Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide (Atlas Obscura)

Price: $42.50 - $21.16
(as of Feb 11, 2024 19:05:58 UTC – Details)

A New York Times, USA Today, and national indie bestseller.

A Feast of Wonder!
Created by the ever-curious minds behind Atlas Obscura, this breathtaking guide transforms our sense of what people around the world eat and drink. Covering all seven continents, Gastro Obscura serves up a loaded plate of incredible ingredients, food adventures, and edible wonders. Ready for a beer made from fog in Chile? Sardinia’s “Threads of God” pasta? Egypt’s 2000-year-old egg ovens? But far more than a menu of curious minds delicacies and unexpected dishes, Gastro Obscura reveals food’s central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history–trace the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture–picture four million women gathering to make rice pudding. Travel–scale China’s sacred Mount Hua to reach a tea house. Festivals–feed wild macaques pyramid of fruit at Thailand’s Monkey Buffet Festival. And hidden gems that might be right around the corner, like the vending machine in Texas dispensing full sized pecan pies. Dig in and feed your sense of wonder.
“Like a great tapas meal, Gastro Obscura is deep yet snackable, and full of surprises. This is the book for anyone interested in eating, adventure and the human condition.” –Tom Colicchio, chef and activist
“This exquisite guide kept me at the breakfast table until dinner time.” –Kyle Maclachlan, actor and vintner

From the Publisher

Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide features foods to try…

Spaghetti Ice-Cream Sundae (Germany)

Ubiquitous in Germany, this ice cream sundae masquerading as a plate of spaghetti is made by feeding vanilla gelato through a chilled spaetzle press and topping the “noodles” with strawberry sauce and chocolate-shaving “cheese”.

Mended Teapot Soup (Afghanistan)

Broken teapots are given new life at Afghan teashops, where chainaki is a lamb or goat soup, cooked – and served! – in the pot.

Salteñas (Bolivia)

A cross between an empanada and a soup dumpling is a traditional midmorning snack in La Paz, Bolivia. For clean handling, take a bite out of the top and sip out the sauce first.

Giant Pine Cone Nut (Australia)

Every few years, Australia’s bunya pines produce pinecones the size of a football, weighing as much as 22 pounds each, and filled with anywhere from 30 to 100 husk-covered edible nuts.

…places to visit…

Langar at the Golden Temple (India)

In the city of Amritsar, the temple’s 24-hour kitchen, staffed almost entirely by volunteers, serves about 75,000 free meals every day in a practice of humility and equality started by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak.

Verdansky Station (Antarctica)

Three-dollar vodka is the signature drink at the bar of this research base, founded by the British but now run by Ukraine.

High Tide Island Restaurant (Tanzania)

At low tide, this eatery hovers above the sand on Michamvi Pingwe beach. At high tide, the water rushes beneath and the restaurant becomes an island. Depending on the time of day, guests arrive on foot or by boat.

A Golf Cart Bar in a Bat-Filled Cave (USA)

Accessible only by golf cart, this bar is situated in cave in the Ozarks, where you can find a natural waterfall, a live bat colony, and the skeleton of a saber-tooth tiger. Order the Bat’s Bite strawberry-peach lemonade!

…and is full of cultural and historical context!

Sumo Wrestler Stew (Japan)

Sumo wrestling has no separate weight classes, which means the heavier competitor has the advantage. Each training house has a signature recipe for chanko-nabe, a big communal pot of bubbling broth; wrestlers may eat as many as ten bowls for lunch.

An Illegal Tonic Turned Cure-All Aphrodisiac (Dominican Republic)

This tonic began as a medicinal brew with the native Taino Indians, and now can be tailored to what ails you, with different ingredients to help if you seek virility or are trying to get pregnant.

Siberian Sashimi Competition (Russia)

Every December, the remote city of Yakutsk, fewer than 300 miles from the Arctic Circle, celebrates their culinary specialty, artfully arranged slices of sashimi from the flank of a frozen whitefish.

French Doctors Once Feared Tea- Drinking Would Destroy Tunisian Society (Tunisia)

French colonists so feared that tea-drinking could lead to crime that they made tea a prescription drug only available at pharmacies. Tunisians continued to drink tea all the same – and it’s now practically the independent country’s national drink.

Also Available
“A wanderlust-whetting cabinet of curiosities on paper.”— New York Times A a thrilling expedition to 100 of the most surprising, mysterious, and weird-but-true places on earth. For ages 7+.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Workman Publishing Company (October 12, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1523502193
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1523502196
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.37 x 1.12 x 10.75 inches