Underwhelming "weird" foods

Cafe Society
41

[QUOTE=athelas]
Not terribly exotic, but I was disappointed to find that buffalo tastes exactly the same as beef.
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Probably because farmed buffalo IS beef, pretty much. Wild buffalo has a distinctly gamey flavour (which I love).

My contribution is Grass Jelly (confusingly, labelled Jelly Grass on one part the can and Grass Jelly on another). Deep inky black jelly cubes made by boiling mint in Potassium Carbonate (pure potash, basically), has to be pretty strong or chemical, right? Nope, as bland as anything could possibly be, may as well have been water and gelatin.

42

[QUOTE=Struan]
Haggis has a bad reputation, but many people who try it are surprised to find that it tastes more like a peppery meatloaf than the stunt food of popular legend.
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Haggis is one of only two foods (the other is Limburger cheese) that I had to force myself to swallow one bite, then throw the rest out. And vegetarian haggis is just as bad.

On the other hand . . .

Poi. Tastes like if you mixed mashed potatoes with apple sauce. Not bad at all.
Escargot. I had it with butter and garlic, and it tasted like butter and garlic. But chewey.
Crocodile steak. Tastes kinda like fish, but chewier.
Bees marinated in honey . . . taste like honey.

43

I thought the sea anemone sashimi the sushi chefs called “monkey brains” (circa 1986 - I was a catering worker at a university) was actually pretty good, although intellectually I expected it to be gross.

44

[QUOTE=beowulff]
Poi.
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Yeah, some Pacific Islander friends kept telling me it’s an aquired taste and being a whitie I wouldn’t like it.

Once I finally had some, I thought, “what?” It’s more texture than any particular flavor. My mom’s managed to work up far worse culinary textures than poi.

Buffalo? I had a buffalo burger in Maryland once and it was decidedly gamey. Gamey enough I felt a bit queasy. Not sure why, I’m a relatively adventurous eater, but I just didn’t like it much.

I also agree about tofu always tasting like tofu. It’s not an offensive taste at all, but it certainly never fools me into thinking it’s ever anything but tofu, and I’d rather you just left it out and let me eat the veggies, thanks, Now, if you do want offensive tofu, try having a Tofurkey for thanksgiving. The vegetarian friend who served it eventually went back to eating meat, and I think that Tofurkey was part of the reason why.

45

[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou]
But that’s what spinach and anal sex have in common…
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You sir, get the prize for joke of the day!

As far as weird stuff, the strangest thing I can think of besides octopus sushi and escargo is crow. I had a sample of crow a chef made me once, was ok.

I’m also a Clamato addict. Geez people, it’s less than 1% dehydrated clam broth! What’s the big deal?!?

46

[QUOTE=Mama Zappa]

So as promised: :::rolls up sleeves, clicks, places order::: Soon I’ll be tasting “Zout” (not “Dubbel Zout” which seems to be featured on some websites saying it’s dreadful stuff) as well as Venco Dropmix mixed sweet and salty bits. I’ll report back once I’ve tried them.

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Mmmmm…dubbel zout. I love “droppies”.

47

I ate the infamous fugu in a restaurant in Tokyo in about 1987. I found it tasteless and boring, about like eating octopus tentacle but minus the tingling thrill of mastication. Perhaps if I had died I would have found the experience more noteworthy.

And Flander, I agree: Clamato is surprisingly delicious, like the best tomato juice one ever tasted.

48

[QUOTE=Struan]
Haggis has a bad reputation, but many people who try it are surprised to find that it tastes more like a peppery meatloaf than the stunt food of popular legend.
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The one time I had haggis was at a Scottish festival and it reminded me of hot chopped liver. Not as repulsive as one would think, but it still had a distinctive taste.

49

[QUOTE=Zoggie]
I have to agree. It’s wrong. There are worse things than tofu, but why subject yourself to it? The rancid sponge comparison is spot on.
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There are at least two kinds of soy product and it’s easy to mix them up. Tofu is a neutral tasting, moist block of protein with the consistency of a very large block of cottagecheese. Texturised Soy protein, on the other hand, comes in a dried form. IMHO it resembles dried dog chow when it is dry and pieces of sponge when it is cooked. It has its fans, though.
It sounds like you had the second.

I third the opinions on escargots (French snails). They tasted like the garlic and herb butter they were prepared in, but chewy.

Anchovy may not sound exotic, but when you think about it, it IS fermented (aka rotten) fish. Doesn’t taste bland though.

**Mamma Zappa, **you rock.

50

[QUOTE=lokij]
Durian.
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The one I had stank and was just as frightening and awful as I was told it would be. Never again.

51

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
I tend to like exotic meats and unusual parts of ordinary animals.

I found antelope very very boring and bland. It may not always be so, but I can attest that it certainly can be.
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This falls under Maastricht’s analogy above, I think - what kind of antelope? Where did you have it?

Antelope can range from really melt-in-the-mouth springbok carpachio to lazy-aged fillet of kudu. I must admit, I’ve never had bland antelope, and I eat it regularly - at the least, it’s always gamey/venisonny/dark.

Crocodile is pretty underwhelming in the “tastes like chicken” sense. My wife says elephant is like really tough well-done steak, but that was from a cull so may have been aged specimens.

52

My friend went to Africa and ate 2 things: antelope and crocodile.
She said crocodile tasted something like chicken and was really good, but the villagers put so much seasoning on the antelope that she could barely taste it, and so she didn’t really like it.
I dunno, I would probably just eat the antelope so I could pretend I was a lion while I was eating it.

53

[QUOTE=Moe]
Glad this thread came by, because a few weeks ago I tried a dragon fruit. Now how friggin’ cool does that look??? You’d think it’d be sweet and exotic tasting, no?

Think again. It is just incredibly bland. Not sweet, not sour, not bitter. There’s just nothing there. So I put some sugar and salt on it. It then tasted like sugar and salt.

Looks damn cool though.
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They should rename it the Boschfruit, even if it isn’t found in forests :slight_smile:

54

[QUOTE=Mama Zappa]

So as promised: :::rolls up sleeves, clicks, places order::: Soon I’ll be tasting “Zout” (not “Dubbel Zout” which seems to be featured on some websites saying it’s dreadful stuff) as well as Venco Dropmix mixed sweet and salty bits. I’ll report back once I’ve tried them.

[/QUOTE]

The package arrived today, so I’m reporting back as promised.

First, I tore open the bag of Zout. Popped one diamond-shaped candy in my mouth. Chewed. Nice mouth-feel - not too mushy, not too hard. Taste: Licorice, but not sweet. There was an awareness of slight sweetness but that was overwhelmed by the odd, metallo-salty flavor. None of the swamp-water overtones of the stuff I tried last week. Edible but nothing I’d go out of my way for.

The second piece wasn’t quite as “good”. The metallic taste hit faster and harder. I couldn’t quite place what it reminded me of. Not Lysol, but definitely reminded me of some sort of cleaning product (not that I’ve tasted those, mind you, but I can smell!).

I had a third. It did not improve. A couple hours later, I tried again. Again, the first piece was meh, the second piece was bad, the third was really bad.

As I remarked to Typo Knig: “It tasted like licorice. Overlaid with a hint of, I don’t know… oh: POISON”.

Next, I tried the Dropmix. As far as I can tell, the bag has four different flavors. One shaped like a beehive. One shaped like a coin. One shaped like an animal or car or something. One shaped like a dome. Each tasted similar (except the dome): licorice, with a bit of odd salt (not as much so as the Zout though). Unfortunately, they also had a hint of the swampwater taste I noticed last week. So, I won’t be finishing those. The dome-shaped candies were similar, though they were missing the swampwater taste, just licorice with a bit of metallic salt taste.

So - Having now tried 3 different brands of salty licorice, I think I can safely say I do not like the stuff. Some foods are an acquired taste, but these honesly left such a bad taste in my mouth that I really, really don’t see myself even finishing the stash I’ve got (and, when it comes to candy, I generally will eat things I’m not that fond of - they have to be pretty foul to get me to ignore them completely). But at least I can truthfully say I gave it a fair try.

Things you like that everyone else seems to hate
What are you a "snob" about?
55

[QUOTE=pulykamell]
The eyeballs were crunchy? The eyeballs I had were pretty gelatinous. They basically felt like a soft hunk of fat.
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No, the ears were crunchy. All that cartilage. Ick.

56

[QUOTE=Mama Zappa]
…But at least I can truthfully say I gave it a fair try.
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And so you did! You did order the real stuff, that’s for sure. It’s a pity you didn’t like it, but kudo’s for trying. Now go and arrange a “Dutch drop”-tasting among friends, neighbours and family and be sure to photograph their faces. :slight_smile: