Something that was never intended to be eaten or drunk
Something intended to be eaten or drunk
The first time I tried umeboshi my face puckered like a cat’s ass with a chill stuck up it. It’s the most unpleasantly sour thing I’ve ever experienced. However, that pales into insignificance compared to the hundred year egg I tried in Hong Kong. Holy shit that stuff is rank.
Why? Why?!?! Sometimes they use horse piss to accelerate the process too. I mean, I know that blue cheese is pretty disgusting to most Asians, and with good reason, but nothing on earth compares to this horror. Look at the picture and try not to barf. It repeated on me for days, and the taste and smell haunted me for years.
Something that was never intended to be eaten or drunk
Something many people have experienced, no doubt. I was at a party. I put my hand grabbed my beer, raised the can to my mouth and took a huge swig. It wasn’t my beer. I had taken a huge swig of sludge made from warm beer, ash, and cigarette butts. I barfed into my mouth right there and then, ran to the kitchen, spat out the butts, and rinsed my mouth out for ages under the faucet, then barfed into the sink. I wasn’t the hit of the evening. I drank more beer to take away the taste but it reminded me of the corruption I’d just ingested. I was burping it up the next day. I still inadvertently have a vivid reminder of the taste when I recall the incident, more than twenty years later. It changed my behaviour too: now I always crush cans when I’ve finished with them, and always shake them before I swig if I’m at a party.
The answer to both of those questions is the Vietnamese snake wine I drank because it was something to do. I’m pretty sure there was no actual wine involved, and that I was just drinking formaldehyde with a snake inside, but we drank it just to say we did it.
I still have the bottle. Here’s a close up of the cobra with the scorpion in its mouth. The bottle is now empty. I don’t know who drank the rest of it, because it sure as hell wasn’t me.
“Hákarl or kæstur hákarl (HOW-kardle) (Icelandic for “fermented shark”) is a food from Iceland. It is a Greenland or basking shark which has been cured with a particular fermentation process and hung to dry for 4-5 months. Hákarl has a very particular ammonia-rich smell and fishy taste, similar to Jewish deli whitefish or very strong cheese. It is an acquired taste and many Icelanders never eat it.”
“Acquired taste” doesn’t even BEGIN to describe it. The “very particular” smell is not ammonia-rich: It smells of pure ammonia, period. Smells like ammonia, tastes like ammonia, and the only way to rid your tongue from the taste is to blast your brain into smithereens by means of copious consumption of strong booze.
I don’t know whether hakarl is an excuse to indulge in getting drunk like a skunk, or whether it is actually some kind of joke food to foist on unsuspecting foreigners as some kind of elaborate prank. I strongly suspect the latter.
2. Something that was not intended to be eaten or drunk:
During High School chemistry lab class, I was pipetting sulphuric acid for an experiment. Suffice it to say, I won’t be using my mouth again to pipette things. Fortunately, there was only one drop or two. But it was more than enough.
The ex-wife, expert on all things Icelandic and old, claimed that hakarl was invented because fresh shark was poisonous, but burying it for six months neutralized the poison. Left unanswered were the questions of 1) who decided “well, when Thorkell and Bjorn ate the shark they died, let’s try burying it in the ground for six months and see if that helps”, 2) who was the first guy to try to eat the shark after it was dug up, and 3) why they didn’t just, you know, NOT TRY TO EAT THE SHARK period.
My two entries in this campaign:
Some “atomic sour hot” candy that a place in Pennsylvania’s snack food world was trying to market. I can’t even remember what they wanted to call it, or what company it was (it might have been Just Born, but I don’t want to libel them if it wasn’t). It tasted like somebody punched you in the mouth, then peed in it. It never made it to stores.
Clotted cream. “But you’re supposed to eat that”, you say. Oh, but this clotted cream had an cunning helping of blue mold on the bottom that hid there until I’d eaten most of the pot. Worst of all, this was on an airplane…I wasn’t close to dying, but I wanted to.
I forget who told the story of when, in a newborn-induced haze, he noticed some stone-ground mustard clinging to the back of his hand. It was only after he’d begun to lick it off that he remembered he didn’t recently make a sandwich — and had, recently, changed a diaper.
Another vote for Hundred Year Old Egg.
One of my former colleagues was from China and he insisted upon sharing this ummm… delicacy with us at a party.
I have been violently ill at parties before, way back in grad school, but that was expected considering the hedonistic environment. This was the first time I have ever been really really sick from merely eating a small bite of anything.
Worst that was meant to be eaten: the jelly-like pulp that comes out of a coconut when you drink coconut water. My husband loves it. I think it’s like raw oysters only 100 times more disgusting.
Worst thing that was never meant to be eaten: poop. My son ran into our room one day when he was about 2. He was already in pull ups. From the side of the bed, I gave him a big, smacking kiss. Hmmm, I thought. He smells really bad. But I instantly forget that when he asks for milk because I’m still half asleep and still in reaction-only mode. So we head to the kitchen and he wants up for more kisses. So, still bleary-eyed, I kiss him all over, then realize there’s a little something on the corner of my mouth. I lick it off. It tastes like poop smells. I sniff him again, then set him down in a chair and really look at him. He has a big smear of crap on the side of his face. Apparently he’d pooped in his pull up, stuck his hand down the back to scratch his butt and subsequently wiped his face.
Jjim, I your wiki link says that the horse piss part is a myth.
I once took a sip of piss.
I was in my big sister’s bedroom when we were kids. Well, I was a kid, she was like 17 or 18.
I saw a bottle of Mello Yello on her window seal, and I grabbed it and sipped it. She screamed, “Nooo!” but it was too late. The warm salty liquid was already in my mouth. Turns out, she had sneaked her boyfriend in overnight and he peed in a bottle so as not to wake my parents by sneaking to the bathroom.
That taste was nothing compared to when I was 13 and my best friend gave me 5dollars to try just one bite of chitterlings. I put that awfulness in my mouth, tried to bite down once, and spit it out. Had to give her the money back.
I did a variant of this, but not quite as gross - I was feeding Attacklad, and afterward I wiped off a bit of pea mush from his cheek with my finger and popped it into my mouth.
I too have known the horror of swigging from a warm beer filled with ash and cigarette-butts, jjimm. I had the same reaction: immediate vomitting and a lingering taste whenever I burped the next day. I still feel sick thinking about it.
My brother once tricked me into eating a Markies dog biscuit. They’re made from marrowbone and wholegrain cereal. Ick.
Another vote for lutefisk. Had some up in Minnesota while visiting my grandparents. I noticed the elderly seemed to love it. I could barely keep it down.
Skoal spit. I had a roommate that had a habit of spitting in empty soda cans. One day I was home from work with the flu, so I was napping on the couch watching movies with a 103 degree fever. I was drinking a Coke, which I’d poured into a glass of ice. A bit later I refilled my glass with what I thought was my Coke, but turns out, it wasn’t. I took a big gulp and immediately noticed the taste was a bit…off. For about thirty seconds, and in a fever-induced haze, I smacked my lips trying to figure out what that taste was. smacksmack Hmmmm. What is that? Sip!smacksmack It kinda tastes like…Sip!smacksmack gum? No. Sip!smacksmack Ah, I got it! It’s…wintergreen. Then I realize what I’d done. I throw the blanket off, jump up from the couch, and don’t make it to the bathroom.
That was about 15 years ago. To this day I can’t smell anything wintergreen (tobacco products, gum, mints) withouth my stomach balling up.
