French-style seafood was always the big seller at Toshio Tanabe's Tokyo restaurant, but the chef for many years had a secret passion - soil.
Now his long interest in soil cuisine has finally culminated in a feast he's been offering to customers the last few weeks, starting with an amuse bouche of soil soup and ending with a soil sorbet.
At a $100 per person.
Who knew the gourmands of Haiti were ahead of the culinary curve?
With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.
Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.
The mud has long been used by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings, and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt, and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.
The international community pours aid into Haiti on the grounds of their alleged poverty when Haitians are feasting on soil cuisine feasts? While looking as fashionably thin as a Milan runway model?
Of course, their presentation leaves much to be desired. A sprig of parsley on the side would go a long way. Just sayin'.
And at 5 cents each for a dirt cookie, the Haitians should really have a little freaking initiative and hook up with Chef Tanabe. Think of it! Fair Trade authentic dirt cookies!
I'm really quite disgusted by the whole "soil cuisine."
