This is where I get grumpy.
The internet is full of badly written clickbait informing us of the top 10 or 20 or 100 "grossest foods" in the world. They are nearly all full of innocuous choices and all are stuffed with misinformation. It does NOT take months to make century eggs and they do not stink of ammonia.
Of course, the usual cretins line up to record themselves eating these suggestions of what to avoid. Eating something because it is gross is the very antithesis of everything I think food should be about.
I recently stumbled across possibly the most illiterate garbage I’ve ever read, informing me that a nearby small town is the world centre for just such a food example and that the locals there regularly wolf it down of an evening. I know the town rather well. I have friends who live there. The article was a complete load of nonsense.
The 'writer' claimed that pig’s eyes were being barbecued with chilli and cumin and sold to passing foreign tourists and he did us all the favour of trying one. The problem with that is that the town in question sees a negligible number of foreign tourists. It does see a lot of 90-year-old ex-revolutionaries and students of communism as the town played a small but significant part in Mao’s revolution in 1929. They certainly don’t come looking to chow down on porcine peepers.
So, the question arises – do the Chinese eat pig’s eyes? Not in my experience or in that of anyone I have spoken to. The claim that these are being grilled over charcoal in the streets is a total fabrication. My friends who have lived there all their lives have never seen any such thing.
They have seen eyes on sale in a market, as have I (hence my picture). They were not being sold for human consumption, although no doubt someone tried – probably while filming it for YouTube or reality television. The idiot who ‘wrote’ the article is very light on any detail of what his supposed meal tasted like or what texture it had. I don’t believe he ever ate any such thing.
Sheep’s eyes are eaten in some Arabic countries and in Iceland, but are not regular fare.
Fish eyes are popular in China.
