16 People Talk About Banned And Illegal Foods From Around The World

7. Khaliq Parkar

Oh yes, in many parts of India – BEEF is a cognizable offence!

Take for example The Delhi Agricultural Cattle Preservation Act 1994 which under section 11 (1) allows the ‘competent authorities’ to enter my home purely on the suspicion that I am buying, selling, cooking or admiring a cut of beef.

Beef in this law includes meat from

1. Cows of all ages.
2. Calves of Cows of all ages.
3. Bull.
4. Bullocks.

In other states like Maharashtra, Buffaloes and Bulls (no cows!) may be slaughtered provided they are of a certain age or are proved to be economically worthless.

But never fear, there is Kerala! Or Manipur or Sikkim or other states where there are no laws about cattle slaughter.

And regardless of State laws, everyone knows a local dealer who will supply some fine cuts!

8. Natalia Romano

Casu marzu was outlawed in the EU for a while and now the legal status is questionable according to Wikipedia.

It’s a sheep milk cheese which contains live insect larvae, and it goes beyond typical fermentation that is brought about by the digestive action of the larvae of the cheese fly Piophila casei.

9. Ted Haigh

As a proud global tosspotted sophisticate, I am uniquely qualified to answer on behalf of the forgotten food group….booze.

Żubrówka is a flavored, vodka-like spirit imbued with the haunting flavor of Bison Grass. In America we get either an artificially-flavored substitute or a botanically modified one instead of the real thing (which is utterly delightful.) The reason? Bison Grass contains Coumarin. Those on blood thinners may detect a similarity in the drug Coumadin, which is a brand name for same. One form of coumarin is warfarin, from which Coumadin is derived. It’s the same compound once favored to kill rats as well. It’s all dependent on the dosage. The FDA banned Żubrówka based on the minute measure of coumarin and its anticoagulant effects. Europe has not.

Certain varieties of cocktail bitters have either been banned or altered because one of the 19th century ingredients they popularly contained was the innocent little tonka bean. Why? It contains…coumarin!

Absinthe was under a U.S. ban for almost one hundred years because it contained artemisia absinthium, aka common wormwood, because IT contained thujone, an ingredient correctly determined to act as a nerve agent in high enough concentrations. So why have the eagle-eyed among you seen absinthe on the market in the States for the past few years? Did they fake it as with the Żubrówka? No, that’s what they did during the ban, though….A savvy chemist and absinthe devotee joined forces with a couple of lawyers and between them determined that well-made absinthe, all the way back to the Belle Epoque, lost its thujone in the final distillations, thus invalidating the ban, one brand at a time. We have real absinthe now, and the good stuff too!

Finally, the first author ever of a cocktail guide in 1862, bartender Jerry Thomas, included in his book another cocktail bitters of his own creation, which he administered in the many bars where he held court, and which he entitled “Jerry Thomas’ Decanter Bitters.” I personally sought to recreate these, tracking down ingredients both common and arcane, with in-depth research as to which varieties he used. One common to medicines and bitters of Thomas’ era was snakeroot, and my research determined he used Virginia Snakeroot. The urgent FDA alert slowed me down a bit….by modern analysis, a few cases having made it QUITE clear, this particular serpentaria (aristolochia) causes renal failure in certain none-too-large concentrations! To paraphrase Saturday Night Live, “if they’re gonna pick on every little thing…”

In any event, my grand experiment was summarily abandoned. Now there IS a brand of “Jerry Thomas’ Decanter Bitters” again on the market, from Germany. Since the FDA let it in, I assume it is not made with tried and true Virginian