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Casu Marzu: Sardinian Cheese With Killer Maggots

taras

taras

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Casu marzu (also called casu modde, casu cundhídu, or in Italian formaggio marcio) is a traditional sheep milk cheese, notable for being riddled with live insect larvae. ... It is considered toxic when the maggots in the cheese have died. Because of this, only cheese in which the maggots are still alive is eaten. ... Casu marzu is believed to be an aphrodisiac by local Sardinians. Because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves for distances up to 15 centimetres (6 in) when disturbed, diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping into their eyes. Those who do not wish to eat live maggots place the cheese in a sealed paper bag. The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a "pitter-patter" sound. When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten.
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on Boing Boing
on Wikipedia
 
Did it not used to be fairly standard to have maggots i ones cheese?

I understood that it was de-rigure to eat the maggot and this is the source of grub to mean food.
 
liveinabin1 said:
Did it not used to be fairly standard to have maggots i ones cheese?

I understood that it was de-rigure to eat the maggot and this is the source of grub to mean food.
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I think it's more to do with grubbing for food, as in to dig in the earth: grub for potatoes.
 
Cheese Fly or Cheese Skipper on Wikipedia
If eaten (accidentally or otherwise), the larvae can pass through the digestive system alive (human stomach acids do not usually kill them) and live for some time in the intestines. This is referred to as an enteric myiasis. Cheese fly larvae are a leading cause of myiasis in humans, and are the insect most frequently found in the human intestine.[2] The larvae can cause serious intestinal lesions as they attempt to bore through the intestinal walls. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, pain in the abdomen, and bloody diarrhea. Living and dead larvae may pass in the stool....

...The larvae accomplish their jumps by bending over, grabbing onto the rears of their own bodies with their mouth hooks, tensing their muscles, and quickly releasing the grip. Spring action propels them into the air.[1] A series of photos illustrating this remarkable behaviour in larvae of the tiny piophilid Protopiophila litigata, commonly known as the "antler fly" (it breeds exclusively on discarded antlers of cervids such as moose and deer), can be seen at [2]...

...Piophila casei larvae are very resistant to human stomach acid and can pass through the stomach alive, taking up residency for some period of time in the intestines and causing stomach lesions and other gastrointestinal problems. The larvae have powerful mouthhooks which can lacerate stomach linings or intestinal walls as the maggots attempt to bore through internal organs.
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'When this creature intends to take a leap, it first erects itself upon its anus... Immediately after this, the creature bends itself into a circle, and having brought its head...towards its tail, it presently stretches out its two black crooked claws, and directs them to the cavities formed between the two last or hindmost tubercles of the body, where it fixes them in the skin... The Mite having thus made itself ready, contracts its body with such force, that from a circular, it becomes of an oblong form...the contraction extending in a manner to every part of its body. This done, it again reduces itself with so prodigious a force to a straight line, that its claws, which are seated in the mouth, make a very perceivable noise on parting from the skin of the last ring of the body: and thus the Mite, by first violently bending, and afterwards stretching out its body, leaps to a most extraordinary height, if compared with the smallness of the creature... I have indeed seen a Mite, whose length did not exceed the fourth part of an inch, leap out of a box six inches deep, that is, to a height twenty-four times greater than the length of its own body; others leap a great deal higher.'


Swammerdam, Jan. 1758. The Book of Nature, or, the History of Insects (translated from the Dutch and Latin by Thomas Flloyd). London: C.G. Seyffert.
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Variousvideos of people chowing down on writhing maggot sandwiches can be found on youtube.

Here's a cheese made from Cheesemites![/url]
 
A friend of mine told me of eating this cheese once when visiting the island, on a sailing trip. He told me that the restaurant owners had to open a new head of cheese, and how all the old folks flocked around to eat the cheese and maggots while still fresh.
 
Could you eat an elephant.

This type of cheese was featured in the Channel 4 programme "Could You Eat an Elephant". The 2 cheffy types types tried the cheese and as expected weren't overly impressed. ....They didn't eat the elephant.
 
I'm really surprised the EU hasn't banned these types of food products. After all, they seem to clamp down on perfectly innocuous British food products...
 
Myth, if you read any of the sources, you will find that Casu Marzu is indeed banned and totally illegal.
 
What I can never fathom from these sorts of stories is who, exactly, thought it would be a good idea to eat such rotten food in the first place?

Cheese infested with maggots? Luvly. But hold the crackers - I'll have some leper scabs instead, washed down with a nice glass of corpse juice.
 
sardinia used to be very poor. i think the idea of eating maggot-infested cheese originated from necessity - if you don't eat this, you don't eat anything at all because there is nothing else to eat.
 
Yeah but that was then, why carry on with such revolting things when it isn't necessary?
 
coz they probably realized the thing had a very special taste that couldn't be reproduced in any other way etc. ( i really have no idea, i loathe cheese, so cheese with maggots in it is to me only marginally more disgusting than ordinary cheese).
it's a bit like, say, innards: most people hate them, i love them. tripes, yumm.
and after all, come to think of it, all femented food (from yeast-based food, think bread, to yoghurt, from wine and beer to kimchi, from vinegar to natto) is basically rotten food that somebody didn't have the heart to throw out and instead they tried it and saw that it was good...
 
I remember a Japanese friend once gave me and another friend some natto beans - my other mate actually ended up throwing up :D
 
No, no, no, no, no. I'm an adventurous eater and I love cheese, many types and tastes and textures of cheese--that cheddar that's as sharp as a razor, the stenchiest Stilton, the raunchiest Roquefort. the most fetid feta and the gooey-est Brie--but there's just no way in Hell I would eat cheese that had live maggots literally jumping out of it, unless I was near death from starvation and it was the only food I could get my hands on.
 
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