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Do People Really Eat Cheese Made with Maggots?Critters add flavor and crunch |
In parts of Spain, Italy, and France, some cheeses are intentionally allowed to foster maggots and are then eaten, larvae and all, says Norbert Wabnig, owner of the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills. “They can’t sell them, per se,” he says. “It would be more something the farmers would do.”
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Do People Really Eat Cheese Made with Maggots? 
OBSESSIVES
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The best known of these varieties, casu marzu, is made in Sardinia, Italy, from sheep’s milk cheese. “The maggots are encouraged to grow, eat their way through the cheese, and [give it] an extremely tangy, creamy texture,” says Max McCalman, dean of curriculum at Artisanal Premium Cheese and coauthor of Cheese: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Best. He also says that some aficionados of the Spanish cheese Cabrales like it con gusanos, which means “with worms.” “Con gusanos is considered a delicacy to [them].”
Wabnig says he tried a maggot cheese made from cow’s milk in the northern Italian region of Friuli. “They called it the worm cheese,” he says. “We started eating, and noticed as we looked at the cheese on the table there were these maggots. The crunchiness is what came to me, and the movement in my mouth. I wouldn’t do it again in the near future, but it wasn’t bad-tasting by any means.”
The cheese isn’t likely to appear in the United States anytime soon. “Maggots in cheese are considered to be injurious to health due to the fact that they can pass through the digestive system alive and reside in the intestines,” writes Michael Herndon, press officer at the Food and Drug Administration, in an email. “They can cause intestinal lesions, nausea, vomiting, pain in the abdomen, and bloody diarrhea. Thus, this cheese would be considered to be adulterated.” And because it’s considered adulterated, it’s not legal for sale in the U.S.
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Hmmm. Not quite sure if I'm intrigued or grossed out. Might be because it involves cheese. I'm obsessed with learning about cheese of all kinds...
I'm trying really hard not to be grossed out -- I am Chinese, after all, and I'll eat pretty much anything that isn't still moving -- but somehow, that part about "[t]he crunchiness is what came to me, and the movement in my mouth" makes me giggle in a really juvenile way.
Aww HELL NO! This is the kind of thing that makes me consider going vegan.
Sounds like this is a bit different than eating rotten shark in that it can cause some serious internal havoc. Unless you really chew carefully. Yuck.
To those who would consider eating this:
Please eat lots of it, and don't chew carefully.
In the 70's a friend of our families came back from Italy with a hunk of delicious cheese along with some other delicacies. While devouring the cheese, my mom and I were cooking our Sunday dinner of spaghetti and meatballs when my mom noticed something moving on the paper beneath the cheese. My mom picked up the cheese noticing white squirmy maggots! We literally scrubbed our mouths in the sink with soap. Who the heck can remember how the cheese tasted???
Later that night my mom called my grandfather to tell him what happened, he yelled at my mom for throwing the cheese out, he said in Italy they scoop the maggots up and eat them as if they were candy!!
I'd really like to try this, acknowledging it could be a little intimidating.
We eat "live" stuff all the time. Anyone ever had a fresh oyster? Sorry to break it to you, but if it's fresh that sucker is alive. Unfortunately we have a cultural hang-up on insects.
I get the feeling the "live maggots in your intestines" scenario is an unusual one. I seriously doubt this cheese would have any following if it was accompanied by intestinal bleeding.
I say bring it on.
For me, insects are fine, fresh and alive is fine -- as long as it's not *moving* as I said earlier. Fresh oysters don't squirm and wriggle, at least not enough for me to notice.
This one sounds like the perfect cheese for a Bizarre Foods segment. Andrew Zimmern, are you listening?
People here in the states are such snobs when it comes to food preparation and processing, but truth be told 90% of us have no idea what goes into the whole process of converting a live creature to a hot meal. We are so far removed from the processing and preparation of the food that we eat that we live in this state of blissful ignorance.
If people had any clue how their favorite foods were made, bet you they wouldn't be so quick to judge if someone liked a little extra protein, wriggling or not, in their dairy products.
I'd eat it just to determine what it tasted like, but just couldn't guarantee whether my gag reflex would be activated or not...
hmmm maybe I should work my way up and start with dead bugs first...
@sugarcube---there ya go!!!
YUM! :)
I went to union sq. market in NY recently to by squash blossoms and those blossoms were filled with lil' beetles that the farmer himself said were very edible!
In my Grenada, in the carribean, Pork was cured with air on the roof of our houses and wasnt considered 'Good' until the maggots made their appearance.
In a world where we eat Escargot,Beef carpaccio and Oysters, a few maggots in cheese is not that serious! Get over yourselves!
Mangia!
I have enough problems feeding my lizard meal worms, I don't think that I would be able to eat this cheese knowing that maggots are in it. I like my cheese not moving and smooth (except for aged gouda). As a kid I had problems eating blue cheese because my brother told me it was alive and I swore that it moved. Now if someone picked the maggots out and I never saw them I would definitely give it a try.
Those of you who are so proud of your willingness to eat such nasty things, have at it. Leaves more good food for the rest of us.
Oh, and Chefartist, get over yourself. Eat your rotten Grenadan pig meat, for all I care. Snails are nasty; they are merely an excuse to eat garlic butter. Carpaccio would taste better if cooked, and ditto for oysters. Funny how the examples you selected all require the addition of other flavors to be "epicurian fare."
@Chefartist?...The meat was "outside" outside all the time??? In the rain and all??? Sounds to me the Iberian "jamon"s and Italian "prosciutto"s are safer, hung indoors (even in some fellow's dining room like i read in a recent blog post). I would be concerned about "bird-bomb" attacks, and meat hanging out there in the rain, snow, sleet, birds pecking at it---along with those maggots...you can have my share, I'll go get myself some nice blue-molded cheese, thanks. :o)
Hmm, my test for food (and life generally) is that if it doesn't actually make you sick... it's not THAT gross. Based on the FDA guy's comments, wormy cheese apparently straddles the line. I say bring it on if everyone chews reeeeally carefully!
My Grandfather (who is 1st gen. Italian) once told us about how his parents and their friends used to look for "cheese that moved" -- cheese that had worms wriggling in it. He said he used to eat it as a child himself.
Now, I'm a cheese-lover myself, but I think that's where I draw the line. I'll eat live oysters and clams, but no live insects, thank you very much.
I've tried the creamy cheese with "vermi" and it just tastes like strong cheese. The stuff I had did have a bite of ammonia. I guess because it's just digested cheese. It did score me some street cred with Italians as the yankee who wasn't afraid of the worms.
NASTY !!!!!! Is meat with maggots safe to eat? Just curious...count me out.
My first taste of Gorgonzola cheese when I was a kid in Brooklyn back in the '40s. My Italian-American friend and I were playing in the kitchen of their apartment. We went into the pantry and he gave me a taste of Gorgonzola (at room temperature.). I liked it, but it was only later that I learned that it was loaded with cheese maggots. (The slight crunch was noticeable and not unpleasant, although at the time I thought it was just "cheese".)
Now, I'd probably pass, as my health is more important to me.
@Anonimo---thanks for the "heads up" (dreadful pun, I know). Here all these years I thought Gorgonzola was just another mold-type cheese such as Bleu Cheese. Now that I think of it, it makes sense---in ancient mythology there was the infamous Medusa, called the "Gorgon", whose hair was that of snakes, hence the name to the cheese. You may remember her if you saw "Clash of the Titans" a look from her, one was turned into stone? Perhaps there's a message in there somewhere too regarding the cheese?
>I think I will stick with my lowfat Bleu Cheese dressings, and pray they were de-wormed <smile><
Oooh, my face is GREEN!
Even simple cheeses like ages mimolette hae help from insects. That is why the outside rind on 24 month mim is so perforated. No insects remain , but they were there
Eh. I don't really have a problem with eating insects, per se. But, I think the revulsion comes from the fact that maggots are typically associated with something rotten or putrid. We're supposed to use our senses to determine if food isn't edible, so eating maggots kinda goes away from that. Now, I know we eat cheese that's laden with mold, but it's easier to disassociate it when it's not wiggling around and laying eggs.
As I understood it, the cheese isn't MADE with the maggots, but their residence in said cheese is "encouraged."
I'm a pretty adventurous eater, but none for me, thank you!
Ditto that.
The "maggots in the intestines" remark sounded highly unlikely to me, so I looked it up. In fact, cheese fly larvae not only can survive the trip through (pseudomyiasis) but can hang around long enough to chew on the intestinal lining (myiasis). I even found a paper describing a case where the domestic housefly had done this. Maybe seal your wormy cheese up with dry ice for a while, or give it a good soak in strong spirits?