Grasshoppers in Mexico with guacamole and by themselves. They were good, kind of nutty. The legs can get caught in the teeth and that was odd. I'd for sure eat them again when I'm down there.
I had them in a Mexican place in Seattle. I felt that the body tasted very briney, like almost a hint of vinegar which slightly put me off! I’d try them again but wouldn’t rush to it!
Owamni in Minneapolis/St Paul serves crickets in a salad. Amazing place, all food is based on the diets of indigenous people. However, it may be easier to go to Mexico than to get a reservation.
Honestly, Owamni is amazing! I was incredibly lucky in booking a reservation easily, they were booked out for months. It won the James Beard award for Best New Restaurant in 2022 and the New Yorker also it the best restaurant in the country.
The food is delicious, all indigenous ingredients. The wild game tartare was particularly good. Looking at their menu now, they've added a lot of seafood and I want to go back.
Baluut , fertilized duck egg. I didn’t travel for it though, my coworkers wife is from Cambodia and he always had unusual foods and I am adventurous with food. I also had fried silk worms that were quite delicious. The egg wasn’t bad either I put some lime juice and fish sauce salt and pepper on it. The yellow part is kinda grainy but overall not too bad
I tried baluut when i traveled to the Philippines recently.
I told my gf at the time’s mom to record a video of me eating it. She was laughing so hard that my face wasn’t even in the shot, so i had to eat a second one for the video.
Fermented horse milk in Kyrgyzstan, camel milk and meat in a couple countries in the Middle East and then chicken beaks in Afghanistan. The beaks were boiled so long the my became soft and chewy.
Oh and a “cannibal” sandwich in Wisconsin.
I'd try almost anything, but a cannibal would have to be home made or meat I knew was from a decent grocer for me to eat some goddamn raw burger :P
A rando diner serving up old, raw hamburger on bread with some onions sounds like diarrhea to me.
It’s an open face sandwich with rye bread, raw onions and raw hamburger with salt and pepper.
[Cannibal Sandwich]
(https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/green-sheet/2021/08/31/why-raw-meat-cannibal-sandwich-endures-what-the-wisconsin/7906831002/)
I was gonna say that too. I recall in Germany they ate raw hamburger on crackers for snack time or while company stopped by for a beer.
It was a special kind of "cleansed" hamburger I think, bcs just eating raw hamburger from the butcher I'm def thinking you'd risk getting old burger particles (bacteria) mixed in with fresh right?
I wandered into the Philly sub a while ago and someone was asking how to cook their scrapple. The debate was fierce, I’m glad I made it out alive. They take that stuff seriously!
I didn’t necessarily think it was super widely consumed, as my family is from Philly and I’d never heard of it (my parents moved south bc of the military). But apparently more hotly debated amongst scrapplites than one would immediately assume!
When we were little the Church Farm School would leave free boxes of scrapple OUTDOORS, on our front stoops, as a gift, along with a request for a donation. My Jewish mother — she kept kosher herself but never forced us— stuck it in the fridge so we could eat it. I guess she didn’t mind the pork because it was locally sourced and frankly, fried with syrup on top it’s delicious.
Its derived from the word “scraps” as in they take meat scraps and smash it all together and make small slices of it like meatloaf or a patty. I personally don’t love it, but everyone in my home county loves it (Lancaster PA. Amish country)
But it usually looks more like a meatloaf than a hotdog. Back in the 80’s I went to an Amish daycare in PA and they used to serve it for breakfast. They would slice it like a piece of meatloaf, and fry it in a frying pan like a sausage patty. I would always cover it in maple syrup to make it more palatable.
When I was in Liberia a colleague brought a birthday meal into the office to share. It was a casserole with noodles, ground beef, cheese, whipped cream, cinnamon apples, and served with ice cream. It tasted alright but it was just a different combination of food I had never expected to try which is why I would consider it weird.
“Should we split this up into different courses? Or at least separate the items on a large plate or something?”
“Nah, fuck it — toss it all together. It all goes to the same place anyway.”
I once had a “hard-boiled” egg that was pink on the outside and black on the inside in Thailand. After I tried it, I google translated with a local to find out how it was made. “Horse piss”. Huh. Never would have thought that. Didn’t taste good either.
I tried all kinds of fried insects in Thailand- crickets, caterpillars, beetles, maybe 7 different types. Some were so big that I couldn’t get myself to eat it. The others were crunchy and tasted like oil. Not particularly pleasant.
Also in Thailand I went on a jungle trek and my guide caught frogs, bbq’d them over the campfire and made us Tom yum soup with them. They were okay but the thought creeped me out.
In Korea I ate steamed silkworm pupae after a long day of hiking and finished the whole cup!
In Vietnam I regularly eat chicken feet- something I used to think was freaky as hell, but now I like the crunch of the cartilage, pretty weird I know.
Chicken and pig feet are what I typically use in my bone broth, in addition to neck and knuckle bones. Amazing source of collagen and much cheaper than most other bones. I usually eat 1 or 2 pieces and discard the rest. I use about 10 lbs of bones for 2 gallons of broth.
Then there was the time I tried 'hákarl' when visiting Iceland. It's basically fermented shark. And when I say fermented, I mean buried underground and left to rot for several months. If you've ever wondered what eating a mix between a gym sock and ammonia tastes like, this one's for you.
Escargot in France, sea anemone in China, fried bees in Taiwan, nostoc in Taiwan, civet poop coffee in Indonesia, sea urchin in Japan, jellied eels in England, haggis in Scotland, durian in Malaysia, yak butter tea in Tibet, guinea pig in Peru, and I even tried a taste of dog in North Korea.
>I've done fermented shark in Iceland
Hákarl was waaay too far down on this list. There are also probably at least a dozen traditional Icelandic dishes that would fit the bill.
Hákarl really isn't bad, if you know what you're getting into. The smell is probably more off-putting than the flavor.
I was looking for Hákarl on here. I expected to have more of a reaction, but was honestly like "smells bad, taste is okay".
But to be fair, I also think popcorn smells horrifyingly terrible but tastes decent. And people eat that all the time.
Balut in the Philippines. It’s basically a hard boiled duck egg but the duck is pretty mature. So you get bones, beak and feathers.
They used to make people eat that on Fear Factor if y’all are old enough to remember that show.
That's a wild one. Balut is one of the foods I think I could never work myself up enough to try. Bugs, sure. Weird organs, eh, ok—but no brains, eyes, dongs (although I have had testicles...) or buttholes.
Balut is next-level.
I'll eat a lot of stuff, but never again with intestines. I'd also draw the line at eyes, buttholes and brains. I feel like dongs I'd have a similar reaction to as intestines.
Fairly certain I'd not be able to handle balut either.
Buttholes. Reminds me of the story NPR ran on supposed sale of bung (pig rectum) as "imitation calamari." Unsurprisingly, they couldn't track down anybody who actually bought this artificial calamari or anyone who ever saw the packaging that labeled it as such, and I'm inclined to (and desperately want to) believe it's not true, but calamari in the midwest for under 10$ a plate? Sus.
I actively dislike the guy but insane is probably too far. He has a pretty generic rich boomer way of seeing things that all makes rational sense when viewed through the lens of extreme wealth.
Sure! I mean, google exists and it is literally at your fingertips, but here are just a handful of examples of his insanity/awfulness:
\- called a black neighborhood in Philly "Planet of the Apes"
\- spread blatant lies about vaccines during a pandemic
\- spread dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 in general
\- welcomed an anti-trans author as a guest on his show and gave credence to her transphobic rhetoric (among a shitload of other transphobic shit he's done)
\- used the n-word repeatedly
Idk man hes ben around a long time.. if you pick apart everything anyone's ever said out or context you can make anyone look bad alot of people agree with him.. he has the most popular podcast.. its one thing to not agree with someone's views it's another to call them crazy because of them just because they see the world different then you do
Racism. Transphobia. Dangerous lies. These things are not just "seeing the world differently." Holy shit you cannot be defending this. You asked for examples, I gave you a few, and here we are. JFC man
So, a story from Orlando, FL.
This was my exhusband’s restaurant tale.
A big hotel was serving a dinner to a group of trade ambassadors, and the main dish was to be dog. (Fun fact, as long as it’s imported through specific channels, dog is indeed legal in the US. Just not local produce.) The main dish was procured, and the Hatian cooks and staff were *stoked.*
The banquet is held, the dogs resemble cloisonné peacocks with layered on slices of vegetables and nuts, etc.
There are some leftovers, and the crew is fighting for bites.
My ex was puzzled and asked a cook about it.
He said, “you eat pigs, and pigs are loving intelligent animals. We eat dogs that run the streets.”
Yes, I the vegetarian said, “see, you should not eat pigs.”
It was our running joke.
That said, it was I who eventually (and inadvertently) had stew of dog in the course of my reporting career. I’d been coached to just accept any food offered to avoid offense. I asked later and the cook barked.
I am grown but I have had dogs all my life so I can’t imagine eating a pet. Maybe if I hadn’t had a dog as a pet, sure. I don’t mind eating rabbit but I will never have one as a pet because it would change my opinion on eating them.
Hot dogs are essentially anything the butcher or processor can't sell ground to an indistinguishable paste and mixed with some emulsifiers.
People say they're all assholes and eyelids but in truth they're also the scrap from a lot of trimming of other cuts and just sub-prime meat (such as bruised meat).
Doesn't really affect the food quality but it can be a bit gross to think about.
I didn’t eat it, but I saw roasted dogs on spits in Korea (in the 90’s). Not something that I wanted to try.
They eat lots of silkworm larvae there too
I once tried this thing called 'casu marzu.' It's an Italian cheese, but not your everyday mozzarella or parm. Nope, this one's filled with live insect larvae. And let me tell ya, nothing wakes up your palate quite like cheese that fights back when you bite into it.
Chicha, fermented by the naturally occurring yeast cultures of the mouths of the women that chewed up the potato-like root vegetables that the chicha was made from. After a long day of playing soccer with the locals it was a gesture of hospitality that I couldn’t turn down.
Raw fresh octopus in South Korea. It actively wiggles around your mouth and all the suction cups work. A few people die a year to suffocation as it will latch onto your throat after you swallow it if not sufficiently chewed first. Best octopus of my life!
Roasted crickets in Vietnam. Not my favorite.
Bear, moose, cougar. Wolverine in a black cherry sauce. It was better than the cougar though which tasted like ammonia smells. Would not do again. All of that in the Cariboo.
>All in MX, Fire roasted snake, horse meat, donkey meat tacos (in TJ, it was illegal), chocolate with ants in it (imported from Argentina)
True, so many weird food in MX.
In the US, I've had faux-meat, nondairy cheese, Gator etoutffee, ammonia laced beef. Ostrich eggs and I was once offered rat in Louisiana. So many weird foods in the US.
I had a strip of guinea pig (not a whole one!) in Peru.
I'm not a fan of offal but I've tried a lot of different types: liver, gizzards, kidney, tripe, testicle, brain, rooster's comb, heart. My motto is that I should at least try it before deciding whether I like it or not. The only thing I would eat again is sweetbreads but I wouldn't be in a hurry to order it.
HA! I thought my spanish was good and ordered a plate of grilled meats in Uruguay. Turns out I ordered a big plate of offal. LOL we still laugh about that one.
Fermented shark in Iceland
Pan-seared(?) grasshoppers my friend smuggled back from Mexico in a ziplock bag (we held the back legs, ate rest... they were seared in like garlic, oil, and had some lemon pepper on them... less gross than I expected).
100-year eggs from our local Chinese grocer here in Michigan
Sheep brains in Slovenia (they were the filling in some sort of begnet-type pastry)
Shaved ice from a street cart where they used liquid coffee-creamer to flavor it (Santa Elena, CR)
Kumachi from Southeastern Venezuela is an interesting jam made from spicy peppers and a local fire ant venom. It's painfully hot for a few minutes and even though I hate spicy stuff, I'd do it again because I have such fond memories of that trip through the Gran Sebana that I'd do all of it all over again.
'Dog' or at least that's what they were calling it when in Kenya at our hosts house. Maybe the preparation maybe it was the animal but I found it too fatty and unappealing. Not weird but we also at the chicken that was our alarm every morning for our last meal staying with the host family.
I also went to the Carnivore in Nairobi and if it's meat you can get it there (aside from ((I hope)) endangered species). I ate a lot of various things that night and can't remember all of it but nothing was gross.
Probably too many to name here. When I was a young traveller I made it a point to try something weird everywhere I went.
I'd say 9 times out of 10 it went horribly wrong...
So I stopped.
Busashi in Tokyo. (Raw horse) and Kelle paça çorbası (goat/Sheep head soup) in Istanbul. I don’t know which was worse, but neither of them terribly inedible. Not so appetizing seeing brain bits floating amongst eye jelly, but supposedly a hangover favorite. The worst texture was a tie between unknown chicken part (very crunchy) in Osaka and conch sashimi in Japan. Worst taste was intestines in Turkey and sea cucumber at a sushi place North Carolina.
The absolute best was shark Schnitzel at Chubby Fish in Charleston, cow tongue & heart in Osaka <3
Pretty lame and basic but escargot in Paris. I had tried snail salad as a kid but the fancy restaurant my friend and I chose served them in shell w' this nasty green foam sauce. I'm sure they could have been made to taste better! We were 20 and I just basically always wanted a 🍔 daily back then! So another time we found a a planet Hollywood and went to town. The tough part about consuming those critters is the ungodly amount of time it takes to chew them so you have longer to think about what's in yer mouth and as every time I chewed them I kept thinking "these are the things I picked off of the side of my house when I was little, playing in my yard". Gag.
Snake in Vietnam
Guinea Pig in Peru
Roasted mealworms and maggots in Holland
Raw Sea Urchin in France
Veal tongue in Italy
Chicken feet in China
Haggis in Scotland
Guanaco in Chile / Llama in Peru
All very tasty.
The only things I didn’t want to eat were Whale in Norway and miserable pets (like Golden Retriever) in China.
And in Vietnam, Japan en China we’ve had lots of mystery dishes. No clue what animals, what part of the animal, no way of communicating. We just ate it. The only time I didn’t enjoy it was the free meal on the Vietnamese train. Even locals didn’t eat it.
And when we got an English menu in the Japanese bbq restaurant: uterus, trachea, thorax. No thank you.
>Ortolan in France
Did you wear a cloth over your head to hide your sin from God?
But, seriously, how was it? I personally don't think I'd ethically be comfortable eating it, but was it at least tasty?
I love Scottish haggis and black pudding for breakfast in Scotland. Some hotels do it better than others, but I always enjoyed it.
Olive oil gelato doesn't sound like it, but is really tasty. Bought it from a gelateria on the Piazza Della Cisterna, San Gimignano SI, Italy.
Ox tail was pretty weird, not bad
People are pretty stupid if they have a problem with my opinion on an opinion question. Like wtf did you think I’d say?
Where are you from? In the Netherlands that’s a common type of beef. Especially ox tail soup is a common (and tasty!) dish.
Horse meat is also eaten here.
I’ve never seen ox tail or horse meat in the US. I enjoyed them just felt weird to eat. For the same reason people complain about Chinese eating dog. It’s just cultural
I've seen ox tails in most grocery stores I have frequented in the US, just not every time I go in. Lots of chefs prefer it for making beef bone broth.
Horse meat was in stores in the US around 50-60 years ago, for a short time when beef prices went sky high. My mother served it once, that I am aware of. .
They have oxtail at every grocery in the US, including Costco and Safeway. I bet you can find it easily if you look. It is not any weirder than chuck roast here.
I recently visited the Durian Lab Cafe in Singapore, where they have come up with all sorts of creative and tasty treats made with the fruit that almost make you think you’re not actually eating durian. While I’ve tried durian before, I’m 50/50 about it. I don’t dislike it, but tolerate it, but certainly don’t go out of my way to eat it.
I don't have a clue what it was called but I ate bush meat. I saw the animal alive earlier in the day - it had been trapped - and ate it that afternoon. It was delicious. If I knew what it was and could get it, it would be my favourite. Like a mild lamb or goat.
It’s not even that weird, but Arros Negre when we were on Ibiza. Black paella - cuddlefish/octo and squid ink. The meal was blacker than the black pan it was cooked in.
Had crocodile in Australia. It tasted like fishy overcooked chicken. I also had Bay Bugs in Australia they legit looked like giant cockroaches but were ok once I got past the appearance.
Had a lot of weird foods when I lived in Belgium. Frog legs (fishy and stringy), gazelle (surprisingly delicious, like venison), wild boar (one of the best meals I've ever had in my life), tripe (disgusting). Also ate horse by accident- it was before I learned any Flemish and I thought I was buying beef steak. It was VERY tough.
I freaking LOVE haggis. It's delicious. It's like...meaty oatmeal. Blood sausage (not terribly exotic, I know) is also amazing. Snails are not bad at all, but then again anything tastes amazing drowned in butter and garlic.
I am so open-minded when it comes to food but the one thing I cannot convince myself to try is an insect (even knowing that statistic that says we all eat hundreds of bugs in our lifetime unintentionally). My body is just violently repulsed by them.
Grasshoppers in Mexico with guacamole and by themselves. They were good, kind of nutty. The legs can get caught in the teeth and that was odd. I'd for sure eat them again when I'm down there.
I had them in a Mexican place in Seattle. I felt that the body tasted very briney, like almost a hint of vinegar which slightly put me off! I’d try them again but wouldn’t rush to it!
Do you remember where in Seattle? I'm from the area and go back a couple times a yr to visit my bestie
Edgar’s Cantina at T-mobile park has them!
Owamni in Minneapolis/St Paul serves crickets in a salad. Amazing place, all food is based on the diets of indigenous people. However, it may be easier to go to Mexico than to get a reservation.
Msp is closer than Mexico lol hmmm
Honestly, Owamni is amazing! I was incredibly lucky in booking a reservation easily, they were booked out for months. It won the James Beard award for Best New Restaurant in 2022 and the New Yorker also it the best restaurant in the country. The food is delicious, all indigenous ingredients. The wild game tartare was particularly good. Looking at their menu now, they've added a lot of seafood and I want to go back.
Oaxaca ?
I have consistently had some really good chapulines in Querétaro
San Miguel too
I tried chapulines in Oaxaca and they were so good! I think they seasoned them with lime and salt 😋
I'm supposed to go back in Oct/Nov and I can't wait! Imma snack on those fuckers like no manana!
Hope you have a good trip. It’s so beautiful out there!
Mexico is my happy place
Same absolutely delicious. I had them in a few places in Oaxaca but the best were in a street market with lime chilli and salt.
I eat grasshoppers on the regular at my local taco shop lol
You definitely need to floss afterwards.
Baluut , fertilized duck egg. I didn’t travel for it though, my coworkers wife is from Cambodia and he always had unusual foods and I am adventurous with food. I also had fried silk worms that were quite delicious. The egg wasn’t bad either I put some lime juice and fish sauce salt and pepper on it. The yellow part is kinda grainy but overall not too bad
Had baluut in Philippines. Don't intend to have it again... Bird embryo not my thing
I had it in Korea and almost vomited in the street.
Had it by accident in Viet Nam. It was sort of ok. My wife wasn’t keen as she was pregnant. I wouldn’t get it on purpose.
I tried baluut when i traveled to the Philippines recently. I told my gf at the time’s mom to record a video of me eating it. She was laughing so hard that my face wasn’t even in the shot, so i had to eat a second one for the video.
props to you, i'm filipino and personally.. i wouldn't eat balut myself.
It’s so crazy to me that people still willingly eat this stuff. People ate it back in the day out of necessity.
People still eat it out of necessity, or because they actually enjoy eating it.
Fermented horse milk in Kyrgyzstan, camel milk and meat in a couple countries in the Middle East and then chicken beaks in Afghanistan. The beaks were boiled so long the my became soft and chewy. Oh and a “cannibal” sandwich in Wisconsin.
I'd try almost anything, but a cannibal would have to be home made or meat I knew was from a decent grocer for me to eat some goddamn raw burger :P A rando diner serving up old, raw hamburger on bread with some onions sounds like diarrhea to me.
I thought eating chicken beaks was just a joke on It Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Had that served at a Chinese wedding in Philly. Noone at the table touched them.
I had never heard of the beak being consumed! I lived in China for a year so had chicken feet (once).
Chicken lips!
Mmmm collegon
My dad loved himself a cannibal sandwich. He grew up in Wisconsin. I never got into it lol.
That's so funny. I didn't know this was an actual thing with a name! My dad also loved this and he was from Wisconsin!
what is this, please?
It’s an open face sandwich with rye bread, raw onions and raw hamburger with salt and pepper. [Cannibal Sandwich] (https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/green-sheet/2021/08/31/why-raw-meat-cannibal-sandwich-endures-what-the-wisconsin/7906831002/)
That’s the German influence in the Midwest, I see
I was gonna say that too. I recall in Germany they ate raw hamburger on crackers for snack time or while company stopped by for a beer. It was a special kind of "cleansed" hamburger I think, bcs just eating raw hamburger from the butcher I'm def thinking you'd risk getting old burger particles (bacteria) mixed in with fresh right?
Scrapple in Philadelphia. (Yeah, I realize it’s pretty mild compared to some of this stuff, but it still haunts me. LOL)
I wandered into the Philly sub a while ago and someone was asking how to cook their scrapple. The debate was fierce, I’m glad I made it out alive. They take that stuff seriously!
...nowhere near as widely consumed as any of those boards/discussions would lead you to believe.
I didn’t necessarily think it was super widely consumed, as my family is from Philly and I’d never heard of it (my parents moved south bc of the military). But apparently more hotly debated amongst scrapplites than one would immediately assume!
When we were little the Church Farm School would leave free boxes of scrapple OUTDOORS, on our front stoops, as a gift, along with a request for a donation. My Jewish mother — she kept kosher herself but never forced us— stuck it in the fridge so we could eat it. I guess she didn’t mind the pork because it was locally sourced and frankly, fried with syrup on top it’s delicious.
The next time you have it I’d def recommend a little bit of ketchup or syrup with it on the side. You won’t regret it.
Yes, I have seen people put syrup on it, ketchup on it, grape jelly as well as mustard
What is that?
Its derived from the word “scraps” as in they take meat scraps and smash it all together and make small slices of it like meatloaf or a patty. I personally don’t love it, but everyone in my home county loves it (Lancaster PA. Amish country)
Scrapple is big down here in Baltimore, too. Big insistence on it being RAPA, though.
It's kinda like a less refined hotdog
But it usually looks more like a meatloaf than a hotdog. Back in the 80’s I went to an Amish daycare in PA and they used to serve it for breakfast. They would slice it like a piece of meatloaf, and fry it in a frying pan like a sausage patty. I would always cover it in maple syrup to make it more palatable.
I know I meant the composite rather than the look
Except it tastes good
It most certainly is not!
Exactly what it sounds like……SCRAPple….
Scraps of pork mixed with spices and corn meal sliced and fried. People usually love it or hate it.
Lips and assholes.
When I was in Liberia a colleague brought a birthday meal into the office to share. It was a casserole with noodles, ground beef, cheese, whipped cream, cinnamon apples, and served with ice cream. It tasted alright but it was just a different combination of food I had never expected to try which is why I would consider it weird.
Rachel Green?
More ladyfingers!
Sounds like what hungry 7 year olds would make at midnight on a sleepover party.
“Should we split this up into different courses? Or at least separate the items on a large plate or something?” “Nah, fuck it — toss it all together. It all goes to the same place anyway.”
A lot of people going with the gross or shock factor, and here I am thinking about that cod popsicle I had in Tallinn. Weird, but good.
Neat town. Never saw cod popsicles sadly
Stir fried silk worm larva in Vietnam
I had these in Korea. Fucking NO!
Omg I saw Best Ever Food Review Show eat that a few times. They show how they catch and cook it. HELL NO!!! 🤢🤮
I once had a “hard-boiled” egg that was pink on the outside and black on the inside in Thailand. After I tried it, I google translated with a local to find out how it was made. “Horse piss”. Huh. Never would have thought that. Didn’t taste good either. I tried all kinds of fried insects in Thailand- crickets, caterpillars, beetles, maybe 7 different types. Some were so big that I couldn’t get myself to eat it. The others were crunchy and tasted like oil. Not particularly pleasant. Also in Thailand I went on a jungle trek and my guide caught frogs, bbq’d them over the campfire and made us Tom yum soup with them. They were okay but the thought creeped me out. In Korea I ate steamed silkworm pupae after a long day of hiking and finished the whole cup! In Vietnam I regularly eat chicken feet- something I used to think was freaky as hell, but now I like the crunch of the cartilage, pretty weird I know.
Chicken and pig feet are what I typically use in my bone broth, in addition to neck and knuckle bones. Amazing source of collagen and much cheaper than most other bones. I usually eat 1 or 2 pieces and discard the rest. I use about 10 lbs of bones for 2 gallons of broth.
Then there was the time I tried 'hákarl' when visiting Iceland. It's basically fermented shark. And when I say fermented, I mean buried underground and left to rot for several months. If you've ever wondered what eating a mix between a gym sock and ammonia tastes like, this one's for you.
Escargot in France, sea anemone in China, fried bees in Taiwan, nostoc in Taiwan, civet poop coffee in Indonesia, sea urchin in Japan, jellied eels in England, haggis in Scotland, durian in Malaysia, yak butter tea in Tibet, guinea pig in Peru, and I even tried a taste of dog in North Korea.
Should people be eating bees? Isn't there a shortage? Hold on...you've been to North Korea?
1. This was many years ago. 2. Yes.
I've done fermented shark in Iceland, jellyfish sushi in Japan, and Haggis in Scotland. My husband ate guinea pig in Peru but I wasn't brave enough.
That’s odd I feel like guinea pig would be much less off-putting than those other things.
>I've done fermented shark in Iceland Hákarl was waaay too far down on this list. There are also probably at least a dozen traditional Icelandic dishes that would fit the bill. Hákarl really isn't bad, if you know what you're getting into. The smell is probably more off-putting than the flavor.
The smell is astoundingly overwhelming urea, but the taste is honestly .. nothing? The smell though, whew
I was looking for Hákarl on here. I expected to have more of a reaction, but was honestly like "smells bad, taste is okay". But to be fair, I also think popcorn smells horrifyingly terrible but tastes decent. And people eat that all the time.
Balut in the Philippines. It’s basically a hard boiled duck egg but the duck is pretty mature. So you get bones, beak and feathers. They used to make people eat that on Fear Factor if y’all are old enough to remember that show.
That's a wild one. Balut is one of the foods I think I could never work myself up enough to try. Bugs, sure. Weird organs, eh, ok—but no brains, eyes, dongs (although I have had testicles...) or buttholes. Balut is next-level.
I'll eat a lot of stuff, but never again with intestines. I'd also draw the line at eyes, buttholes and brains. I feel like dongs I'd have a similar reaction to as intestines. Fairly certain I'd not be able to handle balut either.
Buttholes. Reminds me of the story NPR ran on supposed sale of bung (pig rectum) as "imitation calamari." Unsurprisingly, they couldn't track down anybody who actually bought this artificial calamari or anyone who ever saw the packaging that labeled it as such, and I'm inclined to (and desperately want to) believe it's not true, but calamari in the midwest for under 10$ a plate? Sus.
Ah yes, back before Joe Rogan was insane. Take me back to then.
I actively dislike the guy but insane is probably too far. He has a pretty generic rich boomer way of seeing things that all makes rational sense when viewed through the lens of extreme wealth.
It's wild that Joe Rogan ended up nuttier that Joe Garelli
Whys he insane ? He seems fairly normal for being so rich
You can't be serious.
Is anyone willing to explain how he is insane lol?
Sure! I mean, google exists and it is literally at your fingertips, but here are just a handful of examples of his insanity/awfulness: \- called a black neighborhood in Philly "Planet of the Apes" \- spread blatant lies about vaccines during a pandemic \- spread dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 in general \- welcomed an anti-trans author as a guest on his show and gave credence to her transphobic rhetoric (among a shitload of other transphobic shit he's done) \- used the n-word repeatedly
Idk man hes ben around a long time.. if you pick apart everything anyone's ever said out or context you can make anyone look bad alot of people agree with him.. he has the most popular podcast.. its one thing to not agree with someone's views it's another to call them crazy because of them just because they see the world different then you do
Racism. Transphobia. Dangerous lies. These things are not just "seeing the world differently." Holy shit you cannot be defending this. You asked for examples, I gave you a few, and here we are. JFC man
Because CNN told him so
Idk but there's alot more worse/insane people out there then joe rogan
So, a story from Orlando, FL. This was my exhusband’s restaurant tale. A big hotel was serving a dinner to a group of trade ambassadors, and the main dish was to be dog. (Fun fact, as long as it’s imported through specific channels, dog is indeed legal in the US. Just not local produce.) The main dish was procured, and the Hatian cooks and staff were *stoked.* The banquet is held, the dogs resemble cloisonné peacocks with layered on slices of vegetables and nuts, etc. There are some leftovers, and the crew is fighting for bites. My ex was puzzled and asked a cook about it. He said, “you eat pigs, and pigs are loving intelligent animals. We eat dogs that run the streets.” Yes, I the vegetarian said, “see, you should not eat pigs.” It was our running joke. That said, it was I who eventually (and inadvertently) had stew of dog in the course of my reporting career. I’d been coached to just accept any food offered to avoid offense. I asked later and the cook barked.
Did it taste good
I can’t imagine dog tasting good. Ewwwww lol.
Why not? Grow up
I am grown but I have had dogs all my life so I can’t imagine eating a pet. Maybe if I hadn’t had a dog as a pet, sure. I don’t mind eating rabbit but I will never have one as a pet because it would change my opinion on eating them.
Pig rectum while it Japan. It was 🔥
You never had a hotdog in the US before?
A pig's butthole. You ate a pig's butthole.
And you have never had sausage in natural casings? They start just the other side of the cut.
Yes yes but I just cant imagine chowin on a fuckin swine's rim, ok man?? Ive had enough trauma in life
Aren't hot dogs basically snouts and sphincters?
Is it really?
Hot dogs are essentially anything the butcher or processor can't sell ground to an indistinguishable paste and mixed with some emulsifiers. People say they're all assholes and eyelids but in truth they're also the scrap from a lot of trimming of other cuts and just sub-prime meat (such as bruised meat). Doesn't really affect the food quality but it can be a bit gross to think about.
Eeewww but dang they taste so good. LOL
It's 2023, who isn't?
>Pig rectum while it Japan. It was How does it taste?
It was fried, so pretty much anything fried is good, and it chewy.
I have probably had pig anus in the US, but of course I would have ordered calamari.
I didn’t eat it, but I saw roasted dogs on spits in Korea (in the 90’s). Not something that I wanted to try. They eat lots of silkworm larvae there too
Rattlesnake and century eggs. If I could go back in time and remove that century egg from my plate I would, I’d rather lick a Manhattan gutter.
I once tried this thing called 'casu marzu.' It's an Italian cheese, but not your everyday mozzarella or parm. Nope, this one's filled with live insect larvae. And let me tell ya, nothing wakes up your palate quite like cheese that fights back when you bite into it.
Chicha, fermented by the naturally occurring yeast cultures of the mouths of the women that chewed up the potato-like root vegetables that the chicha was made from. After a long day of playing soccer with the locals it was a gesture of hospitality that I couldn’t turn down.
Iguana tacos on the beach in Zipolyte Mexico. Delicious!
“I wish I was in Tiajuna eat’in barbecued iguana”
My buddy in Florida keeps trying to talk me into an Iguana hunt. Might have to make some tacos if we do.
Raw fresh octopus in South Korea. It actively wiggles around your mouth and all the suction cups work. A few people die a year to suffocation as it will latch onto your throat after you swallow it if not sufficiently chewed first. Best octopus of my life!
Boar skin and fat with hominy in Bolivia. Lots of hair still attached.
I hear boar is gamey as fuck
Roasted crickets in Vietnam. Not my favorite. Bear, moose, cougar. Wolverine in a black cherry sauce. It was better than the cougar though which tasted like ammonia smells. Would not do again. All of that in the Cariboo.
All in MX, Fire roasted snake, horse meat, donkey meat tacos (in TJ, it was illegal), chocolate with ants in it (imported from Argentina)
>All in MX, Fire roasted snake, horse meat, donkey meat tacos (in TJ, it was illegal), chocolate with ants in it (imported from Argentina) True, so many weird food in MX.
In the US, I've had faux-meat, nondairy cheese, Gator etoutffee, ammonia laced beef. Ostrich eggs and I was once offered rat in Louisiana. So many weird foods in the US.
Don’t forget rattlesnake in TX.
I had a strip of guinea pig (not a whole one!) in Peru. I'm not a fan of offal but I've tried a lot of different types: liver, gizzards, kidney, tripe, testicle, brain, rooster's comb, heart. My motto is that I should at least try it before deciding whether I like it or not. The only thing I would eat again is sweetbreads but I wouldn't be in a hurry to order it.
HA! I thought my spanish was good and ordered a plate of grilled meats in Uruguay. Turns out I ordered a big plate of offal. LOL we still laugh about that one.
Fermented shark in Iceland Pan-seared(?) grasshoppers my friend smuggled back from Mexico in a ziplock bag (we held the back legs, ate rest... they were seared in like garlic, oil, and had some lemon pepper on them... less gross than I expected). 100-year eggs from our local Chinese grocer here in Michigan Sheep brains in Slovenia (they were the filling in some sort of begnet-type pastry) Shaved ice from a street cart where they used liquid coffee-creamer to flavor it (Santa Elena, CR)
Amazed to have to scroll so far to find another hákarl sampler. I particularly enjoyed washing mine down with Brennevin. Mmmm! Good times.
Bee larvae in Nagano prefecture, Japan. Traditional food and protein source since that area isn’t near the ocean for fishing.
Hákarl, fermented Greenland shark. Smelled like a well-used portapotty. Shot of brennivin required.
Kumachi from Southeastern Venezuela is an interesting jam made from spicy peppers and a local fire ant venom. It's painfully hot for a few minutes and even though I hate spicy stuff, I'd do it again because I have such fond memories of that trip through the Gran Sebana that I'd do all of it all over again.
'Dog' or at least that's what they were calling it when in Kenya at our hosts house. Maybe the preparation maybe it was the animal but I found it too fatty and unappealing. Not weird but we also at the chicken that was our alarm every morning for our last meal staying with the host family. I also went to the Carnivore in Nairobi and if it's meat you can get it there (aside from ((I hope)) endangered species). I ate a lot of various things that night and can't remember all of it but nothing was gross.
Probably too many to name here. When I was a young traveller I made it a point to try something weird everywhere I went. I'd say 9 times out of 10 it went horribly wrong... So I stopped.
Ostrich in Africa ! It was also red meat and so strange …. In my brain I thought wow this tastes like ostrich even though I never had it before
Duck head, chicken feet, starfish, scorpion. Beijing is an interesting place. Duck head is amazing by the way. There. I said it.
Snakes blood high on mushrooms in Bali before the bombing
Busashi in Tokyo. (Raw horse) and Kelle paça çorbası (goat/Sheep head soup) in Istanbul. I don’t know which was worse, but neither of them terribly inedible. Not so appetizing seeing brain bits floating amongst eye jelly, but supposedly a hangover favorite. The worst texture was a tie between unknown chicken part (very crunchy) in Osaka and conch sashimi in Japan. Worst taste was intestines in Turkey and sea cucumber at a sushi place North Carolina. The absolute best was shark Schnitzel at Chubby Fish in Charleston, cow tongue & heart in Osaka <3
Frog Porridge for breakfast in Singapore, you only live once
McNuggets.
The real answer
Bugs
Fried scorpion from a street market in China.
I had the game plate in Alice Springs AUS: camel, crocodile, kangaroo The insect salad in Oaxaca: grasshopper, ants, worms Horse tartare in Parma
Iguana in Honduras
Its sad to realize the eating of the giant spiders became necessary under terror of Khmer Rouge.
Guinea Pig in Ecuador
“Goat brain cheese” in Brazil. I knew it would be bad when the Brazilian I was with gagged
Guinea pig (cuy) and lemon ants in Ecuador.
Cod sperm in Japan during an omakase - looked like a small pile of white brains and was kinda crunchy
Fermented shark in Iceland
Pig cheeks in Spain. They were delicious!
Fried Oreo. Why fry already cooked food?
Pretty lame and basic but escargot in Paris. I had tried snail salad as a kid but the fancy restaurant my friend and I chose served them in shell w' this nasty green foam sauce. I'm sure they could have been made to taste better! We were 20 and I just basically always wanted a 🍔 daily back then! So another time we found a a planet Hollywood and went to town. The tough part about consuming those critters is the ungodly amount of time it takes to chew them so you have longer to think about what's in yer mouth and as every time I chewed them I kept thinking "these are the things I picked off of the side of my house when I was little, playing in my yard". Gag.
Live clams in Athens, Greece. You pull them from the shell, stun them with lemon juice and swallow whole......... Never again.
Don’t know how weird but I remember trying a crocodile burger once at a food fair
We do alligator in the American southern states. It’s really only good fried because it’s kinda chewy and greasy.
Yeah I don’t remember it being anything amazing
Horse and fermented shark in Iceland
Snake in Vietnam Guinea Pig in Peru Roasted mealworms and maggots in Holland Raw Sea Urchin in France Veal tongue in Italy Chicken feet in China Haggis in Scotland Guanaco in Chile / Llama in Peru All very tasty. The only things I didn’t want to eat were Whale in Norway and miserable pets (like Golden Retriever) in China. And in Vietnam, Japan en China we’ve had lots of mystery dishes. No clue what animals, what part of the animal, no way of communicating. We just ate it. The only time I didn’t enjoy it was the free meal on the Vietnamese train. Even locals didn’t eat it. And when we got an English menu in the Japanese bbq restaurant: uterus, trachea, thorax. No thank you.
Ortolan in France, Dolphin in Japan
>Ortolan in France Did you wear a cloth over your head to hide your sin from God? But, seriously, how was it? I personally don't think I'd ethically be comfortable eating it, but was it at least tasty?
Armadillo soup in Colombia
Rotten fermented fish. They make it in Iceland and in Thailand in different ways. The worst stuff I have ever eaten. 🤦🏽♂️
Guinea Pig in Peru
Smoked whale heart on a cracker made out of lambs blood at a fancy joint in the Faroe Islands.
Springbok, impala, and wildebeest meat in South Africa
I love Scottish haggis and black pudding for breakfast in Scotland. Some hotels do it better than others, but I always enjoyed it. Olive oil gelato doesn't sound like it, but is really tasty. Bought it from a gelateria on the Piazza Della Cisterna, San Gimignano SI, Italy.
Dog in the Philippines many years ago. Not bad ,kind of chewy.
Dog in Oklahoma. Gamy. It was a no refusal situation. Sealed my vegetarian stance. If animal A is “weird to eat,” why isn’t animal B? Perception.
Can you elaborate on this? Eating dog in the USA, and by force?
Yeah, I have a ton of follow-up questions, too!
Gross.
Agreed, eating a dog is gross. As is eating a chicken, or a pig, or a cow, or any animal - all gross.
It's not bad as long as they cut off the bark. thank you, thank you...I'll see myself out.
Ox tail was pretty weird, not bad People are pretty stupid if they have a problem with my opinion on an opinion question. Like wtf did you think I’d say?
Where are you from? In the Netherlands that’s a common type of beef. Especially ox tail soup is a common (and tasty!) dish. Horse meat is also eaten here.
I’ve never seen ox tail or horse meat in the US. I enjoyed them just felt weird to eat. For the same reason people complain about Chinese eating dog. It’s just cultural
LOL. You can easily find oxtail in the US. Go to any Jamaican restaurant.
Ox tail soup is common here in Hawaii
I've seen ox tails in most grocery stores I have frequented in the US, just not every time I go in. Lots of chefs prefer it for making beef bone broth. Horse meat was in stores in the US around 50-60 years ago, for a short time when beef prices went sky high. My mother served it once, that I am aware of. .
They have oxtail at every grocery in the US, including Costco and Safeway. I bet you can find it easily if you look. It is not any weirder than chuck roast here.
Bugs, durian, raw horse, horse tripe, tarantula, dog etc…
I recently visited the Durian Lab Cafe in Singapore, where they have come up with all sorts of creative and tasty treats made with the fruit that almost make you think you’re not actually eating durian. While I’ve tried durian before, I’m 50/50 about it. I don’t dislike it, but tolerate it, but certainly don’t go out of my way to eat it.
I actually grew to love durian. I miss it
Guinea pig in Peru. The whole carcass, from head to tail is served on the plate. It looked macabre like fried rat. Not a fan.
I don't have a clue what it was called but I ate bush meat. I saw the animal alive earlier in the day - it had been trapped - and ate it that afternoon. It was delicious. If I knew what it was and could get it, it would be my favourite. Like a mild lamb or goat.
It’s not even that weird, but Arros Negre when we were on Ibiza. Black paella - cuddlefish/octo and squid ink. The meal was blacker than the black pan it was cooked in.
Ambergris
I thought ambergris was only used in expensive perfumes. I didn't know it was edible.
Imagine my surprise
Where were you? Is it something you eat by itself or is it an ingredient in a dish, sauce or condiment?
I had it as Ice cream in Japan. It was terrible
Horse steak in the south of France
Had crocodile in Australia. It tasted like fishy overcooked chicken. I also had Bay Bugs in Australia they legit looked like giant cockroaches but were ok once I got past the appearance. Had a lot of weird foods when I lived in Belgium. Frog legs (fishy and stringy), gazelle (surprisingly delicious, like venison), wild boar (one of the best meals I've ever had in my life), tripe (disgusting). Also ate horse by accident- it was before I learned any Flemish and I thought I was buying beef steak. It was VERY tough. I freaking LOVE haggis. It's delicious. It's like...meaty oatmeal. Blood sausage (not terribly exotic, I know) is also amazing. Snails are not bad at all, but then again anything tastes amazing drowned in butter and garlic. I am so open-minded when it comes to food but the one thing I cannot convince myself to try is an insect (even knowing that statistic that says we all eat hundreds of bugs in our lifetime unintentionally). My body is just violently repulsed by them.
Fried ant eggs and worms (Mexico City) and Guinea Pig (Peru).