Strange Food

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz makes an unsettling discovery. A history buff since early childhood, expensively educated at university—a history major, no less!—he’s reached middle age with a third-grader’s grasp of early America. In fact, he’s mislaid more than a...

WARNING: You Will Never Look at Your Dinner the Same Way Again. Did you know that your favorite orange soda was invented by the Third Reich? Or that ketchup was originally sold as a cure for diarrhea? We think we know what we eat. We trust the labels, we love the brands, and we enjoy the taste. But hidden beneath the wrapper of your favorite snack lies a history that is stranger, darker, and more shocking than you could ever imagine. Eat, Read, Shock is not a cookbook. It is a deep dive into the bizarre, hilarious, and sometimes disturbing origins of the food on your plate. From the war ...

An irreverent, surprising, and entirely entertaining look at the little-known history surrounding the foods we know and love Is Italian olive oil really Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers? Far from being...

Weird Chicago Stories takes you on a hilarious journey through one of America’s most fascinating cities—a place that never solves a problem the easy way. Instead of moving a road, Chicago builds another one underneath it. Instead of accepting the direction of a river, it makes the river turn around. Instead of building an ordinary attraction, it invents the Ferris wheel. And somehow, a poor cow, a baseball goat, and a bright green river all became part of the city's unforgettable personality. This isn't a traditional travel guide packed with boring dates and endless lists of attractions...

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz makes an unsettling discovery. A history buff since early childhood, expensively educated at university—a history major, no less!—he’s reached middle age with a third-grader’s grasp of early America. In fact, he’s mislaid more than a...

Think you know New York City? Think again. Beyond the skyline, Broadway lights, pizza slices, and famous landmarks, New York is packed with strange stories, haunted corners, forgotten tunnels, bizarre museums, gangster lore, movie locations, giant sandwiches, cemetery parrots, and enough weird history to make even lifelong New Yorkers look twice. Weird New York City Travel Guide is a funny, story-rich guide to the Big Apple’s oddest sights, neighborhoods, legends, and local surprises. This is not a dry travel guide or a boring checklist of tourist stops. It is a lively trip through the ...

Weird Fishing Towns of Florida Florida has pretty beaches, but the better stories are usually hiding near the docks. Weird Fishing Towns of Florida takes readers on a funny, salty road trip through the state’s strangest working waterfronts, seafood villages, fishing legends, and old coastal towns that refuse to behave like normal vacation destinations. From the sponge docks of Tarpon Springs to the oyster-haunted streets of Apalachicola, from stone crab country near the Everglades to tarpon madness in the Florida Keys, this book explores the weird side of Florida’s fishing culture. ...

Cheese puffs. Coffee. Sunscreen. Vapes. George Zaidan reveals what will kill you, what won’t, and why—explained with high-octane hilarity, hysterical hijinks, and other things that don’t begin with the letter H. INGREDIENTS offers the perspective of a chemist on the stuff we eat, drink...

Are you ready to step into the wonderfully strange and enchanting world of Japan? This book is your ultimate guide to uncovering the hidden, bizarre, and fascinating facts about Japan’s rich culture, quirky history, and unique everyday life. From the bustling streets of Tokyo to the serene temples of Kyoto, 100 Weird Fun Facts About Japan will take you on an unforgettable journey through a country where the unusual is celebrated, and the beautiful is often unexpected! Packed with fun facts, eye-opening insights, and delightful surprises, this book explores the weird, wonderful, and ...

“The stories in this bewitching collection begin in the known world before tilting towards mystery and rebellion—a book full of pleasure and surprise.” —Aysegül Savas, author of The Anthropologists and Long Distance: Stories Startling, spellbinding stories, in which appearances and...

A collection of stories: The Possessed Printer Blues: A woman buys a printer at a yard sale. The Long Day Sun: A photography student helps out a friend. Savory Taro Pudding: A short nightmare based on true events. Billionaire Babies: It turns out you can't trust billionaires. Bath Salts Vampire: Teen girls with low self-esteem + a drug dealer who thinks he's an ancient vampire. What could go wrong?

Would you dare to taste the world's strangest foods? From fermented shark and century eggs to insect delicacies, underground feasts, bizarre desserts, and unusual food festivals, 101 Weird Foods Around the World takes you on an unforgettable culinary adventure across the globe. Discover the fascinating stories behind 101 of the world's most unusual foods from more than 40 countries. Learn how they're made, why people love them, their surprising histories, unique preparation methods, and the cultural traditions that have kept these extraordinary dishes alive for generations. Inside this book...

Rome was not built in a day, but it has been blocking traffic ever since. Welcome to a city where emperors fought as gladiators, sacred chickens influenced military decisions, sewer covers judged liars, and anonymous statues insulted popes before social media made public humiliation convenient. Weird Rome Travel takes you beyond the standard ruins-and-gelato tour and into the stranger side of the Eternal City. Wander through the Colosseum and Roman Forum, descend beneath churches into forgotten temples, follow a papal escape passage to Castel Sant’Angelo, and meet the cats now ruling the ...

Maybe they should've said grace beforehand...? The extended Flood family are in for a surprise. Hardened matriarch Fionnuala Flood, tiring of the usual fish fingers and baked beans on toast, has decided to channel her inner Gordon Ramsey and serve them up a special treat from her grease-spattered kitchen. But a master chef she is not. As Paddy, Maureen, Dymphna, Siofra, Padraig and Seamus pull their chairs up to the dining table, Fionnuala proudly places covered platters before them. As the lids are lifted, will they tremble in anticipation...or fear? PLEASE NOTE: Although this novelette is...

According to a recent survey, millions of people in the UK and US claim to have sampled "Canine Cuisine" at least once in the last year. However, due to its underground nature, the rearing and preparation of dogs for human consumption remains firmly below the radar. Recipes are handed down from generation to generation as part of a largely undocumented oral tradition. This groundbreaking, taboo-busting book brings together both modern and traditional recipes into a single unified volume of delicious treats. From boundary-pushing modern classics such as "Bitchin' Black Bean Sauce" and "...

What makes a drink normal? That depends where you are standing. Around the world, people drink things that may look strange to outsiders: fermented mare’s milk, salty yogurt drinks, herbal tonics, smoky teas, sour brews, bitter roots, floating seeds, mystery jars, and liquids that seem to ask one important question: Will this really quench my thirst? In The World’s Crazy Concoctions, Tai Sheridan takes a funny, curious trip through drinks that have comforted, startled, healed, refreshed, confused, and occasionally alarmed people across cultures. This is not a cookbook. It is a small ...

Desserts That Can Kill is a warm, humorous food-culture essay book about risky sweets from around the world and the people who learned how to make them safe, meaningful, and memorable. Cassava cake. Bitter almonds. Apricot kernels. Cycad cakes. Mad honey. Ackee. Elderberries. Nutmeg. Cherry pits. Funeral cakes. Ancestor offerings. Festival sweets. Wedding cookies. This is not a cookbook, a poison guide, or a dare. It is a curious look at the practical intelligence carried in kitchens, families, rituals, and food traditions around the world. Behind every risky dessert is a human story: ...

The $8,000 Pineapple It was never about the fruit. It was about status and power. In the modern world, pineapples sit quietly in grocery stores, stacked in piles and sold for only a few dollars. They are common, ordinary fruit. But there was a time when a single pineapple was worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars. When Europeans first encountered the pineapple during the age of exploration, they had never seen anything like it. Native to the Caribbean and South America, the fruit stunned explorers with its sweetness, fragrance, and exotic appearance. Christopher Columbus brought the ...