I didn’t mention rabbit, grouse or pheasant, as they were routine on my childhood table.
Seal, as well as sea ducks, are either fabulous or awful. There is an art to transforming the meat into delicious food. The first step is thorough a bleeding, and after that a complete removal of the fat. Sea ducks I skin, soak in salt water, and braise. Seal gets a good soak too, and a slow simmer skimming off the scum (blood) that rises to the surface. When no more scum rises, remove the meat and toss the water. At this point the meat may be chunked up, browned in a bit of bacon grease and turned into a wonderful soup or stew, or it can be roasted. Very rich, but very good
Venison, moose, and other ruminant types also taste best when taken before they go into rut, and a decent time hanging (in cool weather) goes a long wat in tenderizing the meat.
Dried salmon is good too, dipped in a little oil and salt.
By UK standards, bear salami, horse and frog’s legs might count as strange, but they aren’t really. The salami was from the deli at Helsinki airport, the frog was in a very nice restaurant in south london (tasted like a slighly meaty fish) and the horse was topping on a very nice pizza in Sicily.
Venison, elk, ostrich, boar etc. are pretty much commonplace in restaurants nowadays.
hmm… I have eaten home-made biltong, which was described to me as “game”, and I think it was Eland. Could have been any African game antelope though (I know the people who shot it, so I know it’s nothing rare or too strange).
Other than that:
rabbit, wild boar, ostrich, crocodile, chicken feet, kangaroo, pigeon, duck, pheasant, hare, venison, jellyfish, shark, eel, sea urchin, frogs legs, haggis, various tyoes of offal (tripe, kidney, liver, sweetbreads, pressed ox tongue, brawn, cruibeens, heart, black pudding).
Nothing too outrageous.
I draw the line at veal and horse, although I’ve been offered both, I’m not interested.
While I’ve had my share of things that may be exotic to some people (ostrich can be cheaper than beef here, and mopane worms are a staple in parts of the country), the things I’ve eaten that I’d consider to be most exotic are giraffe and elephant.
No doubt many people eat chicken feet, jellyfish, and sweetbread (which is thyroid as I recall), but they were definitely on the ooggyy side for me…and I will eat just about anything.