Weird Food

In My Humble Opinion
1

The discussion on cheese http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=101764 makes me wonder what other culturally disgusting foods there are. I mean foods that are totally normal in one culture, and just too disgustingly weird to ever catch on somewhere else.

Personal example: my family (U.S.) was visited by a Brazilian couple a few years back at Thanksgiving time. Naturally, we served a pumpkin pie. They expressed a kind of appalled fascination - “You actually eat a pie made of squash? And you put whipped cream on top of it?”. At dinner time they took very small bites and assured us it was delicious. :slight_smile:

Other examples?

2

Well, my great-uncle was a fairly high-ranking officer in the Army and assured me that when he once traveled to Africa, he was presented with an uncooked goat eyeball as a special dish. He did eat it, but said he had to not think about it the whole time!

There are certain foods people here eat that I would never think of touching—sauerkraut and chitlings spring immediately to mind.

3

I had some weird experiences when I went abroad (to Germany) as part of a student exchange. No, not the months-long exchange, a three-week exchange, but I did stay with a German family all by my lonesome. Anyhoo, some of the things I thought were really weird I’ve gotten a taste for now. One of the things was Nutella (they offer me this strange brown paste to put on bread, and they expect me to try it? Nuh uh!), that chocolate hazelnut spread.

Another time, I was eating this cereal (German equivalent of those sugar puffs that has the cartoon bear), and my German mother offers me this stuff that looks like Nestle Qwik. I say ok, why not, thinking I’m going to get it in milk. No. She dumps a whole bunch in my cereal. (I tried very hard to pretend like I expected it.)

Another time, they offer me this dish that looked like pasta, but turned out to be squash innards or something with spaghetti sauce, with a hard boiled egg hidden in the middle. (You can probably find similar stuff in the US, but keep in mind I had never eaten squash. I eat squash occasionally now, but my mom never made it when we were kids.)

As for the Germans in America, I mostly remember the things they were surprised by but ended up liking a lot. They don’t have Oreos in Germany (at least, not in their region), so they took a bunch of them home. Another big thing was chocolate chips and big jumbo muffins (and, of course, big jumbo chocolate chip muffins). They were pretty mystified by chocolate chips. So much for Germany being “the land of chocolate” scoff!

Another thing, a bit off topic, was that I brought some Native American gifts (blankets, dream catchers) and they were completely aghast with awe. The whole concept of Native Americans is completely exotic and intriguing to all of the Germans I met.

4

On a related international food thing—one of my Peace Corps friends was in Nepal for his tour of duty and said that to them, Jelly Belly brand jellybeans were fascinating since they tasted like so many different things.

5

I think the topic header is a little misleading, but we’re circling around it!

What I’m really wondering about is “normal” food to one group of people that is just completely out of the question to another. So, not just stuff that you consider disgusting, or that you like, but your brother considers disgusting, and not food that you had never had before, but really wasn’t all that bad once you tried it.

I mean food that you just don’t even want to think about, that is typical fare somewhere. Chitlings works for me. Outside of the US South I think it’s pretty generally considered disgusting, but it’s nice hometown cooking there. In Ecuador (maybe other Latin American countries too?) you can get a nice bowl of pigskin soup at just about any restaurant in Quito or Guayaquil. I’ve had it - once - and to this day it’s the quickest way I know of to gross out my US friends.

6

Yeesh. Don’t forget haggis.

7

Actually I’m not disgusted by most of this stuff, but I bet a lot of Americans are:

[li] A lot of Americans dislike bean curd, and they haven’t even tried fermented “stinky” bean curd that the Chinese eat. It stinks, all right. Of course, so do lots of stinky European cheeses; I’ve heard of the French & Italians eating some kinds after they get maggoty. (The bean curd is not maggoty.)[/li]
[li] The Chinese & Japanese both eat seaweed, which I guess is supposed to be icky. They also eat fresh water eel & sea eel. Is that disgusting?[/li]
[li] I suppose jellyfish & sea cucumber seem pretty icky to Americans. Sea cucumber or sea slug is kind of rubbery, while jellyfish is rubbery & crunchy all the time.[/li]
[li] “1000-year-old” eggs, actually a preserved duck egg, but the half-runny yolk has turned greenish gray.[/li]
[li] The Chinese often serve fish whole, and the head is considered quite desirable. Often when chicken is served, the head is on the plate. Our Chinese friends were talking about the time somebody ordered a kind of “soft shell” turtle they hadn’t eaten before, but they thought it was disgusting when it was served just cut into pieces. They wouldn’t have minded with chicken.[/li]
[li] I read about people on the train in India eating roast birds (sparrows?)–you crunch up the whole thing, bones & all.[/li]
[li] And what is it they eat in the Philippines? Some kind of bird embryo?[/li][/list]
But what about “normal” American food that foreigners can’t stand?
BTW I love Nutella.

8

Ummm. . . Poll

Off to IMHO

DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator

9

Vegemite comes to mind. I was introduced to this my a friend’s mother. She was Australian, and apparently this stuff (some sort of brown yeast product) is widely known and eaten down under. It smells awful, but there it is. An entire nation eats it.

10

Oh good. I had something frivolous to say on this subject, but didn’t want to post it in GQ. Now I will…

Nutella is yummy! My half-German girlfriend introduced me to it. It’s really good on toast. However…

(TMI follows)

…we also did a little “experiment” wherein she applied it to, shall we say, a non-food item…and proceeded to lick it off. Now, while this was a great idea in theory, it didn’t work out too well in practice. Nuttella is just a bit too thick and sticky for, ah, personal applications. Just trust me on this one.

11

how about eating horse, dog, mouse…?
raw fish, sushi
insects

12

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by phartizan *
Actually I’m not disgusted by most of this stuff, but I bet a lot of Americans are:

[li] A lot of Americans dislike bean curd, and they haven’t even tried fermented “stinky” bean curd that the Chinese eat. It stinks, all right. Of course, so do lots of stinky European cheeses; I’ve heard of the French & Italians eating some kinds after they get maggoty. (The bean curd is not maggoty.)[/li][/QUOTE]

While I enjoy tofu, there was this bean curd in Taiwan called cho-dofu. Perhaps this is the fermented curd you speak of. To me, it smelled like a full diaper.

[QUOTE]
[li] The Chinese & Japanese both eat seaweed, which I guess is supposed to be icky. They also eat fresh water eel & sea eel. Is that disgusting?[/li][/QUOTE]
Being half Danish I have grown up eating smoked eel and love it. Since I was exposed to seaweed as a teenager it is also no problem.

[QUOTE]
[li] I suppose jellyfish & sea cucumber seem pretty icky to Americans. Sea cucumber or sea slug is kind of rubbery, while jellyfish is rubbery & crunchy all the time.[/li][/QUOTE]
Once you get used to them, it’s nothing more than a dense seafood flavored gelatin-like substance.

[QUOTE]
[li] “1000-year-old” eggs, actually a preserved duck egg, but the half-runny yolk has turned greenish gray.[/li][/QUOTE]
These I also tried in Taiwan. Despite their appearance the flavor was excellent and incredibly delicate. There was no sulphurous or off odor to them and the texture was very creamy. Much like a soft-boiled egg.

[QUOTE]
[li] The Chinese often serve fish whole, and the head is considered quite desirable…[/li][/QUOTE]
The “cheeks” and “collar” (around the neck) of a fish are two of the most tender cuts. Ask your fishmonger to cut you some salmon cheeks sometime and you will see.

[QUOTE]
[li] And what is it they eat in the Philippines? Some kind of bird embryo?[/li][/QUOTE]
Known as Balut, this is one dish I will probably never try. Supposedly, the crunchy bit of beak on the unformed duck embryo is delectable. <insert hurling noises here>

13

Nuc mom…

Nuff said.

14

sanguinaccio - Italian blood sausage or pig’s blood candy.

czernina - Polish duck’s blood soup.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=514063#post514063

15

booklover, your great uncle fell for the old African Eyeball Trick. Originating as a trader’s ploy to test the gullibility of a foreigner, it has degenerated into a common practical joke. Those ignorant Americans seem to eat it up just about every time, much to the amusement of their African hosts. Of course, dignity is maintained during the event…but for weeks afterward, the tale is told again and again, with increasing hilarity, the participants writhing in uncontrollable laughter, tears of hysteria streaming down their cheeks as they recount the look on the victim’s face as he actually eats the wretched thing–and–(can you believe it?) tries to act like everything’s hunky-dory!

Ever eaten tongue? I have and it’s okay. But right now I’m trying to pry my own tongue out of my cheek.

Speaking of cheek (and I’m being serious now), the “cheek” is indeed a tasty morsel from salmon and trout. Especially smoked.

And for anyone who expresses disgust at the thought of eating eyeballs, brains, lips, nostrils, tongue, and assorted innards from pigs and cows…have you ever eaten bologna? Or hot dogs? Or sausage?
If so, you’ve eaten anything that can be run through a grinder. So don’t sneer at my souse meat. Or my fried chicken gizzards(I admit they’re kinda chewy) and chicken hearts(firm, but not rubbery). I get special abuse for eating hearts. Why? Think about it: it’s a muscle. So I like dark meat; sue me.

16

Muqtuq (blubber) and kwak (frozen raw meat), whale meat, umingmak (musk-ox)… the list goes on.

Plus, I - uh - ate something weird a couple of weeks ago…

17

Nutella is german? I always thought it was one of those things, like peanut butter, that just is.

And vegemite is foul. Despite the fact that I was born here, I have never developed a taste for it. My brother eats it by the tub though.

I suppose roll-mops count. Pickled herring wrapped around a dill pickle. Yum :). My family loves them, and you get them in jars at the supermarket down the road. But when I was in Regina, Canada (aka, Buttf*ck, Nowhere) one of my teachers passed a plate of them around class once as a genuine Icelandic treat. Most of the class begged off (eww, slimey) leaving me with them all.

Oh, and once when I was in Figi with a bunch on NZ Scouts at a Jamboree, none of them liked coconut. Which left the 5 of us representing PNG (where it’s not really a delecasy) with about 30 coconuts to share.

18

I gather from your answer that you are in Australia, and I had no idea roll mop herrings were common there. Anywho, a friend of mine in high school was of Greenlandic decent and introduced me to roll-mops. We bought them in jars at the local grocery store in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and they were quite easy to find and relatively cheap. I’m not really surprised kids wouldn’t eat them though, kids won’t eat broccoli. But you could hardly say that broccoli is unheard of or hard to get. I won’t even start on the Buttf*ck, Nowhere concept.

19

Oh come on, you’re on Saskatoon. Everyone I knew in Regina went there whenever they could!

20

There are quite a few here in Japan. Sea urchins and sea cucumbers are both eaten raw - I think they are great but they are probably acquired tastes. We also eat inago, a kind of grasshopper, boiled in soy sauce and sugar - well some people do anyway, it’s a bit hard to find. There are also various tiny fish which are cooked and eaten whole. Eating a live whole fish is pretty rare - I’ve only seen it on TV - but many restaurants will serve raw fish or crawfish acompanied by a still twitching head+skeleton to show how fresh it is. I’m OK with twitching fish heads but I still find it very disturbing to have an enormous crawfish wave its antenna at you while you eat its flesh. Probably the most disgusting to foreigners is natto - fermented soy beans. They are slimy and smelly. There’s also horse and whale meat which must be a repulsive idea to most Americans - I’ve had both and if you didn’t know what they were, they are perfectly normal meat.

Have you lost your appetite yet?