The Gastronaunts – By Harry

By now our regular readers are familiar with Tittsworth.com’s content staff being obsessed with not only the culture and practice of eating well, but eating exotic and adventurous food. From my own experience, eating outside of one’s comfort zone is not necessarily done for bragging rights, but more for the story that can be shared, much like the experience of a notable, shared meal. Imagine the excitement and chatter during our weekly meeting when I mentioned that I had read about a group of gluttons in New York dubbed The Gastronauts, a dining club that does not try “to eat Fear Factor stuff, but to get people away from solely eating foods they were comfortable with.”

Formed five years ago with a dinner party of eight attending the inaugural meal, The Gastronauts now boast around 800 members, with monthly dinners averaging 70+ people in attendance, events taking place in New York and Los Angeles, and soon to include DC as their third locale. While research on the group has brought up similar themed and named clubs around the world, the NY group has an impressive amount of press chronicling their adventures in eating. Menus have included everything from live baby octopus (Tittsworth Gastronmy Passport: check), rotten shark (dry aged shark steaks?), cod milt (a.k.a. sperm), and pig’s blood popsicles. Some of the dishes are a look at the cuisine and diet of other cultures, while some are a look back at our own cultural history, and certain dishes falling out of favor with populace; items such as offal, or organ meats.

Information about The Gastronauts can be found on their website, and those of us in DC are eager to find out more about the upcoming expansion. There are already rumors of invite only dining popping up in the city, with a focus on exotic dishes.

http://www.gastronauts.net/