In Bad Taste?

I just noted that Massimo Mar­cone (one the nicest and most bril­liant guys at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph) has pub­lished his new book — In Bad Taste? This one is def­in­itely going on my must read list. Massimo Mar­cone is a food sci­ent­ist at Guelph who is inter­na­tion­ally known and respec­ted for his stud­ies of cof­fee. Although this book is about food appar­ently it is not one to con­sume when you are actu­ally eat­ing or hav­ing any­thing to do with food. The sub­title “the adven­tures and sci­ence behind food del­ic­acies,” only hints at some of the intriguing con­nec­tions and back­ground inform­a­tion that Massimo explores. He extends his work with the exotic Kopi Luwak cof­fee bean to del­ic­acies such as Casu Frazigu cheese that derives its ‘spe­cial’ taste from the mag­gots that it con­tains. Yum. The book recounts his per­sonal exper­i­ence attempt­ing to find out what makes a food a del­ic­acy and it sounds abso­lutely deli­cious, even if the con­tents do not.
The jacket descrip­tion is par­tic­u­larly well written:

Part travelogue, part sci­entific invest­ig­a­tion, Dr. Mar­cone describes his jour­neys into remote regions of the world, often risk­ing life and limb at the hands of rebel war­lords, cor­rupt police, inter­na­tional smug­glers, and hungry cro­codiles. He does this all in the search for the hid­den secrets and sci­ence behind the world’s most expens­ive and bizarre foods. The stor­ies and inform­a­tion in this eclectic col­lec­tion of food del­ic­acies will cer­tainly sat­isfy the curi­os­ity of food afi­cion­ados and adven­ture trav­el­ers alike but is also sure to whet the appet­ites of the just curious.