Luckily, our bodies have become so anaesthetised to mass-produced foods that we don’t pass out eating this kind of cuisine. Reading about it is nevertheless slightly queasy-making.
Vegetarians always look a little ill at ease if they are in a restaurant and other people are eating steaks so rare that they are a bit bloody. If it’s of any comfort to them, the red juice in meat is not blood.
Nearly all blood is removed from meat during slaughter, which is why you don’t see blood in raw “white” meat; only a minute amount of blood remains in the muscle tissue when you buy the meat from the butcher or supermarket.
Red meats like beef are composed of quite a bit of water, and this water mixed with protein ends up comprising most of the red liquid. But frankly, either way is fine with me. I’m a nice self-righteous vegetarian these days.
Many aspects about food remain mystifying.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Britons or Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Britons and Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Britons and Americans.
4. Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Britons and Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Britons and Americans.
Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
What is the worst meal you have ever eaten? If you’ve ever tried surströmming, that would almost certainly be the one. It’s a northern Swedish dish consisting of fermenting herring, and sold in cans which often distort during storage due to the continuing fermentation.
A study in Japan has demonstrated that the smell emitting from a freshly opened can of surströmming is the most putrid odour of food in the world, more overwhelming than the Korean fermented fish dish Hongeohoe.
This explains why in Sweden the dish is usually eaten outdoors.
Apparently, Swedish sailors in the 16th century found that preserving fish in salt was prohibitively expensive, and it would often begin to rot. When they ran into some Finnish islanders they decided to palm off the rotten fish on them.
The Finns bought the fish, and when a year later the Swedish sailors returned to the island, the locals asked if they had more of their delicious fish. The sailors tried it for themselves, liked it, and found it simple and cheap to make plentiful supplies of rotting herring.
It is now a staple, found in bulging cans in supermarkets all over Sweden.
Be the Worst You Can Be by Charles Saatchi is published by Booth-Clibborn Editions (£9.99)
