When I was little, I built this little toy settlement with animal figurines that I collected over the years. One of my ladies, an inch-tall cat with apron and yellow dress, was a baker, and I would gather water droplets on the garden leaves each morning so that she could bake cakes for the village. Apparently the best thing my imagination could come up with was a “soil cake”. Yep, I said my baker would collect the best dirt in her backyard, wash and knead it with morning dew, then make pastry out of it. Crazy, you say? Well, apparently a group of Indonesian villagers agree with my cat patisseur. Have you heard of ampo cake? I did just last night. ampo snack at Tuban village, East Java Province, Indonesia – Image courtesy of OddityCentral.com The ampo snack, made entirely of clean, gravel-free earth from paddy fields, can be eaten like crème roulée. I’m not sure what they mean by “clean” in the context of dirt. Regardless, Tuban villagers also believe that these supposedly cool, creamy baked rolls of soil are an effective pain-killer and skin-nourishing product. (From Reuters) Continue reading Think twice before you say ew