nosh nook #64 - thursday, june 11, 2009

crow meat comes back -- boosts sexual potency? (link)
06.09.09 - national geographic news

if you'd come up to me junior year of high school & were all, "hey, shawn. get this. in 2009, when you're 34, they'll be a time when you'll be living in brooklyn & you'll have this blog that loosely revolves around snacks & has a weekday morning column focusing on snack news. in june, for two days straight, the main topic of that column will be crows"...i'd have been all, "slow down there, tiger. that's crazy talk. first off, what am i doing in brooklyn?" and "what do crows have to do with snacks?" and "wait, i have a column? does that mean i've achieved my dream of becoming a journalist?...& what the hell is a blog? " regardless, that day has come, so screw it...i'm writing about crows again.

today's nosh nook article comes to us from national geographic. here in the u.s., "eating crow" means "admitting a humiliating mistake," but in this case, as NG reports, in lithuania, crow has once again become a delectably popular dish. initially, crow "was part of a traditional diet throughout the centuries mostly eaten during times of hardship." these days, they're now a part of traditional feasts. why? according to lithuanian dalia keriene: "this is a great dish, crow meat is very tasty and good for men because it increases sexual potency. try it and you'll see." really? sexual potency? make no mistake about it...there isn't anything wrong or humiliating about that.

apparently, you prepare crow by boiling it in cooking oil at around 190° C (375° F). i've never tried quail myself, but it tastes sort of like that & goes great with vegetables. i'm not sure what would lead people to believe that if you eat a crow, you'll boost your sexual potency, but if it works for them, more power to them. the way i figure, if you go the crow-eating route, you don't have to waste a bunch of money on viagra and when the time's right, you get to say something like "hold that thought, baby sugar cakes pumpkin butt. i gotta go munch on some crow...get in the mood, if you know what i mean." what woman wouldn't get turned on by that?

nosh nook #63 - wednesday, june 10, 2009

junk food gives crow chicks a weight problem (link)
06.09.09 - new scientist - by macgregor campbell

i grew up a curious child who collected national geographic animal cards, a child fascinated by the earth's cornucopia of animals. since they were one of the animals i actually got to see on a regular basis, i came to like the crow. sure, i saw chickadees & sparrows & purple finches every day, but those birds were tiny & none of them had the rebellious jet black appearance of the crow. crows were clearly a far superior bird. now, as an "adult," i may have to rethink my childhood theories about them.

as macgregor campbell reports, a group of researchers at binghamton university learned that while suburban & urban crows have a more dependable, easily accessible food source, the "leftover french fries and donuts a crow would find at these sources may be fine for adults, they can have a detrimental effect on growing young crows." the researchers discovered that "not only were suburban nestlings smaller than their rural brethren, their levels of blood protein were also lower. the results suggest that their diets, while adequate in terms of calories, lack nutrients that nestlings need to grow to their full potential size."

it's mind-boggling.  according to kevin mcgowan, one of the study's co-authors, "if someone throws out trash, then the crows eat the trash instead of, say, a baby rabbit."  when i read that, i was floored.  what kind of being turns down a perfectly tasty baby rabbit?  while researchers believed it made sense that the crows would go for the food that was easiest to find, they didn't know why the crows would feed their young the less nutritious foods.  maybe they just want to be like us intelligent humans.  after all, if it wasn't for us, they never would have been able to experience the awesomeness of a hostess twinkie.  that would have been a crying shame.