3 Quick Bites: The $1,500 chicken sandwich

Every week, I compile a short list of food items on the Internet that made me hungry, curious, confused or all of the above.

Really from scratch
Andy George spent $1,500 and six months to make a completely from-scratch chicken sandwich. The host of the “How to Make Everything” web series pulled off this labor-intensive stunt to show how much we take for granted in our supply chain. His “recipe” included beekeeping to get honey to sweeten the homemade bread and gathering salt water from the ocean to get salt.

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The democratic dish of Nicaragua
NPR reporter Julie Schwietert Collazo traveled to Nicaragua to research a story about the Chinese plan to build a new canal, but what made her return to the country was vigoron. This meal started about 100 years ago as street food, and is craved by everyone, rich and poor. It’s a combination of soft yucca, salty pork cracklings ad a tangy slaw made with cabbage, onions, tomato, mimbre fruit, chilies and vinegar.

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The starving artist diet?
Patti Smith, the high priestess of punk, has written a couple of books about coming of age in New York City’s punk era, alongside artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, often living in places that were definitely what you’d call “punk rock.” In this recording from the Brain Pickings blog, Smith recalls making a starving artist delicacy: lettuce soup.

Listen if you dare! >>