Exotic Foods

[Jaymes]

I have not eaten balut. Still, it seems to me that eating balut is (conceptually) not that different from eating ortolans in France. Yet there seems to be less "revulsion" (so to speak) about ortolans - I wonder if it is because it is FRENCH cuisine.....

Here's one article describing the "covering the head" ritual (all sorts of speculations as to WHY...) and descriptions of the gradual eating of the bird, the internal organs (ALL of them), the head dangling from one's lips, the crunching of the bones...

Ah yes... eating ortolan with one's napkin atop one's head to shield the act from the gaze of God.

Shades of the eGullet of old:

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/6078-the-power-of-michelin-merged-topics/

How is it possible that it's been 13 years (!) since we first broached the subject of ortolans on these boards?

Incredible.

.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Jaymes (log)

[jmacnaughtan]

I have not eaten balut.  Still, it seems to me that eating balut is (conceptually) not that different from eating ortolans in France.  Yet there seems to be less "revulsion" (so to speak) about ortolans - I wonder if it is because it is FRENCH cuisine.....

Here's one article describing the "covering the head" ritual (all sorts of speculations as to WHY...) and descriptions of the gradual eating of the bird, the internal organs (ALL of them), the head dangling from one's lips, the crunching of the bones...

 

There's actually quite a lot of revulsion about eating ortolan.  However, this may be trumped by the illegal cachet associated with it.

 

Conceptually, it is pretty different.  You're eating, essentially, a roasted adult bird, one that is small enough to eat whole in the same way that some fish are eaten whole.  But when you ask people to eat what appears to be a nice, safe, friendly boiled egg and they open it to find a bird foetus, it's a shock.

 

Also, why are you so worked up about French cuisine?

 

ETA: proper syntax

Edited March 24, 2015 by jmacnaughtan (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

The eating of butan was a challenge competition on CBS's show "Survivor" several years ago.

 

The mostly American contestants were retching and obviously having huge problems downing this "delicacy".

 

I love trying new foods, but this will not be one of them, unless of course, I find myself starving. Never say never.

[CatPoet]

I go for the Oxford dictionary  definition  of exotic,  originating in or characteristic of a distant foreign country..

 

So for me the weirdest  I have eaten is a Greek dish,  roasted garlic marinated sheep testicles, and it was really good but I wont eat it again.  

To you all what would seam exotic but is normal to me is  Surströmming and pölsa .    Surströmming is fermented herring,  I have eaten it  twice in my life and will never eat ever again unless I am half way to death by starvation  and  pölsa is a  softer form of Swedish haggis but it still  is made with offals, which haggis today might not be, sadly  and I get a craving for pölsa once every year and it is yummy. 

 

 

Oh I have tried to eat Icelandic fermented shark but the smell got me  and I have  eaten a Thai dish , that according to the chef ( a Thai woman), normally only Thai people liked and I loved it, sadly the restaurant turned to cater Swedes instead of Thai so well the food became horrible.

Edited March 24, 2015 by CatPoet (log)

[GlorifiedRice]

Snake, Cod Sperm/Milt, Huitlacoche, Natto

[Darienne]

I'd love to try Huitlacoche.  I first learned about it right after the last corn crop was harvested on our farm...and boy!  did we have it that year.  Oh well...

Edited March 24, 2015 by Darienne (log)

[IowaDee]

I just checked Amazon.  It has 7 oz. Goya brand cans for $8.99.  I bought a different brand years ago at a local Mexilcan market.  Don't recall the brand.  Also had it fresh in Mexico, different but pretty tasty.

[ChrisTaylor]

Deep fried mopane worms in Zimbabwe - tasted just like eating fried batter.

 

 

Just don't buy the ones that come in a foam box that's been sitting under a supermarket heat lamp for God-knows-how-long. They just taste like cheap vegetable oil that's been bound together with sand.

 

EDIT

 

And, for fun, I'd try both tiny adult birds and tiny not-even-born birds. Sans towel. I think the one thing I drew the line at, in Zim, was a pot of goat intestines. Not because it was offal but because I'd had the following conversation earlier in the afternoon:

 

Do you want me to clean them? (The goat was being hacked apart by a grandmother wielding a homemade axe)

Oh, no, it tastes better when it hasn't been cleaned.

 

I might eat baby beasts (or baby-sized beasts) but I usually don't eat shit.

 

Oh, yeah, and the week old kidneys that'd been sitting in 35 degree heat for the 13 hour drive to Victoria Falls. Yeah, nah.

 

I haven't eaten anything especially interesting. I've had the worms JohnT mentions. And some game meats that are slightly unusual in their countries of origin (e.g. possum, which is not the same thing as an opossum).

[liuzhou]

I ate balut in Vietnam a couple of years ago. It didn't bother me, but I wouldn't go back looking for more.

 

I love snake meat. A few years ago, a local chef, a friend, would me invite once a year to a snake feast. We would have five or six different snake dishes (with different snakes). I recommend smoked cobra.

 

Unfortunately, he died last year.

 

I've probably linked to this before, but it feels appropriate here. Rats and Unidentified Frying Objects.

 

Not in China, but from my UK youth, swan is very unpleasant. 

 

Live shrimp in Japan. 

 

Silkworms.

 

And worse. Much worse.

[dcarch]

Liuzhou, "---Silkworms.---"

 

Do you mean silkworm pupae? I have had deep fried silkworm pupae. Very delicious.

 

Not too long ago, most people thought sushi was disgusting. 

 

Can't think of the Italian wormy cheese name.

 

 

dcarch

[liuzhou]

Liuzhou, "---Silkworms.---"

 

Do you mean silkworm pupae? 

 

I've had both silkworm pupae, but also mature silkworms. I believe they were senior silkworms who had lived out their silk production days, but I could, as always, be totally wrong.

Both were cooked with chilli and tasted like spicy popcorn. All texture and heat. Little in the way of flavour.  I've eaten worse. I've definitely eaten better.

[dcarch]

I've had both silkworm pupae, but also mature silkworms. I believe they were senior silkworms who had lived out their silk production days, but I could, as always, be totally wrong.

Both were cooked with chilli and tasted like spicy popcorn. All texture and heat. Little in the way of flavour.  I've eaten worse. I've definitely eaten better.

 

I have had rice field worms. Scrambled, fried. Just like scrambled eggs, also very tasty. These worms swim in rice field water.

 

 

dcarch

[liuzhou]

I have had rice field worms. Scrambled, fried. Just like scrambled eggs, also very tasty. These worms swim in rice field water.

 

 

dcarch

 

Yup, I've had them too.

[GlorifiedRice]

I'd love to try Huitlacoche.  I first learned about it right after the last corn crop was harvested on our farm...and boy!  did we have it that year.  Oh well...

 

I bought my one and only bag of FRESH Huitlacoche sometime in the late 1990s, shipped to me from Cali.. The farmer told me if I didnt like it, not to pay him. I made the standard Huitlacoche Soup and me my ex, my exs bro and his wife all tasted it. The only one who had more than one spoonful was my ex SIL. She ate the entire pot. Maybe one day Ill take another crack at it, but that soup was awful.

[BKEats]

I travel quiet a bit and for me, the exotic things happen to be the local items.. Lots of greens and fruit that are not available in New York. Whether it is because it spoils too quickly or there are bans on the items... 

 

I have eaten silk worms and moths and bugs and things like that.  But, for me, the first thing that pops into my head would be fresh Mamey on the beach of Mexico. Or the Caribbean Lobsters.  Or some local vegetable I have never tried before i went to some small city in China.  Wild fennel growing in Sicily.  These are exotic things to me.   

[huiray]

 

Can't think of the Italian wormy cheese name.

 

 

Casu marzu.

[gfron1]

I bought my one and only bag of FRESH Huitlacoche sometime in the late 1990s, shipped to me from Cali.. The farmer told me if I didnt like it, not to pay him. I made the standard Huitlacoche Soup and me my ex, my exs bro and his wife all tasted it. The only one who had more than one spoonful was my ex SIL. She ate the entire pot. Maybe one day Ill take another crack at it, but that soup was awful.

Definitely try again. Last summer a farmer brought me nearly 30 pounds of it and I served my customers for nearly 2 months. Everyone loved it. I used it in a huitlacoche butternut soup.

[jmacnaughtan]

I haven't had casu marzu, but the fromages forts they do in the remote regions of France are a little... different.

 

The worst I had was cachat from Provence: refermented cheese ends with garlic, rosemary and salt.  The texture of peanut butter and a flavour that lingers for days.

 

I think it was in Brittany that I tried a cheese refermented in local beer.  Interesting, but I wouldn't try it again.  Also, I find the custom in the Nord Pas de Calais pretty exotic, where you dip pungent maroilles cheese on toast into your breakfast coffee or hot chocolate.  Just the thought of that film of smelly grease that forms makes me queasy.

 

ETA: syntax

Edited March 25, 2015 by jmacnaughtan (log)

[Jaymes]

Definitely try again. Last summer a farmer brought me nearly 30 pounds of it and I served my customers for nearly 2 months. Everyone loved it. I used it in a huitlacoche butternut soup.

Let me reinforce this. Huitlacoche is very popular in Mexican food and most of the upscale Mexican restaurants have assorted dishes that feature it. Because I eat frequently at Mexican restaurants, I have huitlacoche often. Obviously don't know how GlorifiedRice's soup turned out and whether or not I would have liked that particular dish but I'd definitely advise anyone that was unhappy with the first experience to try again.

[CatPoet]

Does reindeer, European moose, beaver, bear and boar count as exotic?  I have eaten that and it is yummy.

[Arey]

Like most exotic foods, I suppose it depends on where and who you are. Scrapple might be considered exotic by some,(also by spell check as I just found out while typing this)but I don't regard it as exotic, especially when topped with a couple of fried eggs and next to a pile of home fries. Now beaver, I would consider exotic, I didn't even know people eat it, how do you cook it and what does it taste like? Cup Cheese might also be considered exotic by people without Pennsylvania Dutch in their background, since basically it is like a very strongly scented mucilage. The sort that comes in a bottle with a pink rubber nipple like top.

[Anna N]

Like most exotic foods, I suppose it depends on where and who you are. Scrapple might be considered exotic by some,(also by spell check as I just found out while typing this)but I don't regard it as exotic, especially when topped with a couple of fried eggs and next to a pile of home fries. Now beaver, I would consider exotic, I didn't even know people eat it, how do you cook it and what does it taste like? Cup Cheese might also be considered exotic by people without Pennsylvania Dutch in their background, since basically it is like a very strongly scented mucilage. The sort that comes in a bottle with a pink rubber nipple like top.

Those of us who attended one of the Chocolate and Confectionery workshops organized by Kerry Beal at Niagara College were fortunate enough to try beaver cooked by Chef Dave.

[CatPoet]

Beaver,  well I had clay baked beaver at a Viking  festival, the beavers had become too many in the area and  they dna tested them and  those who where too closely related  ended up as dinner.  So I manage to get a ticket for a piece of  rye bread with , well yeah pulled beaver.  It tasty woody and meaty, weird flavour of meat. 

[BonVivant]

Speaking of beaver... I drank this beer.

 

 

 

Had minke whale (bbq'ed, smoked and steak versions) and seal. Seal was much nicer.

 

Frozen arctic minke whale steaks

 

 

 

[Beebs]

Horse tartar - it was delicious.

 

Fish milt/sperm - also tasty.

 

Stinky tofu - yummm....

 

Sea cucumbers - meh. It's pretty common here at the upscale Cantonese restaurants, so not particularly exotic in the hard-to-find sense. Didn't realize sea cucumbers = sea slugs till I was quite a few yrs older.

 

Korean canned marinated silkworm larvae - it was vile.  Not sure if it was the preparation method or the larvae itself that made it vile.