Anything That Moves  by Dana Goodyear, The Kitchen Reader’s October Book that I also read for Foodies Read 2014  basically tells stories that one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Goodyear begins the book with a new American cuisine that consists of challenging ingredients such bugs, horse, brains, and whale. She ends it with an experience of eating balut, a Filipino delicacy of a boiled duck egg with an embryo inside.

The book’s subtitle is Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters and the Making of a New American Food Culture. In between the introduction and the coda Goodyear presents three parts: Squishy or Swank, Down the Rabbit Hole and Discomfort Food.

She learned a lot from Jonathan Gold about the nooks and crannies in Los Angeles where you can find bizarre foods. A Peruvian Restaurant owned by Koreans that serves grilled beef heart and a Szechuan Restaurant that serves Steamed Toad are just some that Gold explores as he drives 20 000 miles a year in search of food.

In fact Goodyear refers to Gold throughout the book, and every time his name comes up on a page I read it with interest. This is because I have heard Jonathan Gold speak at the Sunset Magazine compound in California.

At the 2013 International Association of Culinary Professionals meting, sunset Magazine invited a panel of experts to discuss the history of California cuisine and food movement in the State. Those were Charles Perry, food historian who was a food writer for the Los Angeles Times for 18 years; Jerry Di Vecchio, Sunset’s former editor, Joyce Goldstein cookbook author and consultant to restaurant and food industries; Sibella Kraus who launched the farm-to table movement in the Bay Area while a Chez Panisse cook, and Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer prize–winning food critic.

Goodyear not only writes about the peculiar foods. She also comically illuminates the characters that promote such foods. Some eat the foods purely for adrenaline rush while some are more interested in the business aspects of consuming them.

One of the characters in the book is Brett Ottolenghi from Las Vegas who claimed to know 370 chefs in that city. Ottolenghi specializes in hard to come by and about to be banned ingredients such as Utah clay, fresh Pennsylvania hop, and squid ink from Spain. Another is Dave Arnold who provides recipes for sous-vide yak, bear and lion steak in an article he wrote for Popular Science: Why I Eat Lion and Other Exotic Meat.

I sincerely believe that you can find foods that you consider unusual in almost every part of the world. The Tomohon Market in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, for example, is a place to go to if you like python, bat, white tailed rat, cat, dog and monkey.

Personally, however, I’d rather not write about food that makes some people squirm when reading it.

Insects anyone?

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Images: Dana Goodyear, Omar Niode Foundation