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.
You just made me remember I ate mako a few years ago. I wasn’t crazy about it. Kind of heavy and flavorless.
Leprechaun.
Tastes like elf, but gamy.
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.
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.
Shark and alligator. And rotten-cottage-cheese-raw-eggs also known as Durian fruit.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Me too on both of those. I like Calpis. I think it is made from yogurt.
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, aka “corn smut”. The name is derived from the Aztec for “raven’s excrement”, which gives a pretty good idea of what it looks like. This guy 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, 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.
Mine are wild compared to most of my friends, but pretty pedestrian amongst you lot (but hey, thay’s why you’re dopers):
I’ve had the usual assortment of gator, boar, moose, etc. But I also killed and ate a chipmunk once.
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:
REPTILES:
BIRDS:
INSECTS:
OTHER:
I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten–intentionally or otherwise
Porcupine in the Congo, it was very very bad.
On a personal note… How can anyone not like haggis…Food of the Gods!
Why in the hell would anyone eat hickory sticks? I’d prefer pan-fried beetle grubs.
(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.
Congratulations, Tony. You’ve just discovered a name for bird shit that’s EVEN MORE unappetizing than “bird shit.”