Maggot cheese that tries to eat your eyes

Casu marzu is an illegal Sardinian cheese that is served riddled with writhing maggots that try to jump into your eyeballs as you eat it.

Casu marzu 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. When the cheese has fermented enough, it is cut into thin strips and spread on moistened Sardinian flatbread (pane carasau), to be served with a strong red wine.[6][7] Casu marzu is believed to be an aphrodisiac by local Sardinians.[1] Because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves for distances up to 15 centimetres (6 in) when disturbed,[5][8] diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping into their eyes.[3] 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.[9]

Casu marzu (via William Gibson)

(Image: Snob food.jpg, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo in the Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Shardan)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Gaudeamus

I saw this on the Travel Channel or something once. I was pretty grossed out by it but I can understand that some people might dig it. I’d like to say I would never try it but I’ve said that before and been wrong. The segment I saw talked not so much about the jumpity maggots but the fact that the maggot poo makes the cheese all creamy/slimy and therein lies the delicious. It’s apparently not considered that awesome if the maggots haven’t pooed the thing all up. On second thought, maybe I really wouldn’t ever try it…
Ugly Canuck

My eyes!! MY EYES!!
soupisgoodfood

Hard to see the maggots in a static photo. As for your eyes getting eaten, don’t most maggots only eat dead flesh?
Hayduke

I think if confronted with the situation of being served this “delicacy” I would instantly be converted to veganism.
Takuan

they don’t eat your eyes, they make them water.
Takuan

mmmmm,maggot cheese, rotten shark, Durian, natto, kusaiya and a Big Mac!
BadKittyM

I’ve got a very high tolerance level for things that disgust most folks. After reading the entire Wiki entry, all I can wonder, is “why?” Not to mention, I’m not all that keen on the consumption of any creature that is still alive and moving. I’d think that might detract somewhat from the texture, if it keeps…wiggling. Or hopping.

That said, I’ll try anything once where it comes to food…but I’d mash the Hell out of it with my fist first. No hoppers for me.
bugmaker

Soupisgoodfood- there are botfly larvae that gestate inside a living host…

I’ve eaten live meal worms and enjoyed them, but I’ll skip this cheese if it’s ever offered to me.
Improbable

Professor Massimo Marcone of Guelph University specializes in the chemistry â€” and in detecting the counterfeiting of â€” really, really exotic foods. There’s a nice chapter about this maggot cheese (and his adventures with people who make it) in his book In Bad Taste?: The Science and Adventures Behind Food Delicacies. The book is at http://tinyurl.com/9c2
lautaylo

I could not possibly enjoy the taste of anything enough to brave live, *jumping* maggots. How might this food have become a desired taste?
Anonymous

(Yes, I realize that humans SHOULD be eating bugs, but they have too many legs for me, and I’m sqeamish!)

Have you ever watched a Praying Mantis eat a fly?
Very discriminating creature! They don’t eat the legs or the wings! LOL!
As for me and my French blood, I will stick to good old rotten soft French cheeses including Limburg and a good red wine! Sometimes with wine mustard and good bread, please hold the maggots that eat your eyes thank you!
arborman

Talk about a counterproductive aphrodisiac. What could be worse that a combination of arousal and razor sharp mouth hooks?
Takuan

fancy a witchetty grub?
Takuan

bit chewy but a soft center
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJlO0aifJxA
Takuan

mmm giant larvae
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuB3kr3ckYE
isaacb2

You should’ve had some sort of a warning so those of us who instantly imagine anything we read might’ve avoided reading that awful description of this! Argh! I’ll never be able to un-read that!
soupisgoodfood

Bugmaker: Would those botflys ever settle for cheese or other dead stuff? Either way, I’d still pass on this, too.
Ari B.

Illegal cheese? Where’s Jasper Fforde when you really need him. :-)
Lyddiechu

And I thought some of the ultra aged limburgers we have here in Wisconsin were extreme. I really, really want to try this despite all of my faculties of good sense screaming otherwise.
valdis

“Casu marzu 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. … When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten.”

What’s wrong with this picture?

EvilJim@19: “Why the emphasis on the worms jumping for your eyes?”

Probably has to do with the fact that even with their razor-sharp mouthhooks, they can’t do much to exposed skin before you get annoyed and brush them off – but if one gets a direct hit on eyeballs, you’re in for a bad time. Kinda like wind-blown sand – it has to be pretty bad for the rest of your body to *really* care, but it only takes one grain in your eye…
bugmaker

Soupisgoodfood, I think they like a warm place to grow, and would skip the cheese. Don’t ever google images of botfly larvae like I did.

As for the maggoty cheese, something about the jumping is truly revolting….
bugmaker

Takuan- I recommend the book Man Eating Bugs. It’s a favourite of mine, and a great reference for my lectures. Entomophagy! Say it kids!
oldtaku

The best part of the article, which wasn’t quoted, is:

‘The larvae have powerful mouthhooks which can lacerate stomach linings or intestinal walls as the maggots attempt to bore through internal organs.’
dainel

#78 Gaudeamus, …the fact that the maggot poo makes the cheese all creamy/slimy and therein lies the delicious.

Well, you know where honey comes from …
Chris L

@every one asking “OH GOD WHY?”

As with most things of this nature, probably because its freaking delicious. (One would assume. I’ve never even heard of it.) I’d take the risk and try it. I’d wear some stylish goggles.
Clumpy

It gets worse:

“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.[11][12] The larvae have powerful mouthhooks which can lacerate stomach linings or intestinal walls as the maggots attempt to bore through internal organs.[5]”

Who in the hell would eat this?
Anonymous

Can’t believe no one has made a Klingon reference.
Clumpy

Oops, Oldtaku. Looks like you beat me to it. In my defense your comment wasn’t there when I started posting :).
TheKarpuk

I think I’d be one of those people who would suffocate the maggots before consuming this cheese.

Not for health reasons mind you, but out of hatred and fear.
Glossolalia Black

This deli tray is UNACCEPTABLE!

- Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus

Who knew Dave Brockie would have a couple of relevant quotes?
Evil Jim

Why the emphasis on the worms jumping for your eyes? Surely they wouldn’t know the difference.

Anyway, a while ago I submitted casu marzu as a suggestion for LoadingReadyRun.com’s Iron Stomach Challenge wherein they eat gross things for your amusement. I doubt they’ll be able to get a hold of this cheese but it’s worth a shot.
lecti

“pitter-patter”

Love that gratuitously disgusting onomatopoeia. The authors must have loved writing this entry.
querent

“I need a twisted unicorn chaser after all the gaza info…”

Didn’t ever suspect the post title could be literal. Gotta be the best title ever.
Takuan

there IS a resemblance
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/US_Senate_Session_Chamber.jpg
Takuan

I’ll see your bot-fly and raise you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FYgQFSrZDE&feature=related
Daniel Amos

This sounds like a product from Look Around You.
urshrew

Human creativity with eating will never cease to amaze me. Amaze and Horrify me.
Boba Fett Diop

This food is problematic.
avraamov

or a funkadelic album.
adonai

This appeared on Cracked a while back…you think this is bad, check the baby mouse wine :P
Anonymous

Aphrodisiac? Yup. “Baby, there’s something in your teeth. Oh, it’s a squirming, cheese-coated maggot. That is so hot! I must have you this instant. Kiss me….”
Ryan Waddell

Oh sweet jesus. That is just… God damn. People will eat some crazy shit if you call it an aphrodisiac. I’m sorry, but I prefer my food not to a) be alive and b) have “razor sharp mouthooks”
Halloween Jack

I’m reminded of a certain scene from Lost Boys involving future torture pinup Kiefer Sutherland.
PurpleWyrm

They hop oâ€™er your plate
And go as you please
The little white jumpers
Whom live in old cheese.
Some people loathe ‘em,
And others don’t care
If they swallow a mouthful.
The truth I declare.
They hop, twist and leap,
And go as you please,
The jumpers, white jumpers,
Whom live in old cheese.

–Bellerive the Poet
Willie McBride

Graham Anderson @#41: Horse and dog, not so nice.

Since when eating horse is strange?
Anonymous

Maggots generally taste like whatever they’ve been eating.

Don’t ask.

–Charlie
Iax

If a few minutes in a paper bag will kill them, how would they survive inside a person?
noen

“Casu marzu is believed to be an aphrodisiac by local Sardinians.”

This is the secret to all disgusting foodstuffs. Men who think that eating rotting gross crap will rejuvenate their failing sex lives.
Anonymous

There’s also a maggot cheese in Corsica, off the coast of France, and there’s been much upset because the evil EU guys in Brussels are trying to make it illegal.

The worms in that one don’t go for your eyes, though, from what I’ve heard. (I’m pretty fearless about French cheeses, but I draw a line at maggots, so I wouldn’t know from experience).

It’s a tradition to eat it on one’s wedding night (because dry heaves are just soooo sexy).

There’s also a joke about people who like it being so lazy that they wait for the food to come to them.
Zarkonnen

Oh dear, my dad had some of this at a restaurant in Sardinia a few years back:

We were getting along very well with the owner, and when it came to the dessert, he said that we might appreciate a certain local speciality. He called it “walking cheese” and said that they weren’t allowed to sell it anymore, but he had it all the time.

Curious, my dad agreed. A few minutes later, the owner could be seen leaving the restaurant through the front door, and coming back with what looked like a small green compost bin.

Eventually, the dessert was served. (My mother and I had ordered more ordinary fare.) The cheese looked disappointingly like any other strong cheese, and was very intense in flavour. But after a minute, the maggots started wriggling out…

We had half suspected it might be something like that, so we weren’t particularly horrified. But my dad did stop eating it.
Anonymous

I’ve eaten this cheese in Sardinia, in August. Before a huge chunk of the cheese was served, it had been left out under the sunlight for an hour or so, which caused all worms to leave. This cheese was 100% wormless when I ate it, though I myself had seen these nasties crawling out.
sirkowski

Skrew the war on drugs, we need a war on cheese!!!
Lauren O

Okay, look. I understand there are foods that I only think are gross because they’re from an unfamiliar culture. I get why someone might eat a bird fetus in an egg, or chicken feet, or whatever, even if I think it sounds disgusting.

But this is…wrong. This is a wrong food to eat. This goes against every evolutionary drive I can imagine. You’re just not supposed to eat a dish that involves insects actively trying to eat you. You’re just not supposed to do that.
seanboing

@takuan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23eimVLAQ2c
jonni

It’s actually rather nice. I attended a wedding in Cagliari some three years ago and they proudly served this cheese. They’d had a hard time getting hold of one since they can’t be sold in shops. You really need to know someone who knows someone to get hold of one. The larvae are so tiny you don’t really notice them. But then you occasionally se a little white dot shoot off your cheese slice, and yes, they really pack a thrust. I’ll admit though, that is weird.

But its a good tasting cheese.
lorenzofarris

Perhaps there are different versions of this cheese around the island. Certainly, they don’t eat it with pane carasau where my parents are from, since a different bread, called poddine, is the staple there. In any case, I would watch my uncles and great uncles eat a cheese like this with a spoon, right out of the cheese rind, but I’m afraid I saw no leaping maggots, they were more sedate than that. Also, I suspect the strong wine that was consumed with the cheese had something to do with the fact that none of the more enthusiastic eaters had stomach or intestinal complaints. The one great uncle who ate the most was about 85 when he passed away. I draw the line at food that is still moving, though.
funlauren

When I read this post I simultaneously LOLed and gagged. Can’t say that’s ever happened to me before.
Takuan

not ….squeamish.are you?
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=HOaZCkA8Zvk&feature=related
presto

Boing Boing catches me off guard once more. This round goes to you, Herr Doctorow…
Anonymous

I was stationed in Sardinia for 5 yrs and this was a great cheese…..all foods in the USA are allowed a certain amount of rodent fecal matter, insect parts and hairs from various creatures, so take that into consideration b4 turning your nose up at this cheese….at least you know what your getting……

I never heard of anyone who has had their eyes eaten by the maggots…..another urban legend run rampent on the internet
ROSSINDETROIT

Achewood has this covered.
Anonymous

Man, I knew about other maggot cheese, but I did not previously know that there was anthropophagous outlaw maggot cheese. And it’s a delicacy. My world just got a little bit better.
Anonymous

One word people: EW. And that says it all.
Miss Jess

haha GROSS. Hooks into eyeballs. Gross!
Anonymous

How do you market something like this?

“It’s the Yakov Smirnoff of cheeses!”

“The Cheese that eats you back!”
geddygibson

Just close your eyes and keep repeating to yourself: “It’s a directory of WONDERFUL things. It’s a directory of WONDERFUL things…”
flynnfx

I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to try this!

At what point do you stop and say; “Hey, this might not be the best idea for food?!?”

What’s next, foreign parrot shit on cheese sold as a delicacy?
Prenderghast

A bit like larva bread, then.
monstrinho_do_biscoito

I’ll have some with these facehugger eggs i found…
daddypants

If anyone cares to read more on some truly filthy foods:

http://www.cracked.com/article_14979_6-most-terrifying-foods-in-world.html

Sick.
Drew from Zhrodague

DO NOT WANT!

I prefer to eat low on the food chain, but not in that particular branch. Fish and microorganisms please, hold the insect larvae.

(Yes, I realize that humans SHOULD be eating bugs, but they have too many legs for me, and I’m sqeamish!)
mr_josh

@ 27: Lauren O, not often do I laugh at the BoingBoing comment parade, but “But this is…wrong. This is a wrong food to eat.” was damned funny. I LLOL’d (Literally LOL’d).
Diamond Jim

I was all ready to write to Anthony Bourdain about this, but of course he’s beaten us all to it:

http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/read/my-summer-vacation-social-studies
Takuan

when whales die, some puff up and float ashore, some sink. Few delicacies finer than a mature Blue tenderized by Eptatretus Polytrema. Three months is best. Manganese nodules on the side.
Takuan

ever been in a seige?
wolfiesma

One sign you’ve been reading too much BB: Dreaming you have an open wound on your head the size of a silver dollar and you can’t find the jar of sea monkeys anywhere. They were right there a minute ago. Where in the hell are they…. oh…..
Anonymous

The general tone of this post is funny but misleading, the Casu Marzu has been produced for tens of years in sardinia and if it was so dangerous I don’t think it could survive so long…

Besides, Sardinia is asking the UE community to allow the production of this particular cheese because it has been produced for more than 25 years with a controlled procedure, and laws allows such derogation.

Add to this that there are researches who doubt that the larvae could do such damage to intestine walls…

On a different level, it’s funny for us Italians to see how a lot of products that have been done for CENTURIES are considered “suspect” from UE point of view… Also, for all american readers, remember that ORANGE chees DOES NOT EXIST :P
Anonymous

Makes me glad I’m vegan.
Kendra

Wow, seriously? Maggots… cheese… launch into eyes… pitter-patter….

For the love of all that is good, UNICORN CHASER PLEASE.
Inox

Damn, #38, I was gonna say that.
dogmatique

Here’s a video of it being made – and Gordon Ramsey eating some.

The Sardinian chap in the video runs a restaurant not far from my house in London. He occasionally has it on the menu, but not that often as it “doesn’t travel well”. No shit.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_-JzM-YQg
Bevatron Repairman

When I asked my Sardianian friend about this a few years back, she said she’d never had it, but it was the sort of thing granddads and crazy uncles would have at family parties, sneaking off to some corner of the house. Sort of like some people go off and sneak a bowl, I guess. It was not offered at her wedding, mercifully.
MollyMaguire

Now that’s being a locavore. Your animal protein can’t be grown and harvested much more locally than your plate.
postliteracy_dot_org

This gives me an even greater appreciation for Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms:

“Menocchio [the heretic miller] said: “I have said that, in my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed- just as cheese is made out of milk- and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels. The most holy majesty decreed that these should be God and the angels, and among that number of angels there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass at the same time …”
minTphresh

disinfo has picked this story up. will boing get boinged?
twobeeshawn

I eats my cheese w/ honey
I done it all my life
It may taste kinda funny
but keeps da maggots on da knife
Graham Anderson

Channel 4 just showed “Could you Eat An Elephant?” which included a similar cheese – Pecorino Marchetto

http://turismo2.egov.regione.abruzzo.it/web/guest/scoprilabruzzo/isapori/formaggi/pecorinomarcetto

According to the two chefs making their journey around the world eating taboo foods, songbirds and maggoty cheese – good. Snake – excellent. Horse and dog, not so nice.
Takuan

close enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmejcPnTqss&eurl=http://news.3yen.com/
Anonymous

How many Darwin Awards needed to be handed out before this thing caught on as a delicacy!? Some farmer goes to get his cheese from the pantry and as he looks closer at it to tell if its spoiled or no, BLAMMO!!! maggots leap from it to eat his bloody eyes!!
His son who has become the man of the house now that his old man is an invalid kicks him aside and has a go only to suffer the same result.
Next his brother cleverly snuffs the maggots and waits a day so he can get a shot at eating this rancid and maggoty wad only to be poisoned by the toxicity of this now deadly mass!
Hearing about this dreadful tale from the bereaved farm maid, the neighbors decide there MUST be a way to get at this cheese and scientifically mix up a batch to impregnate with toxic eye snatcher-bugs and after blinding or killing half the village come to respect and enjoy this filth with a good bottle of wine?!!?? WTF!!!!!
bazookaluca

I grew up in Italy and my father, while vacationing in Sardegna, ate this very delicacy. He still boasts to this day that it was very good and that the maggots taste just like the cheese.
V

…”to be served with a strong red wine.”

Duh.
Glossolalia Black

Maggots
Maggots
Maggots are falling like rain

- Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus