So, when we heard about the most recent incident of food contamination, a dead mouse in a can of Pepsi, we chalked it up to another folly of capitalism. Join us as we fondly reflect upon all the disgusting things people have found in their food…

McDonalds, 11/30/2000
DISCOVERY: Katherine Ortega bit off more than she could chew after she found a fried chicken head mixed in with her McNuggets. Talk about a value meal! In today’s rough and tumble economy, you’re lucky to get anything for free. Quit yer’ bellyachin’ – at least it wasn’t a used condom!

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McDonalds, 5/5/2009
DISCOVERY: A 7-year-old Swiss girl discovered a used rubber hiding in a sleeve of the world’s favorite french fries. It’s hard to say how a condom could have possibly turned up in a box of fries. We know happy meals can be exciting, but not like that.

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Waldorf-Astoria, 7/14/2009
DISCOVERY: Axel Sanz-Claus, a tourist from Germany, expected more from the high-class steakhouse in the Waldorf-Astoria than getting served a blood-soaked tampon with his meat. After the incident, Claus told reporters, “I had [the used tampon] in my mouth, chewed it, and nearly swallowed it.” Pause, Mr. Claus. Oh, and welcome to America.

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Arby’s, 4/25/2005
DISCOVERY: An Arby’s employee sliced off a chunk of skin while cutting lettuce and never looked for the other part of his finger that turned up in someone’s crispy chicken sandwich. Forget all that talk of skinless chicken, “crispy” is where it’s at!

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Subway, 7/16/2008
DISCOVERY: New Yorker John Agnesini is suing Subway restaurant after finding a large serrated knife baked in to his foot-long. It used to be that you could get stabbed on the subway. Now the problem is you can get stabbed eating one.

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Popeye’s, 7/16/2008
DISCOVERY: Tony Hill of Baltimore called the police after finding a fried dead mouse mixed in with his six-piece. In some parts of the world, fried insects are a delicacy. In Baltimore fried rodent makes for a fine hor d’oeuvres.

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Schneiders, 11/6/2006
DISCOVERY: A Canadian meat packing company came under fire after several batches of ham were found to be impregnated with syringes. There’s nothing quite like giving your entire family Hep C at Christmas dinner.

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Wendy’s, 5/15/2005
DISCOVERY: After sitting down to enjoy a hot cup of Wendy’s chili, Anna Ayala cried foul when she found the tip of a severed finger floating alongside her pinto beans. In the days following the chili finger incident, investigators would learn Ayala had planted the finger in her chili with hopes of being able to sue for load of cash. Talk about a finger fuck gone wrong.

Appleman knows his stuff, and if you’re ever in San Francisco, make sure to check out his two spots—A16 for pizza, and his osteria, SPQR, for more serious getting-down, Italian-style. Hit the jump for two must-have recipes for Memorial Day this weekend: a bacon-infused burger and grilled fruit kebabs. If you get these two things dialed, you’re set, but when you mix an extra day off and a pitcher of margaritas, you might be looking at one of the greatest Sundays of the year. Hit the jump and get on it…

Photography by Stephanie Leibowitz

SMOKED BACON BURGERS

Appleman says: “I was making a burger one winter and wanted to get that smoked grill taste in the pan, so I came up with the idea to put smoked bacon in the burger. As you can imagine, this is an awesome dish, no matter what the season is.”

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 pounds ground chuck (80/20 meat/fat mix)
• ½ pound smoked bacon or bacon
• kosher salt or sea salt to taste
• kaiser rolls
• For cheese spread:
• 1 tub spreadable cheddar cheese
• Pickled red peppers, julienned (“I like Rick’s Picks, Pepi Pep Pep, a bold-flavored pickled roasted pepper.”)
• Mix these together, using as much red pepper as you like.

STEP BY STEP:
1. MIX THE MEAT.

“Burgers taste good when there is a high fat content, and I say go 80/20 on the ratio most of the time. If you can find 75/25 (meat to fat), that’s gonna be an amazing-tasting burger, but since we’re going to be adding in a half pound of bacon, 80/20 is just fine. Take the bacon and put it in a food processor and chop it up, adding in some salt (1 tablespoon or so). After you get that nice and ground up, mix it in with the beef.”

2. SHAPE THE BURGERS.

“Once you have this mixture of awesomeness, shape your burgers in your hands. Think of this amount as making six burgers and divide the meat evenly. A big mistake that a lot of people commit when making burgers is they allow the burger to take the shape of their palm (domed on either side). Try making the burger into a flat disc shape with uniform thickness so that the meat cooks evenly.

3. ADD A DIMPLE.

“One other trick with burgers is to create a dimple in the top of this – some people think that this helps keep the juices in and on the meat (because they don’t spill off and into the grill as the burger cooks). I’m not 100% sure of that, but might as well, just in case.“

4. WORK THE GRILL.


“You want to have a nice and hot charcoal grill with an even heat throughout. Once you get the grill up and running you give the fire some time to burn out a little. You’ll know the grill is ready when the coals have all caught fire and burned down to an ashy-gray color. If you’re cooking burgers, have a medium- to medium-hot grill. You get this by having the grill near the coals and cooking while the coals are hot, directly following the burn out phase. As far as grilling the burgers, get the grill up to a medium- to high-heat and get them on there. You’re gonna figure four minutes or so on each side for medium/medium rare, but always use the finger test/rule of thumb guidelines.

5. ADD THE CHEESE.
“If you want to melt some cheese on these guys do it towards the end of the second flip (duh), but for this one, I’m going to use a cheese spread.”

6. FINISH THEM OFF.

“The rolls that I used for this session were really fresh, so I chose not to toast them. Having a soft fresh roll will soak up some of the juices from the burger which I like, but toasted rolls are always good, so that’s your call. To finish off these bacon-burgers, I whipped up some cheddar-cheese spread with some roasted peppers—basically take a tub of cheddar spread and mix it in with chopped peppers. This time around I used a brand called Rick’s Picks. I dressed them with pickled tomatoes from Rick’s Picks to give them a little bit of extra zing, and they’re awesome. For a backyard BBQ, it’s fun to let your guests customize their own burgers, so you could create a build-your-own-burger bar with different cheeses, condiments, types of pickles and greens, etc. ”

7. PRESENT YOUR MASTERPIECES.

“These bacon burgers are pretty awesome on their own, and don’t really need a ton of toppings. To assemble, spread a generous amount of cheese on the bottom of the bun and place the patty on top. Add pickled tomatoes and/or greens on top and seal with the bun, spiking the burger with a skewer or toothpick if it’s too unwieldy.”

Hit “NEXT” to see the finisher recipe: Nate Appleman’s Grilled Fruit Spiedino

While some of you may have been watching the Cowboys/Redskins, NFC East face-off last night, the Food Network was having their own competition-to-end-all-competitions, airing a special Thanksgiving battle of Iron Chef America. Iron Chefs Bobby Flay and Michael Symon took on Iron Chefs Masaharu Morimoto and Cat Cora in an intense culinary scuffle. And in case you missed it, our bossman Marc Ecko fitted the Iron Chef roster in some brand new kitchen jackets'each reflecting the cook-masters’ unique style.

We're not going to play spoiler about who won the battle, but read on to see all the new Ecko-approved uniforms that hit Kitchen Stadium last night…

MARIO BATALI

CAT CORA

MASAHARU MORIMOTO

MICHAEL SYMON

The species of monkeys at the bar/eatery are called macaque, which are widespread from Africa to Japan. But what’s scary is that some are known to carry the simian foamy virus, which causes AIDS. No need to worry though, Kayabukiya’s wide-eyed waiters Yat-chan and Fuku-chan seem harmless, especially since they only work two hours a day, and are paid in soy beans. Meet the staff in a video report below…

[ITN Via TokyoMango]

Veronica Rayne and her partner promise a varied menu, as well as a number of booths dedicated to their close friends in the industry. Come with us for a sneak peek at the who the booths are named after, as well as some menu suggestions from their ever-helpful friends at Complex.

To browse the menu we curated click here…

With flavors called “Yes We Can Cola,” “Pure McCain Cola,” and “Capitol Hillary Cola,” Jones is encouraging consumers to support their candidate of choice by buying their bottle. And just in case putting political figures on your product wasn’t exploitative enough, the company is actually holding an “election,” which is decided by how many bottles of each are purchased. See the latest results below.

[Campaign Cola via NOTCOT]

For $14, you can own a bag that will move around and make noises after you clap or shout at it. We can’t vouch for the way they actually taste, but come on, does it really matter? Watch a video of the chips getting down after the jump.

[Gadget4All via RedFerrett]

Fans of Otaku culture are familiar with Maid Cafés in Japan, where waitresses dressed as (you guessed it) maids cater to customers every whim. They’ve been known to refer customers as “master,” get down on their knees to stir their tea and generally treat them like Kings. Our guess is that this idea goes over pretty well Stateside. The new Culver City, CA location is especially unique because it also doubles as an art gallery. After the jump, watch a video of CNN’s coverage of the phenomenon.

[NOTCOT]

Yesterday in Osaka, Japanese dignitaries gathered at the World Instant Noodle Summit for the unveiling of a new statue depicting Momofuku Ando, which was erected outside Nissin’s Instant Ramen Museum. After the jump, explore the Ramen Museum with some weird German tourists.

[New Launches]

When Nintendo launches their new WiiWare game download service in May, MLE will be one of the first titles available. The game lets all aspiring Kobayashis participate in some intense eating competitions (or as they call it, “professional gurgitory athletics”). With a variety of Wii controller motions, you have to out eat your opponent in a variety of cuisines. You even have an arsenal of defensive weapons: bites, burps, belches, mustard gas and jalapeño flames. If you go and register at the game’s website, they’re giving away gift certificates for (you guessed it) free food! Watch the game’s trailer after the jump.

In the debut episode, Jazze invites Webster’s Emmanuel Lewis to help him create a massive pork chop pizza (with the bones). The best part? When Emmanuel gets a big stack of parmesan and makes it rain on the pizza. Judging by the expertise with which he does it (and the fact that he graduated from Clark Atlanta in 1997), we’re guessing that Webster probably has some first hand experience making it rain at Magic City too. Watch the episode after the jump.

Their unusual menu includes everything from chocolate-covered scorpions to crocodile curry to ant snacks (they have a whole section on their site called “INSECTIVORE”). Our favorite item: Weasel Coffee. No, there aren’t weasels in the coffee, but…“This Coffee is first eaten by Weasels which then regurgitate it, no one knows why they do this but it is then collected by locals in remote forest areas and then cleaned and roasted.”

Check out more unusual Edible products after the jump…

[Click on an image to view larger]

All products are available on Edible.

[NOTCOT]