How 5 of Europe’s most unusual specialties are made

There are dishes that most people like, cooked with common ingredients and established preparation methods. And then there are more unusual delicacies: Maggot cheese, jellyfish, pinto beans…We present five European dishes that are more for special gourmets or are prepared in unusual ways. Fancy a taste?

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:15 Casu Marzu
01:46 Haggis
02:46 Su Filindeu
04:25 Snails
05:35 Jellyfish

CREDITS
Report: Kirstin Schumann
Editor: Klaus Hellmig
Supervising editor: Ruben Kalus

#dweuromaxx #food #europe
————————————————————————————
Subscribe to DW Food:
https://bit.ly/DWFood_Sub

DW Food brings you the perfect blend of culinary trends, easy DIY recipes, exciting food secrets & a look behind the scenes of Europe’s culinary culture.

Have you heard of the cheese made with maggots as a delicacy? It sounds a bit challenging. 
But that’s just the first of five unusual European specialties. And we’ll bet you 
haven’t ever tried at least two of them. Is it tasty or nasty? This cheese is made by 
and with maggots. It’s called Casu Marzu. But, the maggots can also make people 
sick, and so commercial production of this cheese is prohibited in 
the EU. Its fans eat it anyway. Casu Marzu is only found on Italy’s island 
of Sardinia. Agriculture here mostly involves herding sheep. And their milk goes to make 
the island’s signature cheese, Pecorino. The little Fattoria Istentales cheese dairy
makes it the traditional way: by hand. But how does it become
Casu Marzu? That’s the job of the cheese fly! Literally, Casu Marzu means 
“putrid cheese”. At first, it was thrown out. But eventually, the 
Sardinians turned it into a delicacy. If you have the chance and the courage, 
you might give Casu Marzu a try. This is haggis! This Scottish specialty is 
cooked encased in an animal’s stomach. It’s made of sheep’s pluck, oatmeal 
and spices – and it’s at least as famous as Scotland‘s breathtaking 
scenery with its mountains and lakes. The thing I love most about Haggis, actually, is 
its versatility. It’s an unbelievably flexible food first and foremost, but actually, there’s 
no – there’s no right or wrong way to do it. How is haggis made? Traditionally, with the 
heart, liver and lungs of a sheep and onions. These are put through a meat grinder, then grits, 
leaf fat, salt, pepper and mace are added in. Everything is stirred together well and 
stuffed into a cleaned animal stomach. It’s simply is a bag, a natural clean bag, that you stuff it into and you tie 
it off and then you cook it in it. About an hour and a half later, the 
haggis is done. It’s usually served with mashed potatoes and yellow turnips. Specialty number three is noodles – but not the kind found in any supermarket on 
Earth. Su Filindeu means ‘threads of God‘. Only a couple of people still know how to make it. Sardinians appear to have a taste for the 
unusual – they also came up with su filindeu. Luca Floris works the dough by hand. He 
has to keep just the right consistency and elasticity to meet the real challenge, 
which is to draw the threads from the roll. Luca lays out the threads on a wicker disk to 
dry, generally in several layers. They look like an artwork – but only for a while. So, what are these noodles used for, and what makes them taste so special? They’re boiled in a mutton broth made thick with Pecorino, so they end up as part of a noodle soup. It’s a hearty Sardinian specialty. Fourth on our list are snails – a delicacy in 
France. Baked in the oven with herb butter, they’re eaten with a two-tined fork. 
Where can edible snails be found? One place is this farm in eastern France. Here, 
Perrine Doudin grows some 200,000 vineyard or escargot snails. And how are they prepared? First, they’re boiled. Then, the snail is cleaned of slime and 
bacteria and shelled, leaving only the meat. Finally, the clean shells are filled with the meat 
and parsley butter, baked and served. Escargot are on the gourmet menu of 
5-star hotel Château Sainte-Sabine. The chef here has developed 
his own recipe for escargot. Benjamin Linard fills ravioli with snail 
meat and arranges them on the plate with vegetables and curry. Snails were eaten in 
the Roman Empire but were long regarded as a poverty food. Today, restaurants 
serve them on special occasions. And lastly, another slimy ingredient: jellyfish. They’ve been served as a delicacy 
in Asia for over a thousand years. The European Union doesn’t yet allow jellyfish 
as a food item. Italian chef Gennaro Esposito is out to change that: 
he develops jellyfish recipes… … for example, a cold cucumber soup 
with diced jellyfish, buffalo kefir, raspberries and spirulina algae. 
So, what’s special about jellyfish? There is nothing like jellyfish. It’s rich 
in minerals, rich in important nutrients. His restaurant south of Naples in Vico Equense 
doesn’t have them on the menu just yet. Nor this creation: a pesto of 
squash blossoms, buffalo mozzarella and vegetables with raw jellyfish – that 
consist of 97 percent water, by the way. And – how do they taste? OK, mmm, it’s a bit salty. 
Yeah, it tastes like fish. So what about you? Would you like to 
try a dish made with jellyfish? Or would you prefer another one 
of these unusual delicacies?