
Searching for the "grey market" foods of New York City - fezz
http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/city/food/216541-searching-for-the-grey-market-foods-of-nyc
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adrusi
Sassafrass isn't restricted because of cancer risk, it's restricted because it
can be used as a precursor to MDMA (ecstasy).

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jessaustin
Well it is a giant cancer risk. It contains large amounts of _safrole_ and
other carcinogenic compounds. When it was banned, in _1960_ [0], MDMA wasn't
yet as much of a "club drug" as it later became.

[0]
[https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles/safrole.p...](https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles/safrole.pdf)

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Zigurd
The article appears to contradict that sassfras contains _large_ amounts of
safrole:

> _Safrole may be ingested in edible spices, including sassafras, cinnamon,
> nutmeg, mace, star anise, ginger, black and white pepper, and from chewing
> betel quid; all of these substances contain naturally occurring safrole at
> low levels (IARC 1976, Archer and Jones 2002, HSDB 2009). Safrole is also
> present in herbal products derived from the sassafras tree, including the
> creole herb gumbo filé (Carlson and Thompson 1997). The concentration of
> safrole can be reduced during the cooking process (Farag and Abo-Zeid 1997).
> Based on common ingestion patterns, the estimated daily intake of safrole is
> 0.3 mg (Rietjens et al. 2005)._

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mattzito
Kind of a fun article, but I felt the premise of, "I track down illicit foods"
was diluted somewhat when most of the foods turn out not to be illicit.

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PhantomGremlin
For some strange reason I felt compelled to read all the way to the end. But
it didn't start off well; I think I would have been content to live out the
rest of my life without hitting up Wikipedia to see what "cheese mites" were.

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nickpsecurity
On contrare, I'm glad I did. Because I would've guessed something was up with
cheese that looked like this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mimolette1.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mimolette1.jpg)

My cheese doesn't so I'm... probably OK. Haha.

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weeksie
Though I recently found out you can get it at a bourgie EV restaurant, I
regularly frequent a joint in Brooklyn that will make kibbe naya (Lebanese
lamb tartare, essentially.) You have to call ahead and you have to know the
guy. It was the same way when I lived in Sydney. A few joints had it but it
was technically against health code.

When I get it at my BK joint the owner will sit down at the table and eat it
with us. And he generally makes so much that it's essentially all you can eat.

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jballanc
I've not been to Lebanon, but what you're describing sounds an awful lot like
çiğ köfte:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Çiğ_köfte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Çiğ_köfte)
. You should give it a try if you can find it!

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mabbo
What, no Kinder Eggs?

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threecheese
Interesting note at the end: "I was also able to dispell the long-held rumor
that opium poppy was legal to grow and purchase if only intended for
“ornamental purposes.”".

One can easily buy dried pods of papaver somniferum, found on the first few
result pages of a google search. I wonder if this is an enforcement oversight,
a loophole, or a scam?

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tricolon
It's a little strange the subtitle used is "Salmiakki". That's the Finnish
term for salty liquorice but that section discusses it in general terms, not
from a Finnish perspective. It just so happened that the version he tried was
salmiakki from Finland.

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thebournepopret
Yes that threw me off at first as well. When I lived in Denmark I was used to
the candy and recognized the picture immediately but I haven't heard it called
that before.

Ah now I miss the proliferation of licorice in everything.

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waldrews
No haggis?

