Cheese with maggots is a thing. Really.
The One Cheese I’ll Never Eat
I used to say that if it was cheese, I’d eat it. That was before I heard about this one…
I love cheese, all types of cheese. Sure, I like some better than others — I’d rather have a mature Cheddar than a runny Brie. But cheese = good.
Blue cheese is one of my great favourites, be it Stilton, Danish Blue or Roquefort. Many people are put off blue cheese when they discover that it’s made using mould and sometimes bacteria. That doesn’t bother me, so I thought I was ready for anything cheese related.
Then I heard about Casu Marzu, a traditional Sardinian cheese.
Made with maggots.
The name Casu Marzu means ‘rotting cheese’, which is a good description. It’s a version of pecorino cheese which has been infested by maggots. During production, some of the protective crust is removed to allow small flies known as ‘cheese skippers’ to get at it and lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch, the maggots start wriggling through the cheese. They eat some of the proteins and excrete… whatever. That ‘whatever’ is the source of Casu Marzu’s special flavour.
I could live with that if it wasn’t for the fact that when you eat the cheese the maggots are still there! Not only that, they’re still alive and wriggling. You have to chew them carefully, because swallowing live maggots can (unsurprisingly) cause serious intestinal problems. Even without swallowing the maggots live, their presence can reportedly cause allergic reactions and the build up of potentially toxic chemicals.
Casu Marzu has been banned by both the Italian government and the EU Food Safety Authority, however people still reportedly make it for their family and friends.
In 2009, the Guinness Book of Records declared Casu Marzu the world’s most dangerous cheese.
Nuff said.
