French anticipate record-setting booger harvest this year
"2001 vintage will be a keeper," snooty experts proclaim

By Ryan O. Phagia
True Dork Times Cooking Editor


PROVENCE, France (TDT).  In this region, the spiritual center of French cuisine, preparations are underway to harvest what experts predict will be a bumper crop of one of the country's most expensive exports. No, it's not the grapes grown from centuries-old vines, or the delectably exotic truffles rooted out by snuffling pigs.  The hot new ingredient sparking worldwide culinary interest is: boogers.

Renowned French chef Laurent Guillemot, host of the long-running cooking show, "A Nose for Food," claims that this is actually old news, and that this ingredient has been a well-kept secret for decades.  "People used to marvel that the haute cuisine dining experience could never exactly be matched when they tried to reproduce it at home.  That's because this one ingredient was always missing from publically-available recipes for sauces and glazes."

This ingredient was revealed to Western audiences last year on the Japanese cooking show Iron Chef, when "Iron Chef Chinese" Chen Kenichi used booger oil to pump up an escargot dish in a heated contest with a French chef in "The Snail Battle".  As is often the case, the hapless Chen narrowly escaped defeat, but was privately excoriated by Chairman Kaga for allowing the bottle of oil to be filmed.  Since then, chefs throughout the FoodTV empire have openly used the ingredient, including clown prince Emeril Lagasse, who elicits whoops of joy from his audience as he "kicks it up another notch" with a fresh handful of boogers.

Worldwide, the majority of culinary booger use comes from the extremely expensive booger oil.  Freshly-harvested boogers are collected, then placed in an industrial-strength cold press, to release the aromatic oils, much as with olives and truffles.  This "nose oil" (a transliteration of the French phrase) sells for upwards of $200 for a six-ounce bottle through industry wholesalers.  Actual untouched nuggets are even more stratospherically-priced.

Why the exorbitant cost of a product of which most people have a seemingly-limitless supply?  For starters, according to experts, not just any old garden-variety booger will do.  "Oh mais non!" exclaimed Guillemot, chuckling. "There are tremendous variations in quality from location to location." The best conditions for ideal booger production are a rural environment, featuring temperate weather with moderate humidity.  Perhaps not coincidentally, these are approximately the same conditions ideal for growing France's world-famous grapes.

Like wines, French boogers are classified by the regions in which they are grown. "The Sauvignon has a dry, sharp flavor, which is especially appealing when combined with a simple cream sauce," Guillemot explains.  "In contrast, the Provencal has lighter, sweeter aromatic properties, and is best paired with spicy foods and red meat."

With the secret out, overtly nasal-themed dishes have recently been doing boffo business in the trendiest of New York's top restaurants.  Bobby Flay, FoodTV star and the French-trained chef/owner of the Southwest-themed Mesa Grill, say that booger-crusted filet mignon is going "like hot cakes" at $100 a plate, and that his freshwater clams in Creme Nez has sold out early every night since it was first offered.  "People just can't get enough of this stuff," Flay mused, visibly glowing.

Food industry experts point to the groundswell of interest in "natural" foods as having contributed greatly to the meteoric surge in cooking with nasal secretions.  A spokesperson for the Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market, which specializes in organic and "specialty" foods, said "It doesn't get any more natural than this." The spokesman commented privately that, in addition to the expensive cooking oil, the company was looking into selling boogers as an herbal dietary supplement, since "that's where we really rake in the cash, since there's no FDA control over what we put into it.  It's a win-win situation!"

For a parting thought, we turn one final time to Msr. Guillemot: "When someone tells you to get that finger out of there, tell them you are just mining semi-liquid gold."



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