As an eater, maybe you don’t wonder about all the steps it took for the food to reach your home. You likely don’t wonder who had to eat it a million times and take notes, had to tend to it while it evolved, or made it sound so appealing to you and the general public in the first place. Well, there are people doing those oddball jobs. Here are some of the kookiest in the industry.

1. Chocolate Taster

Salary: $24,000 – $70,000

It will never be easy for me to understand this as a real job. It’s what dreams are made of, what children aspire to be when they grow up. Simply put, it’s the gig everyone wants at some point in their lives. But like all jobs, it’s not as easy as it sounds. On the prowl for flavor, it comes down to evaluating a complex combination of taste, touch, temperature, and smell. Plus, it’d practically be a second job to keep off the weight.

2. Creamery Assistant

Salary: $25,000 – $30,000

Cheesemakers can’t do it all themselves, so they hire someone who can pay extremely close attention to detail. The job itself includes a great deal of scrubbing and cheese ripening (aka “performing affinage”). The workplace is a damp cheese cave.

Photo: Sh4rp_i

3. Dog Food Tester

Salary: $30,000 – $117,000

Given that dog food is regulated by the FDA and typically made with high-quality meat and veggies, this gig isn’t as bonkers as it sounds. Sure, dogs are those same creatures who would spend their day licking butt if there wasn’t constant distractions for them, but pet owners are serious people who want serious food for their pups.

4. Food Stylist

Salary: $30,000 – $44,000

This is more art than science, as it’s this job’s duty to arrange food to look wildly appealing, whether it’s in menus, cookbooks, magazines, or ads. It’s the stylist’s job to make food look crazy delicious, from those fries exploding with a charming golden color mid-air to those pizzas that look like they’re as big as the horizon.

5. Fortune Cookie Writer

Salary: $38,000 – $75,000

This is a peculiar of balance of skills, since it requires an absurd amount of wisdom but it has to be summed up in a single sentence for people on their way out the door. This often ends up being a freelancer’s game that companies reach out to in order to refresh their message database every few years.

6. Fish Scaler

Salary: $20,000 – $30,000

This job is exactly what you think it is, and it demands a firm hand and a pretty solid waste management system. This person has to break down them big fishies before they wind up at the grocery store or farmer’s market. Can you imagine a messier job (that doesn’t include heavy blood or poop)? Actually, this one can get pretty burly, as it’ll sometimes require cutting up fish in addition to scaling them.

7. Turkey Inseminator

Salary: $18,000 – $40,000

Seeing as how factory farming tactics have not at all jokingly transformed turkeys into actual butterballs, there’s a need to help with breeding, especially in the high-demand month of November. That means, after turkey sperm is collected and stored, someone has to inject the lively business into female turkeys’…*ahem*…by hand. This gig is often expanded into being general technician for the farm, which includes euthanizing animals and cleaning their pens, so… it can get worse.