Maggots. In Cheese.

Dear Casu Marzu,

I was happily flipping though a book of unusual foods the other day when I came across you in all your ‘glory’, although, to be honest, it was not until later that I realised it was you, Casu Marzu, who is also known as maggot cheese.

I, along with the vast majority of my fellow humans, dislike flies and as a corollary, despise maggots. The fact that some members of my species actually enjoy maggots as some sort of revolting seasoning on a food that is otherwise divine, sickens me to my very core.

I have found that you begin life as Pecorino, an inoffensive, delicious cheese. After the Pecorino is made, it is sent out into the sun for a little while on what I’m sure it first mistakes for a vacation. However this is not the case, is it Casu Marzu? No. In fact, you are simply waiting in the near future for cheese flies to lay their eggs in the Pecorino and hatch into maggots that then eat and secrete until you have been born. I don’t think I need to say this, but I will; you sicken me Casu Marzu.

Now, I am by no means a food prude. I have partaken in live sashimi, some insects, offal, blood and yes, even whale, but I must draw the line at live maggots in rotting cheese.

You may be thinking by now that my reservations are slight, which is why I have saved my trump card for last. Your cheese fly maggots which are so integral to your existence are not your ordinary repulsive maggot. No. These maggots have the ability to jump 15cm (6in) out of the cheese. That is the length of a slightly smaller-than-average human penis. Size may not matter to some, but that is far too long in my opinion.

I have even been told that some people, opting not to extinguish the lives of the maggots inside you before eating actually have to cover their faces when placing you in their mouths for fear that the maggots’ mouthhooks will get caught in their eyes.

I do not advocate your example of ’extreme eating’ in any way and if possible, I will crush you from the face of the Earth, assuming that the gauntlet I throw has already killed the maggots literally crawling around inside you.

Adrik