I think the worst thing I’ve ever been served was the boiled limpets my Grandpa cooked while we were camping once. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to cook them, but these things had the texture of elderly used chewing gum, and tasted, more or less, of salt. I’m not sure if I managed to swallow any.
That was all we had for dinner, as he had a somewhat casual attitude to childcare and just assumed we’d be able to forage something at the beach and it would be fun. I think I was about 6.
Driving through some mountain villages in Cambodia, we stopped at a village where the speciality was … tarantulas. The locals raise them and eat them. It was market day, and we walked between stalls heaped high with cooked whole tarantulas.
I did NOT try them.
My wife used to eat tarantulas in Thailand. I asked her how she could eat something like that and she replied “I only eat the dute”.
Dute is the Thai word for butt.
Dennis
The ethnic groceries in my town have stewing hens in the freezer. They look like rubber chickens, but I have always heard that they make the best soup.
Someone on another board told a story about “mud chicken.” S/he had worked at a nursing home or senior center at one time, and an elderly woman told her one early spring that it was “mud chicken” time. What was that, you may ask? When she was growing up, her family tapped maple trees, and when they boiled down the syrup in an outdoor vat, her father and uncles would round up and kill all the no-longer-laying hens, and the kids would roll them around in mud puddles and toss them in the fire under the vat. After about an hour, the men would retrieve the chickens, let them cool for a while, and then crack off the mud, which took all the feathers with it, and everyone who helped with the maple sugar processing, and their kids, would have a delicious chicken feast.
One of my favorite movies is “Babette’s Feast”, and there’s a scene where this kind of thing happens.
She’s a French refugee living in a remote Danish village in 1885, and to celebrate the 100th birthday of the father of the two sisters she works for, she decides to prepare a French feast after winning a 10,000-franc lottery. One of the dishes is quail in pastry, or “Cailles en Sarcophage”, and one of the guests is the relative of a villager who actually knows what this is and how to eat it. This was served with the skinned head, which he crunched into and sucked the brains out. She also prepares real turtle soup.
BTW, the movie is rated G.
On the island I worked on in New Zealand, we once had a visit from a Maori elder, a representative of the original owners of the island. He strolled along the boulder beach and scrounged rock snails which he gathered in a bowl. He then offered them to us for a snack. You were supposed to winkle the snail out of the shell with a straight pin and eat it raw. I felt I had to try some for politeness sake. Now I’ve had scungilli and conch but these were pretty nasty. I think he was amused by watching the pakehas (white folks) try to choke them down. 
Do you like conch? We love it, prepared correctly. Just back from St Martin, where we always have at least one dinner at Yvette’s (best conch on the island). The conch ceviche and the conch and dumplings, with Johnny cakes, rice&peas, and plantains on the side. A cheap dry white and a sparkling water and you’re set.
Oh, now that sounds nice. 
The mom of an ex learned that I happened to like creamed chipped beef on toast. I know it is effectively a very simple recipe, and toast is pretty much automatic [bread, toaster, electricity, time] and normally the recipe for creamed chipped beef is simplicity itself.
She burnt the toast and scraped off the charcoal.
I don’t insist upon a veloute sauce as the base, just a good basic white sauce without the added salt is good, and traditional [but try it with a proper bechamel or veloute, wow] Hers was lumpy with unblended flour lumps, enough pepper to scorch out your nose hairs, she added not just a couple drops of tabasco sauce [which is a valid addition] but easily a tablespoon of the stuff. IT was on its own merits inedible. Then, she did not rinse out the excess salt from the chipped beef and to get fancy she dumped in a can of [drained] peas. I am not certain canned peas is actually a food.
Yikes. I have no idea where or if she used a recipe … even the US military authorised recipe book produces an edible SOS …
<if you want something amazing, veloute sauce, thin sliced bstirma on sourdough texas toast. Wow. ]
I love it, but the operative words are “prepared correctly.” I’ve had great fried conch in the Bahamas. On the other hand, I’ve had a conch stew in Panama that left much to be desired.
Amberlyn Reid’s salmon.
I read today that the probable origin of the latest corona virus in China is the outdoor exotic animal food market in Wuhan. Snakes and/or bats are the suspected vector.
That reminded me of a recent video from a youtube cooking channel that I watch. The channel is Travel Thirsty, which shows videos of cooks in Asia preparing exotic dishes. I watched (and wished I hadn’t) this video of the cutting up and cooking of fruit bats in Thailand.
Gah. I have a pretty strong stomach for watching exotic cookery, but this one is beyond the pale.
Eh, minus the disease problem, I’d try it. It doesn’t look particularly appetizing, but it doesn’t look any worse than a lot of foods we eat.Though, I do have to admit, that whole “screaming” pose they’re in is a bit demonic looking.
Stuffed kishka. What do you think sausages are?
My worst was lutefisk. Preserve fish in lye for a year, then run it under water for a couple days to get rid of the lye (as well as all possible tasted) and then broil it with loads of butter (to give some flavor.
I just wanted to say that if you cook a stew, or a soup for a couple hours in a covered pot it will be sterile. If you take the lid off and take some out, it won’t be sterile but it won’t have many bacteria in it. If you then boil it up before serving again, it will be sterile again. Rinse and repeat. What do you think people did in the days before refrigeration?
While the bacteria may be dead, there are toxins some bacteria produce that are heat-stable and still can get you sick, like staph, for instance.
ETA: Oh, sorry, I should have a cite.
Bats in rigor mortis. It’s what’s for dinner.
We picked up some kidney at a local ranch market, and my wife made kidney soup, which was quite good. Have had steak and kidney pie when my neighbor was a british guy, not so good. The oddest thing I’ve eaten (and I would eat again if I could find it) was what a French restaurant billed as ‘sweetmeats’, which I understand now to be cow thyroid. It was excellent.
You cannot put warm things in the fridge, and a big pot takes forever to cool down. In summer you have a big problem. At other times of year, you can either leave it on the stove if the room is not too hot, or park it outside, after covering it to deter hungry animals.
It depends what is in it. Anything with fish or eggs (no, they are not usual ingredients of a stew): fridge it or bin it. Meat: usually OK overnight, pork is a bit more dodgy. and it is best to heat it to boiling point in the late evening. Anything purely vegetarian lasts longer. So does curry or chllli. However, don’t tempt fate, boil it briefly as soon as possible the next day.
It will keep. Apparently in Africa they have stew pots that have been going for years. So I am told.
The senior Mrs. Ded, now of blessed memory, was a memorable cook. My sisiter gags when she recalls the butter beans we were served. Butter beans are dried broad beans, and seriously dull unless juiced up a bit. They weren’t. What I hated with a passion was rissoles. I don’t know what the official recipe is or was, but to me it seemed to be:
clear out the kitchen and the fridge of whatever had been left over. the past week Mold it into patties. Fry it is some sort of axle grease, albeit of animal origin. Serve.
The one meal that sticks in my memory, and my throat, was at an Indian restaurant in Tokyo. Normally you start a curry by frying the onions and then frying the spices. I got a curry with both onions and spices almost raw. Fer chrissake, at least one of the cooks was Indian.
I ate it, and then wished I hadn’t. For several hours.