A Plateful of Danger [pg. 159-160] 
Consider the hardy (or is it foolhardy) gastronomes who travel to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia in search of the forbidden cheese, the Casu Marzu. Casu Marzu is so dangerous and unhealthy it is illegal to make and consume even in Sardinia, evidently the one spot on the planet Earth where people actually enjoy the taste. The cheese is a specially prepared variety of a sheep’s milk cheese called Pecorino Sardo. However, obvious differences separate the delightful, biting taste of Pecorino Sardo and the less delightful half-inch-long biting maggots infesting Casu Marzu.
To make the cheese, the clandestine cheesemaker purposefully mixes live fly larvae of the genus Piophila casei into the nascent cheese during its fermentation. The ripe cheese contains live, wriggling maggots that can pass undigested into the intestine, where they place the eater at risk of severe intestinal distress. The taste and texture of the cheese, noted Yaroslav Trofimov in the Wall Street Journal, is “a viscous, pungent goo that burns the tongue.”
—Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously, by William Gurstelle (Chicago Review Press, $16.95) IN STOCK
