# Strangest meat you've eaten--poll **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 5, 2006, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457 "2006-09-05T01:10:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/61 "2006-09-05T21:46:50Z")
[QUOTE=qwest] Haven’t had the opportunity to try polar bear yet. I think I might have to give that one a pass. [/QUOTE] Do **NOT** eat Polar bear liver. Toxic. Other that that I have heard it tastes a bit like seal. Seal is pretty fishy IMHO. I have had some strange sushi. Had a survival week, ate bugs, cattails, acorns, etc. One slow stupid rattlesnake- tases like chicken. Tried to “live off the coast” one weekend, ate limpets, small crabs, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/62 "2006-09-05T22:29:01Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] Not that unusual, but shark is very tasty. We had some excellent shark steaks some 20 years ago, had never seen it sold in our midwest grocery before that. [/QUOTE] You just made me remember I ate mako a few years ago. I wasn’t crazy about it. Kind of heavy and flavorless. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/63 "2006-09-05T22:37:18Z")
Leprechaun. Tastes like elf, but gamy. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/64 "2006-09-05T22:39:24Z")
Nothing too exotic fror me either, antelope, alligator, frog, eel (although you can get that at any sushi restuarant. In ,the non-meat category the strangest thing I can think of off the top of my head is [the thousand year old egg](http://ask.yahoo.com/20011114.html). ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/65 "2006-09-05T22:41:56Z")
Wild boar (not too strange but I didnt see it yet) which was AWESOME and moose meat. Pretty tough but the flavor is good. my favorite is raw butterfish, definitely the most incredibly delicious meat on earth. ---
**Author:** ![Lionne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Lionne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionne)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/66 "2006-09-06T01:41:01Z")
Shark and alligator. And rotten-cottage-cheese-raw-eggs also known as Durian fruit. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Il_Palazzo)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/67 "2006-09-06T02:27:58Z")
[QUOTE=Carlyjay] Count me among the boring. The craziest meat I’ve eaten would be crocodile, octopus and bison. Not all at the same time, though. [/QUOTE] Oh yeah. I’ve also had buffalo a couple of times; it’s very good in chili. Still pretty boring, but I figured I might as well share. Oh and my sister (the vegetarian) has eaten horse (since becoming a vegetarian.) That’s something interesting in my immediate family at least. ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/68 "2006-09-06T02:38:48Z")
I’ve been vegetarian for over 15 years. Prior to that (being of squeamish or pedestrian taste depending on your perspective) the “strangest” thing I ever ate was cow tongue at elementary school. It did not, by the way, taste like chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/69 "2006-09-06T02:39:49Z")
Probably the most unusual for me would be alpaca, while in Peru. (Cousin of the llama, except much cuter. Cross a llama with a teddy bear.) It was quite tasty. (Much better than the guinea pig.) We were going to cross over into Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls to a restaurant which has a wide variety of game (I’d heard warthog was excellent and was going to try it), but we’d had enough trouble dealing with corrupt officials at a previous border crossing that we decided to forego it, unfortunately. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/70 "2006-09-06T02:42:38Z")
Let’s see–crisp fried grasshoppery critters, interesting but meh overall. Wild boar sukiyaki, whole octopus on a stick grilled in teriyaki over coals from a pushcart vendor, Hormone (don’t ask me why they call it that, but in Japan that’s chittlins cooked over a tabletop grill), alligator, goat, kangaroo, rabbit, rattlesnake my kids caught and killed, eel, sea turtle (I felt bad since they’re endangered, but I figured it was already dead and I was curious–quite a lot like veal), deer, elk, moose, caribou, haggis (shudder), pigeon a la birdshot, possum, and birds nest soup. I have never been able to get kimchee past my nose. Drank a bizarre Japanese fermented milk beverage called Calpis once–I always figured they asked some GI what he thought it tasted like. Weird meat sources don’t befront me much–it’s all critter, nothing inherently good or bad about any of them, really. Oh, and lieu? That was unkind and now my face and tummy hurt from laughing too hard–Greasy Butthole!? I’ll never be able to go to the zoo again without disgracing myself! ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/71 "2006-09-06T03:02:30Z")
[QUOTE=DMark] My mother, back in the days that you bought Coke in a bottle in a movie theater, was on a date with my father. She took a drink and it tasted odd. She held the bottle to the light and saw a dead mouse in the bottle…mom was always squeamish about mice after that. [/QUOTE] Uh, I think I’d be squeamish about Cooke after that, actually. Once I heard the story of a baby mouse in a can of V8 and that put me off it for a decade. I’ve had whale, raw. I understand that once it’s cooked it’s leather. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/72 "2006-09-06T04:18:38Z")
[QUOTE=SmartAleq] Wild boar sukiyaki…Drank a bizarre Japanese fermented milk beverage called Calpis once [/QUOTE] Me too on both of those. I like Calpis. I think it is made from yogurt. ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/73 "2006-09-06T11:05:09Z")
I’ve eaten a lot of the standard-type “somewhat-exotic-but-not-really-out-there” meats mentioned upthread, such as alligator, emu, ostrich, elk, venison, pheasant, duck feet, and the testicles of various animals. My dinner-party repertoire includes snails, frogs’ legs, baby octopus, and baby squid cooked in its own ink (_“chipirones en su tinta”_). Nothing too unusual in the above, but since the OP also asked for entries from the vegetable kingdom and there haven’t been too many submissions from that side of the fence, I’ll add [huitlacoche](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_smut), aka “corn smut”. The name is derived from the [Aztec for “raven’s excrement”](http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-huitlacoche.htm), which gives a pretty good idea of what it looks like. [This guy](http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000344.php) describes trying it, but is obviously not a fan. I rather like the taste and texture, and order it whenever I see it on the menu – usually at [Fiesta Tepa-Suhuayo](http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/10.29.03/dining-0344.html), an unassuming hole-in-the-wall in Watsonville, California (in the Salinas Valley, i.e. Steinbeck country, and with an overwhelmingly latino population). I was there just last week, and had their shrimp in rose-petal sauce with cactus fruit and almonds, with an order of _huitlacoche_ on the side. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/74 "2006-09-06T12:55:25Z")
Mine are wild compared to most of my friends, but pretty pedestrian amongst you lot (but hey, thay’s why you’re dopers): - snake (it does in fact taste like chicken, and bland chicken at that) - shots of snake’s blood (same snake) and rice spirit (unusual but okay) - kangaroo tail (I shot the 'roo myself) (delicious) - balut (unhatched duckling), very nice indeed. - kangaroo burgers (gamey, and gave me food poisoning) - pigs’ intestines (meh) - various species’ tripe (fantastic) - black pudding (I don’t like the texture) - most of the different types of offal (I loved the stuff, especially lamb’s livers) - rabbit that I shot myself (tasty) - pigeon (not bad) - probably lots of other stuff in HK, Thailand, and Vietnam, and in Asian restaurants here, as ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/75 "2006-09-06T13:13:56Z")
I’ve had the usual assortment of gator, boar, moose, etc. But I also killed and ate a chipmunk once. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/76 "2006-09-06T13:25:06Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] And the most vile thing I’ve ever eaten: haggis. [/QUOTE] Nothing better than a good haggis. Nothing worse than a bad one. I’ve had some very good haggis in Scotland, and a friend of mine who has a butcher shop makes wonderful haggis right here in the U.S. of A. I’ve also had: MAMMALS: - Zebra (quite good) - Various wild game (bison, elk, pronghorn, deer…) - Rabbit - Wild boar - Goat (frequently–I love Indian food) REPTILES: - Rattlesnake prepared several ways - Turtle - Alligator (barbequed and in various Cajun dishes) - Nope, no tuatara. Hmmm. BIRDS: - Ostrich - Pheasant - Baby pigeon INSECTS: - Grasshoppers (on a cub scout campout) - Chocolate-covered ants OTHER: - Sea urchin (grotesque. horrid. ugh) - Many varieties of squid & octopus - Escargot I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten–intentionally or otherwise ---
**Author:** ![SeaDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SeaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDog)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/77 "2006-09-06T13:32:31Z")
Porcupine in the Congo, it was very very bad. On a personal note… How can anyone not like haggis…Food of the Gods! ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/78 "2006-09-06T14:08:30Z")
[QUOTE=MrFantsyPants] Pan-fried darkling beetle grubs taste surprisingly like hickory sticks. [/QUOTE] Why in the hell would anyone eat hickory sticks? I’d prefer pan-fried beetle grubs. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/79 "2006-09-06T14:15:06Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] Leprechaun. Tastes like elf, but gamy. [/QUOTE] (Gasp!) You…you…monster! There used to be a place out in Chicago’s western suburbs called Czymer’s Market that sold all sorts of odd stuff (my mom bought lion jerky once. Tasted like rotten raw bacon). The guy that ran it got super busted for trading in endangered species so I think it’s closed now. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457/80 "2006-09-06T14:18:46Z")
[QUOTE=Antonius Block] I’ll add [huitlacoche](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_smut), aka “corn smut”. The name is derived from the [Aztec for “raven’s excrement”](http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-huitlacoche.htm), which gives a pretty good idea of what it looks like. [/QUOTE] Congratulations, **Tony**. You’ve just discovered a name for bird shit that’s EVEN MORE unappetizing than “bird shit.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-meat-youve-eaten-poll/371457.md?page=5)