kind of like the way that Jelly Belly does like jelly beans. I don't know but that's what they said,
so I'm going to try them from least dangerous food to most dangerous food. The least dangerous being
horse meat. So today here in the US horse meat is effectively illegal and even if it wasn't...
I don't think most people would eat it because we have this aversion to eating
horse meat but I kind of wonder why. Why is horse any different from another farm animal like
cow or pig, the foods that we do eat. Today horse is eaten in much of Europe and parts of South America
and for millennia it's been eaten in Mongolia and much of Eastern Asia
but the taboo against eating horse meat likely goes back even further to ancient Mesopotamia possibly because
of their association with royalty, or because of their use in warfare.
I mean you wouldn't eat a tank so you wouldn't eat a horse, makes sense.
In the Old Testament the Book of Leviticus put an official kibosh on the eating of equine, and in 732 Pope Gregory forbade the eating of horse
as it was impure and detestable pagan meat,
and he's kind of right about the Pagan part because the old Germanic and Norse people loved their horse meat
especially during festivals that honored Odin and it was usually reserved for the most important people at the feast,
but the taboo in Christian Europe continued through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
and eventually became a capital offense in France.
In 1629 a starving man named Claude Guillen was beheaded for the offense
of hippophagy, eating horse.
European colonists brought the taboo with them to north and South America
as well as Australian and New Zealand and while the 18th and 19th century saw the
prohibition die out in Europe for the most part
in those countries like the US, Brazil and Australia
the taboo never really went away and it's possible because we had so many cattle that
we never had to resort to eating horse and so that's why I've never tasted it until now...
Here we go, horse meat chips.
It's not actually horse meat, there's no actual ingredient of any of these
in the chips, just the flavor.
Old Grand Mare she ain't what she used to be.
So weird that they can make a chip that tastes like meat.
Obviously the texture is different, they're chips not meat.
Wow but now I'm really getting it, but it does taste like meat.
I don't know that it's- it's kind of mild and and very-
it's like just the muscle part of of what you might get with with venison.
Actually it tastes a lot like venison but perhaps a little less gamey
but not it doesn't taste fatty if you can think what that tastes like.
One more.
Yeah that's not bad at all, I might try horse. I think in jerky form especially.
I wouldn't have an aversion to that. This next one though probably not so much.
Casu marzu from Sardinia.
So this is just Pecorino cheese made from sheep milk but there's one extra little step in there
that makes it illegal to sell.
See once the Pecorino is ready, they cut off the top of the cheese and
put it into a dark shed where the cheese fly can snuggle up in the cheese and lay their eggs,
about 500 eggs per fly, and then a little while later those eggs hatch
and thousands of maggots start feasting on the cheese
and it's their digestive system that transforms the cheese into a
gooey and supposedly better tasting cheese and so it's
that digested cheese that you then spread on bread and enjoy.
And as unpleasant as that concept is it's actually not dangerous.
What can be dangerous are the maggots that you are bound to eat while enjoying the cheese.
If the maggots have died it can be quite dangerous, and even if they're alive there are occasional
happenings where they don't die,
and get into your intestines and can wreak all sorts of havoc.
It's not common but it can happen.
Now one of my favorite cheeses Stilton may have been made in a similar process at one time.
In 1724 Daniel Defoe wrote "We passed Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is called our English Parmesan,
and is brought to table with the mites or maggots around it,
so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with as you do the cheese."
Though we have Stilton recipes from that time period and none of them mention flies or maggots so
I kind of wonder if the town was just having a big fly problem at the time.
Now just the thought of eating maggots gives me the same reaction that Kuzco had with the pill bug
but I have been assured that these are maggot-free chips
and actually again have none of the actual ingredient casu marzu. So here we go...
Right away I know that these are going to taste quite different from the horse
because you can smell it.
They're they're a little more pungent, let's go.
*chomps maggot cheese flavored chip
Hmm.
Definitely more pungent.
Almost like Stilton but but less strong.
Yeah it's kind of crossed between Stilton and like a softer Parmesan,
and I think that I'm really missing something because the
chips are chips, that you're not getting the creaminess
that is is really kind of fundamental to casu marzu.
It's not just the flavor, it's also the texture
that potato chips aren't going to deliver but really interesting aaaaand
still doesn't make me actually want to try casu marzu in real life.
And now for the most deadly of the flavors fugu or Japanese puffer fish.
It is one of the most regulated foods in the world because the fish contains high levels
of the poison tetrodotoxin which even just a little bit will paralyze the victim
and then they will suffocate and die, and there is no antidote known.
This is the fish that was featured in The Simpsons episode where Homer ate it and thought that he would die.
That is also the episode that led my mother to put a ban on us children
watching it rather ineffective I think. It lasted for like a month maybe, but
you know that she didn't like that episode.
Anyway fugu, fugu has been eaten in Japan and China for a very long time.
It was known as one of the three delicacies of the young sea during the Song Dynasty in the 11th and 12th century
and evidence shows it being eaten in Japan 2300 years ago during the Jomon period.
The Tokugawa Shogunate ruling from 1603 to 1868 prohibited the eating of fugu in Edo
but as the Shogun lost power the fish made a bit of a comeback only to be re-outlawed during the Meiji era.
Today it's eaten again but under strict regulation. You have to have a license to sell it,
you have to have a license to buy it, and you have to have a license to even prepare it.
Though recently they have been able to raise the fish without the toxins, so
maybe it'll become a little bit more popular but
most chefs say that it is an inferior product.
Now I don't think I've ever eaten a food that I would take this kind of risk for but
Su Shi the Chinese poet and gastronome of the Song Dynasty once remarked
that the taste of fugu is worthy of death,
so thank goodness for these chips.
It doesn't smell fishy so that's good, let's give it a try.
Wow.
It's amazing the science behind making something taste like this,
it's fantastic.
It's really sweet when it hits your mouth,
and then it's salty
and then you get that kind of
very light fish flavor. I don't want to say fishiness because that's not what it is.
It's that sashimi kind of just fresh fish flavor but sweet.
That is really, really good.
I'll probably eat this whole bag.
Is it worth you know risking your life?
Probably not but it's good.
So comment below on which of these flavors you would like to try
and if you want to try them I'll put a link in the description to where you can buy them,
but also if you follow me on Instagram @ tastinghistorywithmaxmiller, I'm going to be giving away
one bag of each of the three flavors, so follow me on Instagram to see how you can win those
and tomorrow we'll be back to a regular style episode, so make sure to watch
and I'll see you then on Tasting History.