The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| Ready for python pizza? Florida diners get a taste Posted: 31 Jan 2014 06:07 PM PST A pizzeria now offers Burmese python meat on what it calls the "Everglades Pizza" – named for Florida's vast national park, where the snakes are being hunted to protect the nature preserve. "It was just to create talk about the shop and being creative and this thing literally just went viral," says Evan Daniell, the owner of Evan's Neighborhood Pizza in the Gulf Coast city of Fort Myers. "People talk about it all the time and whether it's negative or positive, it really doesn't matter because the fact is: we can make it and it's delicious." So, the big question: what does it taste like? "It's good but a little chewy," says Mike, a tourist taking the python plunge from Minnesota. "It tastes like chicken but chewier," his wife Becky adds. Daniell admits that python meat "can be gamier". The chef tenderises the slabs of snake meat by marinating them for several hours. They are then sliced thinly into what he calls "snake slivers". Before laying it onto the pizza, making sure "each slice has a piece of python", Daniell pre-cooks the snake in the oven for a few minutes. "There is some pink into the snake, and as it turns white, it will be done," he explains. Despite its steep price tag of $45 (RM150), the "Everglades" pizza certainly has its fans. Daniell's pal Mike Gookin says he came up with the idea of using the snake meat to spice up pizzas after seeing a news report on the python problem in the Everglades. The pizza also features alligator sausage and frog legs. Both are native to southern Florida. The pythons are definitely not, but they are everywhere. "There could be thousands or tens of thousands of Burmese pythons in the wild here," explains Roberto Torres, a field officer with The Nature Conservancy. The snakes can measure up to six metres long and they are believed to have made the Everglades their home after being released by their owners. "They get them as pets and when they get too big, they release them here," Torres says, his feet deep in the mud of the wetlands near the suburbs of Miami where pythons have been spotted regularly. Burmese pythons have no known predator in Florida, so they sit atop the food chain in their new home. As a result, environmental experts like Torres fear their presence could end up threatening biodiversity in the Everglades. "It's a perfect habitat for the snake – it's wet, there is plenty of food... They'll eat anything they can catch – birds, fish, mammals, cats, dogs," Torres says. To raise awareness about the python invasion, chefs in Miami have held several events with python on the menu along with other non-native species. But current food safety regulations do not allow the invasive snakes captured in Florida to be slaughtered and processed regularly to be sold in restaurants. As a result, Daniell's python meat is not local. "I buy it frozen from a wholesaler who imports farmed python from Vietnam," the restaurateur explains. - AFP, February 1, 2014. |
| German beer consumption drops for seventh year Posted: 31 Jan 2014 05:00 PM PST The output of German breweries dropped 2% in 2013 on the previous year to the lowest level since German reunification in 1989, said the Destasis statistics office. Shifting consumer tastes have seen brewers market ever more non-alcoholic as well as fruit-flavoured and other varieties, and bank on exports to China and the United States. The total output of German breweries reached 94.6 million hectolitres (2.49 billion gallons) last year, of which 79.7 million hectolitres or 84%, were sold on the domestic market. Other Europeans also drank less German beer, with sales within the European Union down 8.6%. Overall, German beer exports fell 3.8%. The German Brewers Federation blamed a long, harsh winter and an often rainy summer in 2013 for keeping Germans from guzzling lagers and ales in beer gardens and parks. But it also conceded that the slow downward trend was set to continue in the ageing country, which has long ranked near the top of the global list for per-capita beer consumption. Federation chief Holger Eichele welcomed an "encouraging trend" of rising sales in the United States and China, as exports to non-European markets rose 8.7%. In a statement, the federation said foreign beer lovers placed a premium on "the unique taste and absolute clarity and purity of beers brewed according to the German purity law". Germany's famed 500-year-old "Reinheitsgebot" or beer purity law mandates that the national beverage be made from only four ingredients – water, hops, malt and yeast. Europe's biggest beer producer, Germany has 1,300 breweries that now make about 5,000 different beers, says the federation. German brewers last year applied to have the country's beer making tradition placed on the Unesco list of the world's "intangible cultural heritage". - AFP/Relaxnews, February 1, 2014. |
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