PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

A Japanese chef has opened a restaurant in Tokyo serving dishes whose featured ingredient is dirt. The six-course tasting menu at Toshio Tanabe’s restaurant begins with a soil soup, ends with a light soil sorbet accompanied by a sweet dirt gratin, and costs each diner around $110. Tanabe says all his dirt is screened for harmful substances prior to cooking, and is full of healthy minerals. “Humans used to eat soil, back in the day,” he says.