Archive for October, 2007

Solar Panel Concrete

solar panels on phones have been around for a while now, and a company claims to have developed printable/paintable panels : solar panels have also been officially placed on the wheels of bicycles, so why are there not sidewalks made of solar panel concrete?

Carla Zaccagnini’s Jigsaw Puzzle

"Rompecabezas is a porcelain puzzle made up of 40 pieces, measuring around 120 x 120 cm when completed. In this work, the different pieces are sold separately, each person can only have one piece. Three editions are being produced, one with the London sky as it has been forecasted for the opening night; another one with SA£o Pauloa€™s sky, and a third one with the sky of Guadalajara (where the work it’s being produced). We will only show the London version at the gallery. It will be hand painted in the same dark blue traditionally used for porcelain and tiles."

Tear Down This Wall

via goodmagazine

LAYERING: outside in casa cultura

This is a manifesto of sorts. It proposes juxtaposing the high-tech with the low-tech, intertwining, weaving, stitching and carving the ideas and ethos of one cultural fabric onto another. A matrix created from combining and superimposing layers of cultural image. The vast canvas of landscape is the natural place to undertake this task. This project seeks to integrate multiple cultures and landscapes by layering from the outside in. This notion of layering, outside in, is also used as the primary methodology for this thesis. It is believed that the layering is the way in which we live now. This is unconscious to most but evidence for this strengthens with each passing day. Layering as a method allows independence, letting each layer work on its own and in concert with the others. It provides a mechanism for fluctuation in programmatic and formal inventions. In both plan and elevation, the layers are evident formally as facades, superimposing on each other within the whole. Programmatically, layering occurs between the boundaries of architecture, entertainment and information. On the landscape, layers are shaped to make space more useful and to provide provocation.

mxdfstudio

MTV Cribs: Scarface

Art of Can ::::: Inside Out::Vote now!

i had a redbull for the first time in a long while last weekend and dam that shit is like wave runners! anyway proof be told, redbull puts together some interesting events. Alfonso "Piloto" Nieves, of expresAAones-artAAsticas, is on the chicago ballot for art of can, click Gallery and then vote now for his sculpture!!!!

I create art because ita€™s easier to express myself better with sculptures than with words,a€A Nieves says. a€oeI always start out from nothing; every sculpture is a challenge and a learning process.a€A For a€oeInside Out,a€A his Art of Can entry inspired by a€oethe power that everybody has inside,a€A Nieves used foam, flour, cardboard, and paintera€™s tape, in addition to aluminum cans that several friends helped him to collect and cut. The process took about two weeks: one week for the base and armature, and another week to cut and glue the cans. Although the artist comments wryly that he still maintains a a€oehobbya€A of waiting tables, his artwork is definitely getting noticed around Chicagoland. Besides showing his work at Art of Can, Nieves was one of the co-creators of a piece called a€oeCreative Innovationa€A that was placed in Gateway Park at the entrance to Navy Pier as part of Chicagoa€™s a€oeCool Globesa€A event this summer.

The Foul Play DVD - uck The Industry

Some People Eat Chickens…

GROSS disambiguation page

Ok, well, let me apologize straight away for the semi non-sequitur-ish-ness of the title of the post, because this post isn’t about eating chicken (which some people, by the way, think is gross).

Sticky Rice Dipped in Weaver Ant Larva - Link

I guess you might say that I was at least partly inspired by an episode of Anthony Bourdain where he goes to the rain forest and grubs on some grilled tarantula. He said it was pretty good, although, this is coming from a man who I’ve seen eat monkey brains amongst other.. er… delicacies. But to make a long story short, I started becoming fascinated with how bugs taste. I mean, why not eat bugs?

On one of their TV specials, National Geographic illustrated the methods used by some Amazonian peoples to hunt and cook tarantulas. A tarantula was captured by holding it down with a stick and its legs were then bent upward and bound together. The creature was then roasted alive in a folded leaf. On that show, the American participant tasted the meat and commented that it reminded him of shrimp. The Goliath birdeater tarantula (Theraphosa Blondi) is considered a delicacy by the indigenous Piaroa of Venezuela. Another appearance of the tarantula as food was made on Anthony Bourdain‘s A Cook’s Tour. Fried tarantulas are also considered a delicacy in Cambodia.^[5]

Mmmmm… Grub…. literally

So it was at the peak of this interest when two things happened. Two epiphanies, one might say. First I realized that ‘taste’ is pretty subjective, and add to that all the psychological nurture that goes into what we choose to eat and you get an indecipherable mess, and so I can’t logically tell you how a bug tastes just from spending a few hours on the internet. I also realized that the vast majority of myninjaplease readers might think that it’s pretty, well, gross to talk about eating insects. However, last Friday (you might’ve seen our insect art) I was talking to my boy and he mentioned that he had tried a few insects (in the wild) so that basically cemented the need to write this post. This is for you buddy. By the way, entomophagy is a better word for "the eating of nasty bastids." Phagy means "the eating of" while entomo means "nasty bastids."

Above we have barbecued larva in bamboo (they live in there and are harvested and barbecued)

And while I can’t exactly objectively tell you how a bug tastes, I can sure show you how people around the world cook ’em.

The Commentary

Spiders are probably my favorite bug to research, even though, as I’m sure some smart ass would be quick to point out, they aren’t technically insects. Fried spider seems to be popular in many places… whereas some cultures just seem to love bugs naturally.

fried spider is a regional delicacy of Cambodia. In the small Cambodian town of Skuon, locals eat fried spiders as an everyday staple. Spiders are also available elsewhere in Cambodia a€" in Phnom Penh for instance a€" but the village of Skuon, a stopover on the road 90 kilometres north of the capital, is the centre of their popularity.^[1] The spiders are bred in holes in the ground in villages north of Skuon, or foraged for in nearby forestland, and fried in oil. It is not clear how this practice started, but some have suggested that the population might have started eating spiders out of desperation during the years of Khmer Rouge rule, when food was in short supply.^[2]

What, desperation you say? Well, I never… No, but seriously, people have been digesting insects and bugs for thousands of years. Even if it started in rough times for the Khmer people, it seems to be a common thread thoughout humanity. WHich basically calls into focus that old parable (at least I think it’s a parable) about surviving in the wild off of a diet of insects.

The spiders are a species of tarantula called "a-ping" in Khmer, and are about the size of a human palm.^[3] The snacks cost about 300 riel each in 2002, or about US$0.08.^[3] One travel book identifies them as Haplopelma albostriatum, also known as the Thai zebra tarantula, and notes that the same species’ common name has been the "edible spider" for more than a hundred years. The popularity of the dish is, however, a recent phenomenon, starting perhaps as late as the 1990s.^[4] The same book details a recipe: the spiders are tossed in a mixture of MSG, sugar, and salt; crushed garlic is fried in oil until fragrant, then the spiders are added and fried alongside the garlic until "the legs are almost completely stiff, by which time the contents of the abdomen are not so runny."^[5]

That’s just a little primer for you. I wanted to soften you up before I gave you this quote, which might actually disgust you.

I once went on a tour of an apple orchard and while the group was viewing the area where they separate the rotten and bug infested fruits from the good ones, I asked the tour guide what they did with the bug infested apples. She told me that they use them to make cider; waste not, want not! Aletheia Price

Um… yeah. This chick (17 yr old author of the quote abive) is officially off her rocker… or at very least a little bit wild. It’s a highly recommended read.

"Ohh can I have a corndog?" asked Susie.
"Suuure… dig in," smiled Li Xiao

The ancient Romans and Greeks dined on insects. Pliny, the first-century Roman scholar and author of Historia Naturalis, wrote that Roman aristocrats loved to eat beetle larvae reared on flour and wine. National Geographic

Wipe that silly look of surprise off your face. You know what else they did…? Then again, Pliny, obviously a true O.G., might have been being metaphorical.

The Food

In Ghana during the spring rains, winged termites are collected and fried, roasted, or made into bread. In South Africa the insects are eaten with cornmeal porridge.

Ha, well that does sound a little more delicious than just winged termites straight up, no chaser.

All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you." But there is an escape clause: "Among the winged insects that walk on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap on the ground." Leviticus 11:20-23 link

In the Bible, apparently, people are encouraged to eat Locusts, grasshopper, etc. The picture below shows locusts in all their deliciousity as traditionally prepared in Cambodia.

THEY are the largest group of animals with more species than any other, some 900,000 or so at last count. They need very little food, can be reared in a small space and breed rapidly. At least 44 types are edible, some very tasty indeed, and a Mahidol University graduate predicts we’ll be eating a lot more of these nutritious creatures in the future

Well, according to a 1999 article from The Nation, eating insects is actually good for you. Many people point to their general cleanliness and the ease of rearing them in large amounts, combined with their natural protein. Other people have pointed our that insects have the best feed to meat ratios amongst livestock that would actually be raised for the purpose of eating.

And in this country, especially in the North and Northeast (Isaan), people have been eating insects for centuries. Isaan boys delight in catching grasshoppers and tree beetles which, when deep-fried, make a very tasty snack. Cooks in Khon Kaen make a delicious dish by stir-frying malaeng da na (giant water bugs) with straw mushrooms, spring onions, chilli and garlic. And a traditional regional delicacy from the North is a spicy salad or yam in which the essential ingredient (apart from chilli) are the large, milky-white eggs of the red ant. The Nation via thaibugs

Hungry yet? Want some of those tasty fried tarantulas above? No? Ok then, read on.

"Some insects pick up parasites from eating buffalo dung so avoid eating them raw. They must be rinsed well first and then thoroughly cooked. Some species also contain very small quantities of poisonous hydrocyanic acid. If a person were to eat a great deal of these insects raw, acid levels would build up in the body causing illness, fainting, vomiting, unconsciousness and, possibly, death. However, this substance is easily destroyed by heat." IBID

Now yer hungry.

Gourmands in Japan savor aquatic fly larvae sautA©ed in sugar and soy sauce. De-winged dragonflies boiled in coconut milk with ginger and garlic are a delicacy in Bali.

For an extensive blog (meaning, a blog besides this one) covering insect eating, click here. Some westerners seem to have made insect eating part of their very own habit system.

Did someone say Scorpion Soup? Delectable.

Insect Stall at Bangkok Market

So, alll this talk about bug cuisine begs the question, why don’t Americans eat this stuff? Well to close out, I have one answer for you, straight from the previously linked NGeo article.

But despite its long traditiona€"and current favor among at least half of the world’s peoplesa€"eating insects is still rare, not to mention taboo, in the United States and Europe.

One reason, DeFoliart said, is that after Europe became agrarian, insects were seen as destroyers of crops rather than a source of food.

"We became invested in livestock, and bugs became the enemy," said David George Gordon, a biologist and the author of The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook.

Manfred Kroger, a professor emeritus of food science at Penn State University in University Park, says what people choose to eat is conditioned by culture.

Many Westerners readily consume shrimp and lobster (which, like insects, are arthropods) along with pork and oystersa€"foods other cultures reject as dirty.

"We have 200 to 300 staple foods that we pass down from generation to generationa€"and trying new foods is always a touchy subject," Kroger said.

Happy insect-hunting people, and remember like I always say: It’s amazing what you can learn in two hours on the internet. Oh, and I almost forgot. For you hardcore foragers out there (I know you’re out there) here is a guide to eating insects you can cop for your uh… coffee tree stump. Here also is the Wikipedia article on Taboo Food and Drink.

squirell robber (ninja?)