Bizarre Foods

Balut is considered an aphrodisiac and is supposed to give you stamina ya know.

No I'm never eating it either. My stepmom who is Filipina hasn't eaten it either.

I enjoy watching if only to see how other cultures use ANYTHING and EVERYTHING they have to cook with...

mind you, the recent "penis" restaurant in China was... interesting.

I don't watch television, but I read an article in the paper a couple of weeks ago that discussed the relative merits of different insects. Not that I'm terribly tempted to try any of them.

Lots and lots!

The show you speak of is by Andrew Zimmern, a local guy (Minneapolis). He writes columns about food and restaurants for some regional publications as well.

I have eaten a lot of weird food in my travels. I've even recommended some things to Zimmern. In Israel, there are these restaurants that specialize in grilled meat. No pork, of course, but odd parts of kosher animals. They have 'eggs' (turkey balls) and beef tonsils which sound weird (because most westerners can't think of tonsils without thing 'inflamed'). However the tonsils ROCK! We had them whenever we had the chance.

I did try the Icelantic 'rotted shark' which tastes a lot like Mr. Clean.

He also did a show on Minnesota and I've eaten most of what he ate, except the wild rice dish. (I am terribly allergic to wild rice.)

I try to travel a lot and one of the main reasons for travel is to eat stuff I've never eaten before. You'd be surprised how good a lot of odd sounding, odd looking food can be.

StephanieFox said:

He also did a show on Minnesota and I've eaten most of what he ate, except the wild rice dish. (I am terribly allergic to wild rice.)

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Did he try the lutefisk?

I watched one episode of that and had to turn it off. Sorry. I like my food overly-processed so that I don't recognize what it used to be.

Don't know if Zimmerman had this in China (though he probably did):

Drunken shrimp.

They're served live. As in still moving.

(I drew the line right then and there. I've eaten enough other odd items I figured I had nothing more to prove. )

A friend of mine was in Spain and ordered the evening special in a restaurant without knowing what it was. He was served two immense round objects that he ate with relish. He later found out they were the testicles from the animals that had died during bull fights. This didn't faze him at all, and he said it was the best meal he'd ever eaten.

He went back to the restaurant the following evening and ordered the same dish, only this time, he was served two very small testicles. When he complained, the waiter said, "Sir, the bull does not always lose the contest!"

My sister told me about a delicacy in Okinawa I believe was called KimShe. It's vegetables that are buried underground for several months until they rot, then dug up. I guess the whole village will gather for the treat. I've seen it in stores in glass jars now. I was afraid to try. She said it stunk so bad she couldn't believe they were eating it.

Kerr said:

My sister told me about a delicacy in Okinawa I believe was called KimShe. It's vegetables that are buried underground for several months until they rot, then dug up. I guess the whole village will gather for the treat. I've seen it in stores in glass jars now. I was afraid to try. She said it stunk so bad she couldn't believe they were eating it.

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Kimchi is a Korean dish. Cabbage pounded with hot pepper and, yes, buried underground. It ferments, rather than rots, but I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. It is not among my favorite things.

Kim Chi

Kerr said:

My sister told me about a delicacy in Okinawa I believe was called KimShe. It's vegetables that are buried underground for several months until they rot, then dug up. I guess the whole village will gather for the treat. I've seen it in stores in glass jars now. I was afraid to try. She said it stunk so bad she couldn't believe they were eating it.

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It's just spicy Korean saurkraut. It's no big deal. In this country they don't put it in a hole in the ground. They ferment it in jars.

I love this stuff. I buy it at oriental groceries and at the regular supermarket. If you live in an urban area or anywhere with an Oriental grocery, you should have now trouble finding it.

Kimchi - spicy pickled cabbage. Good stuff.

I've always wondered about haggis, myself; then someone said it was essentially like a huge sausage, but stuffed with grain rather than meat.

Then of course there's pig intestines stuffed with chopped pig...

A paste made of pounded grains and unicellular fungi, cooked until it's dry and swollen, then sliced up and smeared with the fatty extract of bovine mammary fluid.

slcboston said:

Don't know if Zimmerman had this in China (though he probably did):

Drunken shrimp.

They're served live. As in still moving.

(I drew the line right then and there. I've eaten enough other odd items I figured I had nothing more to prove. )

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I thought they were *cooked* alive, but were dead when served.

A colleague and I in Asia once took a client out for lunch. My colleague was the one who knew the place and the restaurant, so we left the ordering to him. He particularly liked Drunken Prawns, and it was a speciality of the restaurant.

The waiter brought the dish to us with the prawns alive in it, and opened the cover to show us. Then he set it on a small stove next to our table, covered it and left it to cook. We could hear the prawns moving around for quite a few minutes. All I could hope is that it would be like the boiled frog of the the stories.

Our client ate very little of anything at that meal. She said she was jet-lagged. My colleague seemed to enjoy it.

Yes, Kimchi is Korean. And drunken shrimp is Chinese.

I've eaten all sorts of stuff without knowing what it is. This was by no means the grossest meal, but it's funny. One time I went out with some of my students (in China) and they of course ordered. I was eating some stuff that was like very rubbery seaweed (the kind that's all curled up), but I knew it was an animal product. So I finally asked. My student didn't know the exact words, so he had to think about it for a moment before he perked up and exclaimed, "Bloody tubes!"

I'm wondering if anyone's experimented with Dancing Shrimp...sushi made with shrimp so fresh they're still moving. A Japanese specialty, I think.

StephanieFox said:

It's just spicy Korean saurkraut. It's no big deal. In this country they don't put it in a whole in the ground. They fermite it in jars.

I love this stuff. I buy it at oriental groceries and at the regular supermarket. If you live in an urban area or anywhere with an Oriental grocery, you should have now trouble finding it.

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I think it was originally a way to have vegetables through the winter.

Among the truly bizarre foods are famine foods.

There's a lentil called lathyrus sativus used as famine food in India that causes paralysis. I had a look at the wikipedia entry, and found that it was also known in other countries, including Spain.

And there are the clay biscuits of Haiti, made with clay, butter and salt.

Wow. The things I learn here...


There's all sorts of food eaten here that I would never have thought of eating on my own. The flower from the banana plant and plantain peels would be near the top of that list. Not gross, just not what I would have thought as food.

Oh! Have any of you ever heard of woodapples? Bizarre little fruit. The outside is as hard as wood, round like an orange, and is cracked to get at the fruit inside which I can only describe as resembling rotted apples. I've tried it - I try most things at least once - but it's not something I enjoy. Everyone here, though, seems to like it.

I like weird food...but nothing too outrageous.
When we lived in Germany me and the DH were eating at a little cafe and he ordered the roasted rabbit (YUMMY! I love rabbit).
It was a bit odd looking when he got it, and when he tipped it to the side to cut into it, we realized it was the entire chest cavity, breast meat still attached to the bone, and all the organs still inside. They spilled out over his plate, which was kind of icky. We ate around them . lol.
I went to one restaurant that served all sorts of "exotic" meat. Crocodile, emu...and I *think* kangaroo. Don't remember for certain though. All I know is the crocodile was too salty.
Grew up in Idaho so I ate lots of bear, moose sausage, and rattle snake. And, of course, went to the Eagle, Idaho, Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival. (Rocky Mountain Oysters = bull balls) On fear factor they do all they can to make testicles disgusting, but they are really just like most other meats. You bread them, pan fry, and serve with a drizzle of lemon-garlic butter and just about anything tastes good.

Yeah, it doesn't matter how you word it, you still can't make testicles sounds appealing as a food.

I grew up in western Canada, and elk, moose, deer, caribou, and whatnot were all common enough. Not every day, but a few times a year. My sister lived in the North West Territories for a few years and they regularly ate game meat - much cheaper than beef or chicken shipped in from the south. When I visited her up there, I think we ate caribou close to all the time. It's good.

WittyandorIronic said:

On fear factor they do all they can to make testicles disgusting,....

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Sorry, they don't have to "do" anything to make that disgusting. They're disgusting all on their own.

For disgusting, try 'chinchulines', an Argentinian delicacy. They're some sort of intestine from God knows what animal and they're served wrapped around a stick! One gets the feel (well, actually, the taste!) that they haven't been cleaned .....!!!!! I tried them once, and never again!

I've always wondered about haggis, myself; then someone said it was essentially like a huge sausage, but stuffed with grain rather than meat.

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Meat and barely or oatmeal. It is one of the yummiest things ever, best served with neeps and tatties -- it's a little like spicy sausage.

Barley?

All stuffed in a stomach.

Since we're talking bizarre.

Guinea pig anyone?