Strange foods you've tried, would try, and wouldn't

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I propose labeling your categories. Some “mundane” stuff may be exotic to others, e.g. snails.

Here’s my (pedestrian?) list:

Just last weekend, I went to a Chinese buffet. They had baby octopus. I tried it. I didn’t love it or hate it…just seemed bland.

Long ago, I had barracuda. But it was preserved in salt and that overwhelmed whatever flavor it may have had.

One thing I really liked is the barbacoa I used to get in El Paso. As I understand it, they take the head of the cow and cook it a long time (traditionally in a pit). Then they serve the meat of the cheeks with raw onion and some cilantro on a tortilla. Mmboy! Other places have it but it in a sauce but that overpowers the beefy flavor.

More mundane:

Snails. I like them.

Lengua (beef tongue). Fixed properly, it’s about the most tender meat you’ll ever have.

Goat/Kid: Fixed properly, it’s darn tasty. They used to put it in something called “mutton rolls” with veggies and wrapped in a flatbread when I visited India. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Frogs Legs: Like greasy, dark chicken.

Turtle: not bad. My BiL put it in the smoker and it came out tasting like ham. Not sure I know what it tastes like otherwise.

Still to try: Horse. Also I need to figure out how to eat crayfish. The buffets around here have them a lot.

Don’t think I could eat: Anthony Bourdain went to a place where a chef was cooking for chefs. IIRC they presented him with a whole lamb’s head. He stuck the fork in the eye and…:eek:

I don’t think I could eat a rocky mountain oyster either.

What about you dopers? Ever had pigs’ feet (and if so, where did you buy your shoes)? What dish would you try on a dare? What wouldn’t you have for a million bucks?

2

I’ve had horse sashimi. In Japan (where else?). It was OK. Also chicken sashimi, which was disgusting.

3

What, are the crawfish whole? Eat 'em like teeny lobsters or cook them as you would ugly shrimp. They are yummy.

Rocky Mountain Oysters/Calf fries/bull testicles are iffy. Depending on how they’re prepared, they can be marvelous or vile. My favorite is sliced thin, lightly breaded, deep-fried and dipped in marinara.

As for your poll, I’ll try damn near anything at least once. Maybe not Durian (is that spelled right? I mean the stinky Near East melon.)

The only things I won’t eat (that I can think of off the top of my head) are Bell Peppers because of a weird allergy, Kimchi (I can’t get over the smell) and any variation of hominy (including grits and posole) because it’s yucky. I’m not fond of sushi, but I liked the sashimi I have tried. Beef eyeballs aren’t nearly as yummy as you’d think.:wink:

I don’t think I would be happy about eating a carnivore (like dog) or horse, but I’d try to polite about it.

4

I have eaten dog- it was yucky. Now I understand why we don’t eat carnivores- we taste bad.

My husband loves a great center-cut tongue sandwich, but will only order it at the Stage Deli in Manhattan- they do it better than anyone on the planet.

I will not eat organ meats, eyes, etc- pukey. And no haggis for this bonny lass.

I am squirmy about most things, so I am pretty boring. My almost-7 year old will try ANYTHING, though. And I mean anything.

5

They’re already cooked and served on the buffet, whole. Isn’t there a pinching and sucking maneuver involved?

Yeah, I went to a home once where I was served eggplant. Normally I don’t like the texture at_all, but fixed like that, it was fine.

Wow, hominy…lurvs it. Not grits, but hominy. Fry it up (possibly in bacon grease), add salt/pepper, and mmm. Yellow’s best.

I mentioned horse b/c when I was in France, I heard they like to have it from time to time. Never saw it on the menu though.

6

Which reminds me of a story. My bro was married to a woman whose family came from Cuba. At Christmas, they liked to get a whole pig and roast it. One year they served him some and he tasted it. He said it was usually great, but that year it was terrible. Others tried it, yeah they agreed it tasted bad, and they concluded that the pig had been allowed to breed. Folklore or science I don’t know, but they said that the flavor of the meat changes when the animal begins breeding.

I always wondered why farmers/ranchers bothered to castrate animals. Later, I figured they wanted to be sure no animals were doing any unauthorized breeding so they’d be sure of their pedigree when breeding for desired traits. But maybe this is another reason…?

There’s a great little Tex Mex place near me that does it in a chili colorado. I’ve never had it “un-sauced.”

My sister will fight anybody for the gizzards. She says they’re the bomb and you can get them @KFC et al even if they aren’t on the menu. I need to try those. Liver I’ve had (and foie gras, liverwurst, what have you) and no thanks.

One night on “Win Ben Stein’s Money” the question for the contestant was something like, “Name the event in which Scots throw a large wooden pole.” The guy thought for a minute and said, “The haggis toss?” Hilarity—and, I think, consensus—ensued.

Will eat green eggs and ham? :wink:

7

Pig tails (with the hair still on them) - quite gross.

Musk Ox - really good, like a meatier, more tender venison.

Fried shark - not bad, just tasted like fish.

Can’t think of anything else, but I’m sure there are some more. I have a rule that I’ll try anything once, which has lead to eating some gross things.

8

And here’s a food that’s squirmy for you.

And you’d have to pay me a million just to be in the same room.

9

Yeah, but skip that to start. Just get past looking at the attached head thing first, then work your way up to the pinching and sucking. It’s easier when you can observe the pinch technique. I can’t describe it coherently, mostly because I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. It really isn’t as gross as you’re imagining, it simply doesn’t trip my trigger.

We all have our issues. One of mine is hominy. I hate it, to the point I don’t like traditional Menudo because of it. I like tripe, I’ll eat menudo, mostly to be polite, but I actually* like* it better without the damn hominy/posole.

My advice, if you want it, is to try one bite of anything you’re curious about. If you didn’t like it, try just one more bite of another style of preparation if you get the chance.
ETA-- I don’t eat anything that is still wiggling. Nope, I’m not that adventurous. I’m good with rare, raw, and weird, but the ability to crawl off my plate is a deal breaker. <shudder>

10

They don’t have much flavor at a Chinese buffet. A true crawfish boil involves some Zatarain’s (or other brand) crab and shrimp boil, cayenne, lemons, and salt.

The technique is fairly easy, though. Pull the head off. Peel back one or two “rows” of shell. Pinch the underside of the tail where the body meets the tail and then hold loosely. Put your teeth on the meat, and pull. If not overcooked, the meat will pull out. Then you pick up the head and sorta suck out the juice. Or skip that part - there’s a lot of orange fat and gooshy stuff in there.

If you can’t get the meat out with your teeth, peel the whole shell off. I won’t eat crawfish at a Chinese restaurant because of the pain in the butt factor - very messy. Much better to go to a true crawfish boil, with beer and lots of napkins.

And it’s almost crawfish season down here in Houston! W00t!
ETA: I forgot my likes and dislikes. I’ll try anything once, most things more than once. I like liver. I’d try calf fries, I’ve never had the opportunity. I’ve heard kidneys taste vaguely pissy - but I’d try it. I think I’d have to pass on haggis, but I’d smell it and think about it.

I love most seafood, but not squid and octopus - it’s like eating rubber bands! Maybe I’ve never had them prepared properly.

11

I got a case of food poisoning from some bad pineapple last night, and have spent all day throwing up duck throats. There is nothing that is more like a huge sheet of rubber than a duck throat. It’s really pretty gross, especially the second time around.

Exotic foods I’ve tried includes porcupine (rubbery), viper (yummy, like chicken), termites (like greasy salty snack food), grubs (too covered in hot sauce to taste), giant crickets (yuck), monkey (only ate a bite), rat head (not worth the gross-out factor) and god knows what else.

I couldn’t even tell you the gross parts I’ve eaten. An average day might put me face to face with pig brains, duck intestines, cubes of gelatinized blood, chicken feet, pig faces, huge hunks of fat and skin, etc. Mostly I’ve learned to just think of it all as meat and choke it down with a smile. Personally I really kind of hate meat and I’m a really reluctant carnivore. So dealing with the daily variety meat is always a challenge. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

12

Ah, right even sven: I remember seeing pictures of the stuff they were serving up for the Olympics in Beijing. It started to look like something from “Life of Brian.” What were the vendors selling, otter spleens or something?

13

Quite a few years ago in a beautiful downtown department store they had a display of unique, unusual, and one of a kind Christmas presents. In the ‘food’ part of the display, there were exotic candies, imported foods, and little cans (about the size of tomato paste cans) with rather primitive labels, containing zebra, elephant, or lion meat. I might have considered buying one or two for my dad for Christmas instead of another dumbass tie or bottle of aftershave, but I thought it probably didn’t taste very good…Today, of course, I would faint dead away if I saw such a thing for sale.

I ate alligator once. Not too bad, but wouldn’t do it again.

14

A good dish featuring gizzards is Dirty Rice.

I haven’t tried too many strange foods, Roasted Goat was good but I was starting my second bottle of wine by the time we got to that course so I didn’t taste it as well as I should’ve. Some people find Lobster sashimi weird, it’s one of my favourites.

15

I’ve had tongue (yummy), capybara (delicious, like roast pork), alpaca (very lean and soft), buffalo (ditto, although much drier), guinea pig (allright, not a fan but my family loves it) and beef heart (tasty when barbecued).

I’m curious about snake and frog, and would probably try them.

I can’t bring myself to try baloot, although my Filipina friend swears it’s delicious and I’d love it because I love eggs.

*For those of you hominy lovers, in Peru we eat it for breakfast scrambled with eggs. It’s called mote.

16

I’m a wuss and get squirmy about any organ meat (Western pickiness about protein sources FTW!), but I’ll eat any skeletal muscle with no problem whatsoever. Rattlesnake, goat, whatever, I’ll eat it. I look forward to trying quwi in Peru.

I would probably try heart if I had it from somewhere with a good reputation for it.

17

I tried deep-fried, salted bamboo worms (caterpillars, really) the other week in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They were pretty nice, but didn’t taste like much of anything other than deep-fried and salty (they would be very good with beer). The Thai nickname for them is “rot deuan”-- express train-- because they wriggle so fast when alive. :eek:

There is a guy in our Bangkok neighborhood who has a “bug cart” and sells all sorts of crispy fried insects. I keep meaning to try more, but I keep missing him on the street.

Organ meats I’m a bit squeamish about (but getting over it…tripe in pho has a nice crunchy texture, and foie gras is AWESOME). I have no desire to try something like balut, and although I’m not really squeamish about bird’s nests or shark fin, I wouldn’t eat them for ethical reasons.

18

Mmm, I’ve only had it once but I really like Dirty Rice. My nephew and his wife invited me over for Thanksgiving and she’d made some. I don’t know if she was cooking from scratch or used Zatarain’s. I’ll have to ask.

I’m guessing the goat was good. It’s supposedly tricky to prepare right, but it’s tasty. The Indians are partial to pressure cooking it.

Ah, balut…Anthony Bourdain:

I don’t think I could go there either.

While I’m at it, Bourdain eating a cobra heart.

Buffalo’s good. Lean. IIRC there was talk of crossbreeding buffalo with cattle to form “beefalo.” Then…I heard nothing but I wasn’t listening, especially. Wikipedia sez:

*Creating the Beefalo has however proved to be a serious setback to wild American Bison conservation. The current American Bison population has been growing rapidly and is estimated at 350,000, but this is compared to an estimated 60 to 100 million in the mid-19th century. Most current herds, however, are genetically polluted or partly crossbred with cattle and hence are in fact “beefalo”[5][6][7][8]; *

19

I grew up in a culture that didn’t waste much of anything when it came to food. We ate things like beef heart (tender and tasty when prepared well), tongue (love this stuff), chicken gizzards, livers and feet, pickled pig’s feet, mountain oysters, pig or calf brains, kidneys, tripe and mutton.

Many of the guys in the family also hunted, fished and trapped, contributing things like venison, ground hog, possum, carp (my grandfather used to smoke it), frog legs, crawdads and turtle.

As an adult, I’ve enjoyed kid (great barbequed), elk, moose, buffalo, escargot, squid and rattlesnake. I wouldn’t have issues with insects prepared the right way and I would like to try horsemeat.

I would have issues eating something still living, though. The thought of something still wiggling going down the hatch kind of ooks me out. The only item above that I can honestly say that I have an intense dislike would have to be liver.

Guess that I’m a little on the adventerous side when it comes to vittles. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Chinese will eat just abount anything and i mean anything. More wierd ones are grasshoppers, scorpion, snake, ox penis, organ meat, dog, cat, endangered species, etc.

i deveoped a taste for yak butter tea.