Wackiest thing you've ever eaten

[Stephanie Wallace]

In high school I convinced a friend (and myself) that the only way to fully understand good food and flavor was to understand terrible food and flavor. We would get together and mix random crap from his mother's pantry, then try to hold down the vomit for as long as possible. Peanutbutter, soy sauce and crystal light powder are a pretty foul combination.

[EdS]

Head down to Buenos Aires and eat like a gaucho. Order the parrillada mixta. Besides the parts of a cow you are likely used to eating you will get this...

udder

lower intestines

kidneys

heart

sweetbreads

I went with a friend who doesn't speak Spanish. He couldn't read the menu. Being the good friend that I am, I didn't tell him anything other than that the meat might taste different because it's grain-fed down there . Well, he has a master's in biology and you should have seen him picking away at his plate trying to figure out what he was eating. The udder stumped him. I must say, it was tasty.

[bentherebfor]

I hate to say it folks, but after watching this video, I have to say that Anthony Bourdain has us all beat.

[djbeers]

I remember watching that show when Bourdain ate the cobra heart. It sure beat my unusual eats, which are bested by many in this thread and mine aren't really that strange to begin with: chicken feet and balut - both of which I ate with some regularity (ha ha) in the Philippines when I was stationed there in the 70's.

Tossing down some White Castle whiskey with the balut helped immensely.

[Jambalyle]

Guess I'll add my two cents...

While living in Alaska I ate many types of wild game... caribou, reindeer, sheep, bear, moose, elk, etc. all were good and not out of the ordinary (in Alaska anyway). Reindeer sausage and eggs became a traditional Christmas breakfast... though garnished with a marischino cherry, "rudolph and eggs" brought out my somewhat twisted sense of humor and traumatized several younger children.

However, while out on the Pribilof Islands, I had the "pleasure" of eating fur seal chili and a hardboiled seagull egg. The seal tasted like "chili" with a bit of fishy aftertaste, but with enough beer it was edible.

The seagull egg was the size of a army grenade and the same color. The white of the egg was opaque and the small yolk was creamsicle color. With salt and pepper it initially tasted like a hardboiled chicken egg, but then the buggy, fishy, landfill flavor took over. Just think about what those flying rats eat...

No amount of beer could get me to take another bite.

[SuzySushi]

I must admit the weirdest thing I've ever eaten was Cricket Cookies, brought to a party a couple of weeks ago by a woman who is an entomologist. They tasted like oatmeal raisin...

She also brought stir-fried mealworms, which reminded me of eating the crunchy fried legs of tiny crabs or the fried heads of ama-ebi in sushi bars.

Other weird foods that have crossed my path:

Lion, hippopotamus, and giraffe, served at a "big game" menu at a NYC restaurant.

Alligator, Cajun style ("tastes like chicken").

Ducks' tongues, in a Chinese restaurant. Gristly.

Ba-sashi, horse meat sashimi, yup, served raw. A specialty of Hokkaido, Japan.

Various fish innards that I don't even know the names for, also in Japan.

Chocolate-covered ants, a novelty, tasted when I was a child. They tasted like raisins, too.

[Mooshmouse]

Chocolate-covered ants, a novelty, tasted when I was a child. They tasted like raisins, too.

←

Raisins, really? I also tried them when I was in grade school and thought they tasted like chocolate-covered Rice Krispies. It was probably the crunch factor.

[SuzySushi]

Chocolate-covered ants, a novelty, tasted when I was a child. They tasted like raisins, too.

←

Raisins, really? I also tried them when I was in grade school and thought they tasted like chocolate-covered Rice Krispies. It was probably the crunch factor.

←

You didn't happen to have Mrs. Dinofsky as a teacher, did you?

[Mooshmouse]

You didn't happen to have Mrs. Dinofsky as a teacher, did you? 

←

Actually, Mrs. Kurdziel was my fourth-grade teacher, one of the best teachers I've ever had. She brought in chocolate-covered ants and grasshoppers for us to try one day, and even brought a dogfish to class when we were studying cultural aspects of Canadian aboriginal people.

I can only hope that my son will be fortunate enough to have such adventurous teachers guide his educational career.

[SuzySushi]

You didn't happen to have Mrs. Dinofsky as a teacher, did you? 

←

Actually, Mrs. Kurdziel was my fourth-grade teacher, one of the best teachers I've ever had. She brought in chocolate-covered ants and grasshoppers for us to try one day, and even brought a dogfish to class when we were studying cultural aspects of Canadian aboriginal people.

I can only hope that my son will be fortunate enough to have such adventurous teachers guide his educational career.

←

Mrs. Dinofsky was my third-grade teacher. She's the one who brought in the chocolate-covered ants to try, described her adventures eating rattlesnake steak in the Southwest ("tastes like chicken"), and introduced us -- well, me, anyway -- to the joys of eating raw cauliflower and broccoli! (Before that, I'd only tasted the overcooked mush my mother made.)

[emmapeel]

In Australia at the Red Ochre Grill, I ate Kangaroo, Emu and Crocodile. All were done in pates and tasted like any complex pate. So overall , it wasn't very exciting, just delicious.

[NimaCooks]

A few years back, I was at a potluck lunch at a hunting lodge with my uncle. I was enjoying what I thought to be the best BBQ beef sandwich I'd ever had. I later found out it was BBQ raccoon and squirrel meat. mmmm... roadkill(ha, just kidding) My uncle's friend who had invited us to his lodge had hunted them and his wife prepped it. It was delicious, but I made sure to ask about the other dishes before trying any.

[Darcie B]

I've done all poultry and some beef/pork innards, head cheese (don't even want to know all the parts in that), blood sausage, raw spiced hamburger left to ferment a few days, as well as a few bugs. Nothing live that I can recall, though.

The wackiest thing I can recall eating, though, is rocks, i.e. pebbles, gravel. A bully in the 2nd grade made me eat them or she (she was very big, I tell ya!) was going to beat me up. I probably ate a few teaspoons or even tablespoonsful of rocks.

Not very taste but fortunately I don't recall any ill effect later.

Revenge? She grew up to be fat, pimply, ugly, mean, clumsy and unhappy (well I don't know for sure about unhappy but the rest is true). I grew up to be valedictorian of my class and co-captain of the girls' basketball team. Nyah nyah.

[reverendtmac]

I quote my little brother's email from this morning; he's been in Japan for all of four days and turned into fucking Bourdain.

"And I recommend the horse sashimi. They were out of fermented squid guts. The raw octopus in wasabi sauce made my mouth swell up. But it was all good, dammit. The street food was good, too. I had cow tongue, grilled with a sweet bbq sauce. It was a bit too thick, I think, so it was tough, but the Japanese seem to be big on that. They love their chicken grissle. I had that, too, and it was good, but not as good as the tongue."

He then went on to discuss the merits of buying hooch from vending machines and getting intoxicated in public.

I'm really not sure how I could be prouder of him

(he also has to bring me a fifth of Suntory when he comes home or I'm gonna send the email to mom)

[Spinner]

Im bringing this thread back to life..

Weirdest thing I ever ate?

Deer heart 45 seconds after I shot it. I may as well have ate a block of soft iron. VILE. My father is very good with a knife..and very stupid when it comes to the machoness of hunting. I was 16..what did I know?

Well I knew it tasted like a blood clot..

Edited April 1, 2005 by Spinner (log)

[divalasvegas]

Im bringing this thread back to life..

Weirdest thing I ever ate?

Deer heart 45 seconds after I shot it. I may as well have ate a block of soft iron. VILE. My father is very good with a knife..and very stupid when it comes to the machoness of hunting. I was 16..what did I know?

Well I knew it tasted like a blood clot..

←

Well, I guess this is as good a place to finally delurk as any. I'm a brand new eGulletteer and a little nervous since this is my first post, so bear with me. Most of the oddest things that I can think of are my own creations or just part of what I grew up with:

Some of my creations that I still like

- Sharp Cheddar Cheese and Chocolate Chip Cookie "Sandwich" (I put a slice of sharp cheddar between two chocolate chip cookies

- Same as above, but substitute cream cheese for cheddar cheese

- Potato Chip and Bologna Sandwiches with Mayo; cheese optional on white or potato bread

- Sliced Hot Dogs in Campbell's Alphabet Vegetable Soup

Things I used to like as a kid, but probably or definitely would not like now

- Vienna Sausages -- had an attack of nostalgia one day, went to the grocery store to buy them, and.......................... I couldn't spit it out fast enough

- Canned pasta - Chef Boyardee, etc.

- Raw Butter

- Raw Breakfast Sausage

Things I used to like as a kid and probably or definitely still do

- Pickled Pigs Feet

- Pork Pudding

- Chicken Feet, South Carolina Style

- Chitterlings/Chitlin's and Maws

- Hot Milk with honey, nutmeg and vanilla

- Whip 'n' Chill Dessert Mix

I promise that I actually do have more adult tastes: sushi, foie gras (only recently discovered), Ethiopian food, Middle Eastern food, etc.

That's it for now. Oh, by the way, I will always be eternally grateful to the Washington Post where I first learned about this wonderful forum.

[Hector]

I've once had a kebab made of the opossum rats! you know those three climbing possums that live in australia. It was just meat on a stick without any kind of seasoning....

And it tasted goddamn dirt!!!!! It tasted disgusting and was so stiff it was barely chewable. you need lots of chilli to even get a bite of it.

[lesfen]

Guy I worked with in Cali used to get some kind of carry-out that, if memory serves, consisted of rice, lemon, some kind of green herb, and ants. I tried it because the other girl in our cubicle community was having some kind of annoying screeching fit over it. It was actually pretty good, but I don't think the ants were of any benefit to the dish.

[Culinista]

Let's see, on our recent trip to Japan, we tried a few new dishes:

Snapping turtle hot pot, with a turtle blood aperitif. Very good meat and superb broth, although the blood was unexceptional--just a dark clot floating in reddened rice wine. Drunk more for virility and the macho factor than flavor, I suspect. Probably the most expensive meal per minute we have ever had. The meat was somewhat gelatinous but not at all fishy or reptilian, probably because of the special feed. (At Daiichi, in Kyoto). The bones were very odd, and it was strange not knowing what part you were eating. Some bits looked like eggs in the making.

Whale skin, blubber, and meat in another nabemono hot pot. This we tried despite some moral qualms, and we concluded that this is a taste not worth acquiring. Despite the delicate preparation, the flavor was fatty and unpleasantly strong. We also had fugu before the whale at Kozue in the Tokyo Park Hyatt. The fugu was accompanied by hirezake, a fugu fin toasted in flaming rice wine. In Miyajima we tried kawahagi (leatherfish) a relative of the poison blowfish.

Unfortunately, they were sold out of fugu sperm...

[iheartoffal]

Unfortunately, they were sold out of fugu sperm...

←

That's awful...

[racheld]

Rattlesnake burger.

Plain ants; no chocolate.

Bear potroast.

Pig ears with dumplins.

[Kristian]

As a blast from the past, I come to this thread merely to advertise good old Finnish cuisine: blood pudding and crispy blood pancakes, both with freshly crushed lingonberries.

You cannot find many things to beat those... :)

I believe that I once posted the recipes to this forum as well, but it must have been three or so years ago...

[Hector]

Bloodpudding is great! Blood pancakes too, But I don't get them very often becasue they aren't eaten in my region of sweden, and very few takes the effort to make them. We though make a soup every november the 11th which is thickened by 2 cups (half a liter) of Goose Blood. It's great. We call it "Black Soup"

As a blast from the past, I come to this thread merely to advertise good old Finnish cuisine: blood pudding and crispy blood pancakes, both with freshly crushed lingonberries.

You cannot find many things to beat those... :)

I believe that I once posted the recipes to this forum as well, but it must have been three or so years ago...

←

[dant]

I thought the wackiest food I'd ever seen were the insects for sale in the central market in Bangkok. Water trotters, huge waterbugs (big cockroaches), etc. I sort of dimly remember it now, over 28 years later, but it was a shock to my young system then. No, I didn't eat any of them!!

←

Ah, I wondered what the cockroach like insects in plastic bags were in Tawana, a Thai supermarket in West London on Chepstow Road. What do you do with them?

[curlywurlyfi]

Ah, I wondered what the cockroach like insects in plastic bags were in Tawana, a Thai supermarket in West London on Chepstow Road. What do you do with them?

Welcome, dant! I know that supermarket (it's my local source for green mango) but I've never seen the bags o'bugs...