Casu Marzu -- WTF???

I thought I loved all things Italian, at least with respect to food. That is until I read about casu marzu, i.e. rotten pecorino cheese. I mean I'm all for appreciating cultural differences and traditions, but this goes waaaay too far. I mean anywhere else in the world one would know that one's food is nass and rotty cuz it's populated by maggots, but in Sardinia that's how one knows that one's casu marzu is ready to eat. They actually want the little buggers in there! They want flies to infest the cheese and lay their eggs there, so that their larval spawns will eat their way throughout the cheese leaving broken-down digested fats that is the essence of casu marzu. Btw, you'd know that your casu marzu was bad if all the maggots are dead. how's that for irony? As if all that isn't bad enough, the maggots don't always die when you eat them (yes, you eat them with the "cheese") since they can survive stomach acid, they *can* live on in your stomach for some time causing lacerations with their nasty little mouthhooks. O_O!!!

Wanna watch the whole nass process of how the cheese is made and consumed? Click here if you're sure.