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BEIJING — In China, it is legal to eat cats and dogs. Even so, ordinary people reacted with alarm this week as news broke of a Chinese man caught with 500 cats, crowded into tiny cages, which he intended to sell to restaurants. The man had used sparrows and caged birds to lure both stray cats and domestic ones in the city of Jiujiang in southern Jiangsu province, the 163.com and news.ifeng.com websites reported. Many of the cats were found in cages in the back of a small truck, some near death and mewing faintly in the heat, while others...

PORTLAND, Ore. - This coffee can cost as much as $700 a pound and $80 a cup, and it is processed through the digestive system of a cat. It's said to be the most expensive coffee in the world and it was served up Friday at the International Coffee Expo in Northeast Portland. An Indonesian company brews it here as it is done in cafes in Jakarta.  "It is very delicious, very smooth and so luxurious," said Valerie Sindal, director of sales and marketing for ValBeMar Specialty Coffee. Coffee cherries are eaten by Civet cats, processed through their digestive...

Food of the future Credit: Chad Zuber | Shutterstock.com As the human population continues to inch closer to 8 billion people, feeding all those hungry mouths will become increasingly difficult. A growing number of experts claim that people will soon have no choice but to consume insects. As if to underscore that claim, a group of students from McGill University in Montreal has won the 2013 Hult Prize, for producing a protein-rich flour made from insects. The prize gives the students $1 million in seed money to begin creating what they call Power Flour. "We will be starting with grasshoppers,"...

The manager of Don Otto’s - a recently shuttered food market in the South End - is blaming neighborhood patrons for its untimely demise, cooking up an angry message to fair-weather fans of the Tremont Street eatery. “Don Otto’s Market wants to say we had few customers that understood customer loyalty and its importance to our business,” a message on its Web site reads, later adding: “If you came in only for baguettes, the occasional piece of cheese, the occasional dinner . . . you can not tell yourself you were a supporter of our market.” The scalding remonstrance was...

There is a Cantonese saying that the Chinese eat everything that flies, except aeroplanes; everything with four legs, except tables; and everything that swims, except submarines - and visitors to Beijing's fast-food market during the Olympic Games will be left in no doubt of that. A stroll among the food stalls of Wangfujing Snack Street, not far from Tiananmen Square, reveals delicacies of every conceivable kind. Laid out in trays and boiling in cauldrons are everything from goat lungs with red peppers to scorpion brochettes, seahorses on skewers, iguana tails, dung beetles and silk worms on a stick, by way...

Stalin's last army: hordes of gigantic crabs on their way to invade Europe - By Julius Strauss in Kirkenes, Northern Norway Millions of giant Pacific crabs, whose ancestors were brought to Europe by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, are marching south along Norway's coast, devouring everything in their path.The monster crabs, which can weigh up to 25lb and have a claw-span of more than three feet, are proving so resilient that scientists fear they could end up as far south as Gibraltar. Energised by a mysterious population explosion a decade ago, whole armies of the crustaceans - known as the...

SPEAKING AS a guy who grew up on Velveeta and Stroehmann's, it comes as a bit of a surprise that American cheese these days means more than just petroleum-based yellow stuff wrapped in cellophane. Indeed, I think Jeffrey Roberts was compelled to name his book, "The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese" (Chelsea Green Publishing, $35), just so a yutz like me wouldn't think he'd devoted his life's work to the wonders of Kraft Monterey Jack. It turns out, American cheese makers are now holding their own against even les fromageries of France. From ripe brie to moldy blue, they're producing...

Storm-battered and abandoned in winter, Sweden’s harbor-side restaurants come alive in the summer. But two million boat lovers’ thirst for good food and seaside relaxation means tough work for the seasonal restaurant owners.

It took a big appetite and an even bigger bank account to get through tonight's meal at the Dome Restaurant in Bankok, Thailand. It was billed as the most expensive meal ever served...

  prices listed below are likely the estimates they could charge at a first-class hotel in Seoul. 1. coconut & shark's fin soup $300 (Kim's favorite) 2. another shark's fin soup $250 3. shark's fin and conch soup $300 4. another shark's fin dish $300 5. fried flying fish eggs and shrimp $30 6. skewered goat meat $50 7. Laclette(?): cheese and potato dish $40 8. roasted baby pig $30 9. fish laced with green tea aroma $50 10. steamed pigeon marinated in soy sauce $100 11. tuna sushi (Kim's favorite) $400 12. steaks (rare or medium) $100 13. chicken and ginseng...

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2006 – For the past six months, troops overseas have been getting a high dose of caffeine thanks to a partnership between a group dedicated to supporting combat troops and a family-owned coffee company. America Supports You member group Packages From Home partnered with Lindsey Gourmet Coffee, in Phoenix to send 3,000 pounds of coffee to troops deployed in combat zones. Here, Marines from 1st Marine Expeditionary Force pose with a coffee shipment in Camp Fallujah, Iraq, May 14. Clockwise from top left, Sgt. Wenzel, Master Sgt. Wolbaum, Cpl. Marcell, Master Sgt. McDonald, Master Sgt. Harold,...

Rush was talking about the Allen Brothers on his show the other day. He'd ordered some gourmet hot dogs from them for one of his parties. He said they were great. He also said they are one of the chief suppliers for prime steakhouses in the country. The prices are a bit steep. Has anyone here ever ordered from them?

WASHINGTON, May 3, 2006 – There's nothing like a steaming cup of gourmet coffee to get you started in the morning, and coffee is one of the few things servicemembers can make in a combat zone, said Jon Rogers, founder and president of the Rogers Family Company. Volunteers at a care package packing gathering at the California Army National Guard's armory in Van Nuys, Calif., packs coffee packets into care packages bound for troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations overseas. The volunteers are Judy Beer (left) who puts the coffee in the package as Kerri Parr pushes boxes...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Would you pay $175 for a pound of coffee beans which had passed through the backside of a furry mammal in Indonesia? Apparently, some coffee lovers wanting to treat themselves to something special are lapping it up. Kopi Luwak beans from Indonesia are rare and expensive, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat. "People like coffee. And when they want to treat themselves, they order the Kopi Luwak," said Isaac Jones, director of sales for Tastes of...

  prices listed below are likely the estimates they could charge at a first-class hotel in Seoul. 1. coconut & shark's fin soup $300 (Kim's favorite) 2. another shark's fin soup $250 3. shark's fin and conch soup $300 4. another shark's fin dish $300 5. fried flying fish eggs and shrimp $30 6. skewered goat meat $50 7. Laclette(?): cheese and potato dish $40 8. roasted baby pig $30 9. fish laced with green tea aroma $50 10. steamed pigeon marinated in soy sauce $100 11. tuna sushi (Kim's favorite) $400 12. steaks (rare or medium) $100 13. chicken and ginseng...

Health authorities yesterday warned villagers not to eat crickets or sell them as food after more than 100 people in Ban Phai district were hospitalised with nausea and diarrhoea this week. The patients all had eaten fried crickets that were bought either from a local market or from street hawkers. A handful of villagers were hospitalised late Sunday night with nausea and diarrhoea, with the number swelling by around another 100 on Tuesday, said Ban Phai Hospital director Dr Prayoon Kowit. All said they ate fried crickets that were either bought at Ban Phai Market or from street hawkers driving...

<p>North Korea's enigmatic leader Kim Jong Il demands the finest food and drink. But while he indulges, his countrymen starve.</p> <p>SEOUL -- Kim Jong Il likes to eat sashimi carved from a live fish. He hates anchovies on his pizza. He insists that the grains of his rice be absolutely uniform in size and color.</p>

The worst moment in Danny Reicher's culinary career was when his teacher at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in New York pulled out a huge lobster. "It was particularly horrible," recalls the Orthodox Teanecker who made aliya in 1999. "The chef just grabbed it and tore it apart alive." It's memories like these that give Reicher - a teacher at the newly-opened Kosher Culinary Academy in Jerusalem - the impetus to make the school work. Until three weeks ago, there has been nowhere that an Orthodox guy - or girl - can train to be a gourmet chef in...

An irate diner who accused a chef of serving bottled chilli sauce as "home-made" appeared in court yesterday after he broke into the pub's kitchen at night to check his suspicions. Maxwell James, who is a also a chef, was so determined to prove his palate had not deceived him that he dressed in army fatigues and a black balaclava and set off in search of the bottle. Earlier that night, James told Weymouth magistrates, he and his wife had gone for dinner at their local pub, the Ilchester Arms in Abbotsbury, Dorset. "My wife ordered fish cakes in a...

EDMONTON - An upscale grocery store in Edmonton is stocking an unusual delicacy: coffee beans picked from the feces of a jungle cat. Urban Fare is testing whether its customers will shell out $600 per pound for "Kopi Luwak" coffee beans, billed as one of the rarest beverages in the world. Label for kopi luwak Only 500 lbs (227 kg) of the beans are produced every year. The store plans to carry four lbs (1.8 kg). The label for the beans promotes it as "Good to the Last Dropping," giving an indication of how the beans are produced. It all...