I must say I prefer my cheese without maggots but apparently not everyone feels the same way. Casu marzu is a Sardinian cheese and is considered a delicacy amongst locals. The cheese is filled with live maggots and is often eaten whilst the maggots are still bouncing around. If the maggots are dead then the cheese is considered unsafe for human consumption, although many people remove the maggots before getting stuck into their casu marzu!
Casu marzu is made by infecting a normal pecorino cheese with the larvae of the cheese fly Piophila casei. Why would they want to do this? Well apparently the larvae feed on the cheese and partially break down the fats; this leaves a very soft, almost liquid cheese. I guess that makes it tastier?!
According to The World’s Worst, a book by Mark Frauenfelder, casu marzu was banned for some time by the EU on health grounds. Lucky for us the ban was lifted on the grounds that casu marzu is a traditional food made by traditional methods. That means if any of you weird food fans desperately want to try some casu marzu all it will take is a plane ticket to Sardinia and a brave stomach!
For those who don’t want to make the trip, you can wet your appetite with this short youtube video of a casu marzu, see if you can spot the maggots:
Some cheesey links from amazon:
2 Comments until now.
Whoa! That’s sooooooo gross. I would never eat anything like that. I went to visit Scotchland once and there I had some liver but pheeeeee huuuhhh that stuff seems like heaven compared to maggot cheese! Some people are really stupid to eat this. What if one went in your eye?
I used to play with the maggots when I was a kid. The taste is very strong for those used to bland cheese, but so is the taste of traditional sardinian Pecorino (sheep cheese). Once you get used to it, there is nothing particularly disgusting in it, no more than snails, oysters, offal or other similar dishes.
The one in the video, however, is still too young. The larvae are still on the surface, and the cheese is too compact. The “ripe” window is quite short, only a week or so. Any earlier and is just cheese, later and it will taste like soap.
Suggested with a sweet wine like moscato or, if you can get your hands on it, a chilled glass of mead.
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