Ramen noodles are an undeniable staple: they’re the holy grail of cheap and easy dining for college students, and now, they’re taking over the trendy food circle with Ramen burgers.

But are you ready to learn how these peculiar noodles are made?

In …

In Asia, there’s an ongoing irony that deepens as the natural world dwindles to the size of a parking lot. Wild animals, once revered and assigned all kinds of spiritual meaning, are increasingly ending up as the main entrée or as decorations for the rich.

The tiger, for instance, that fierce and terror-inducing king of the jungle, is no longer feared so much as coveted: as a rug, as jewelry made of fangs, as a quixotic dish, or as medicinal products made from its various parts – bones and penis and gall bladder – thought to improve man’s sexual prowess.

But nowhere is the irony as deep as it is in Thailand, where the regal Asian elephant is now facing extinction. According to a recent story reported by the Bangkok Post, three men were arrested this week in Ayutthaya for poisoning an old bull and sawing off its tusks. Arrested, it was also found that they had previously served time for poisoning four tigers in a zoo and took one tiger’s carcass to sell in 2010.

World’s First Elephant Hospital in Thailand

So here’s the irony: The Asian elephant is still a revered cultural icon in Thailand, gracing bas-reliefs of temples and ancient paintings of battle scenes, but it is fast disappearing in reality. The country whose civilization was more or less built on the elephant’s back is now turning its back on the animal.

Indeed, the elephant once served as both builder and war machine: carrying logs and rocks and uprooting trees to build palaces and temples, while fighting countless wars bedecked in the armor of a warrior.

Within Buddhism, Thailand’s state religion and a binding force across much of the region, the elephant remains sacred. According to legend, a white Elephant appeared in the dream of Queen Maya, holding a white lotus flower in its trunk. She later gave birth to the historical Gautama Buddha, Siddhārtha.

Alas, sacred is quickly cast off for cold hard cash. An elephant penis can now fetch as high as $1,000 and a pair of tusks as high as $63,000. Though illegal, poaching has now reached what environmentalists are calling a “crisis point.”

At the beginning of last century there were more than 100,000 wild elephants in existence. One hundred years later the population has dwindled to less than 4,000 domesticated elephants and 3,000 in the wild in Thailand, according to the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department.

Classified as an endangered species, the Asian elephant is expected to disappear from the wild altogether around 2050, if not sooner.

But while poaching is particularly abhorrent, there are other reasons behind the elephant’s disappearance, chief among them deforestation.

For domesticated elephants in Thailand, deforestation means no more jobs. Logging in Thailand’s forests has long relied on the strength of the powerful pachyderms. An elephant can pull half its weight and carry 600 kilos on its back. In hilly countryside where roads are small and inaccessible to trucks, an elephant is indispensable for the timber business. But logging is all but illegal now in Thailand, and the domesticated elephant, it seems, is so efficient at the timber business that its habitat no longer exists, and it is out of luck.

Elephants guarding a Wat Prakeo in Bangkok

An average Asian elephant weighs 11,000 pounds, and consumes more than 26 gallons of water and 440 pounds of food a day. That’s why their owners consciously curb breeding among the captive beasts, bringing down their number even farther.

Many owners, left with no other choice, have now turned their elephants into urban beggars. It’s not a rare sight to see elephants begging in various urban areas of Thailand.

For the wild elephant conditions are even worse.

Only about 15 percent of the country is still forestland, and those patches are widely scattered. Many wild elephants resort to raiding farms for crops, where they are often shot or poisoned by subsistence farmers.

According to a an Associated Press article in 2012, a new taste for elephant meat has sprung up in mega-modern Thailand as well. The once revered elephant is now being served up alongside the tiger: on a fanciful diner’s plate. Elephant sashimi, apparently, has become the quixotic taste for the nouveaux riches.

Man has conquered everything but himself. The wild is now what we call a reserve, the wilderness nowhere but within. But in a world where even the sacred is devoured, one can’t help but wonder, in another century or so, whether there will anything left but a horde hungry humans, and those that will inherit the earth, cockroaches?

Andrew Lam is an editor with New America Media and author of the “Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora,” and “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres.” His latest book is “Birds of Paradise Lost,” a short story collection, was published in 2013 and won a Pen/Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2014 and a finalist for the California Book Award and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

It’s a good weekend for gluttony: two Saturday events will allow you to overindulge in either ice cream or burgers. (Or, ya know, both.) From 1 to 4 p.m. tomorrow, head to Dock 5 at Union Markets for the annual DC Scoop festival featuring ice cream, gelato, ice cream sandwiches, popsicles from more than a dozen different […]

Humans have been looking for the giant squid ever since we first started taking pictures underwater. But the elusive deep-sea predator could never be caught on film — until now.

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San Francisco’s Healthy Food Incentives Ordinance , commonly called the “toy ordinance,” was meant to improve the nutritional value of fast-food kids meals. It made it so that fast-food companies couldn’t give away toys in kids meals unless they met certain nutritional criteria, such as fewer than 600 calories, inclusion of fruit and vegetables, and less than 640mg of sodium.

Instead of meeting these standards, fast-food companies started charging for toys rather than including them for free.

Thanks to Ferran Adrià, tapas and a fascination with all things pork — from chorizo to chicharrones — Spanish cuisine has been a star in the food world in recent years. But a less familiar part of Spanish cuisine is Basque — considerably unique and different from the broader Spanish cuisine that has been exported across the globe. Basque cuisine is worth getting to know, however, and with an influx of Basque-inspired restaurants in food-forward cities like New York, it appears that this culinary tradition is gaining the foothold it deserves.

Basque country lies in the North of Spain near the Bay of Biscay and in South Western France. With fertile ground for grains and vineyards in an area called Álava, and good land for livestock breeding in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, Basque country has a rich culinary heritage. It’s no wonder then that today the region boasts almost 40 Michelin starred restaurants.

HuffPost Taste spoke to executive chef and owner of the new Basque-inspired restaurant Huertas in New York City to learn more about the unique cuisine. Ten years ago, after working in some of New York’s most prominent restaurants, chef Jonah Miller took off for Northern Spain to learn more. In April of this year he opened his first restaurant, dedicated to the food he studied and fell in love with.

We asked Jonah to describe some quintessential Basque dishes, and the overarching themes were salt cod and peppers.

Salt Cod (in many forms), including:

• Kokotxas al Pil-Pil – Fish cheeks and throats in a “pil-pil” sauce, which refers to the sound made when shaking a cazuela to activate the natural gelatin in the fish cheeks.
• Tortilla de Bacalao – A salt cod omelet.
• Porrusalda – Potato, leek, salt cod soup.

Piperrada – Sauteed peppers (they use lots of peppers), onions, garlic and tomato, often served with a fried egg.
Stuffed Piquillo Peppers.
Marmitako – Tuna with potato and pepper stew.

We also asked what some quintessential Basque beverages might be.

Sidra (cider), which is much dryer and funkier than ciders we are familiar with, and Txakoli, slightly effervescent white wine. Both are low in alcohol and highly acidic — perfect to drink with pintxos.

So what are pintxos?

“Pintxos are small, composed bites that unlike tapas, aren’t meant to be shared,” explained Miller. Fans of tapas but not always down to share every bite, we like the sound of pintxos. Basque restaurants are best known for pintxos, and at his restaurant, Miller naturally serves a variety. Among his favorites are:

Gildas – White anchovy, olive and pickled pepper skewer (named after 1946 Rita Hayworth role).
Soft Boiled Quail Egg with Black Anchovy and Piquillo Peppers.
Fried Eggplant with Honey and Goat Cheese (local eggplant just started).
Wood-Fired Chorizo with Pickled Carrots.

Other than Pintxos, what are more distinguishing features of Basque cuisine that you won’t find anywhere else?

Lots of salt cod. As far back at the 15th century Basques were the best ship builders in Europe and dominated the whaling trade. When the whaling trade dried up, they began going further into the north Atlantic to fish for cod, which they salted aboard the ship as a means of preservation and then brought home. So even though cod is not present in the waters around Spain, it is the fish most commonly used in the Basque country (though almost always dried). They use more Foie Gras than other areas of Spain.

Miller serves a lot of egg dishes at Huertas, so we wondered too how important eggs were in Basque cuisine.

[In the Basque country] they enjoy eggs at all times of day throughout Spain… Eggs are often the canvas for beautiful seafood, produce or charcuterie, such as wild mushrooms, local asparagus, jamon…

We asked what brought him to Northern Spain in the first place and what drew him to the cuisine.

Ten years ago when I was growing up working in kitchens, Spain was at the forefront of influencing modern cooking techniques. So that was largely what attracted me to studying abroad in Madrid (as well as honing my Spanish speaking, which is helpful in NYC kitchens), as well as not knowing much about Spanish cuisine and looking forward to learning something new. When in Spain, I came to appreciate not the modern cooking, but how great the old-school pintxo and tapas bars were, how fun they were to dine in and felt that we didn’t have much representation for that experience in New York. Being a native New Yorker, I think we should have the best of everything available here, and wanted to bring more great Spanish food to our city.

The food and culture of the north of Spain translates better than the south of Spain to New York. For one thing, being closer to the rest of Europe, the north is more cosmopolitan and a bit more diverse. Also, the climate in the north (and accordingly produce) is not far off from that of New York.

Now we’re hungry. We asked what a typical way to start and end a Basque meal is.

[To start,] Txakolina and simply cooked seafood. [To finish,] there are some delicious Basque vermouths, which are a bit sweet and are had after dinner or often in the afternoon (some of which we offer, as well as making our own). They do make caramels and toffees, as well as Turron, an almond nougat. All traditional ends to a meal. There are also many cakes and tarts that are traditional.

So now that we’re ready to dive head first into Basque cuisine, what would be an approachable dish to try making at home?

Pintxos!! Go to Despana (a Spanish specialty foods store), pick up one or two cheeses, one or two cured meats, anchovies, a tin of seafood; the greenmarket for some seasonal produce and local honey; get some good bread, toothpicks, and start trying out different combinations. Try this cheese with honey and shaved carrots, those anchovies with tomato on toast.

We’re sold.

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