Oh, and cordyceps, a.k.a. zombie caterpillar fungus. It doesn’t have any strong taste, and feels firm and crumbly, like… feta cheese? A bit firmer than that. I didn’t find it that weird, though. Maybe you appreciate foods more if they cost >$10,000 USD per kg. (It’s more like a herb than a main ingredient, you put a few pieces into soup.)
The fungus invades the caterpillar’s body and eventually replaces it. But before that it makes the caterpillar climb a plant before dying. So, the fungus is able to control the host’s actions.
When I was stationed in Seoul, I would go out and try all the street food I could get my hands on, just because. I turned it into a news feature, so I got to eat all this weird stuff for free!
The strangest was Bun-dae-gi, SIlkworm pupae that is kind of sweet/salty depending on the seasoning. Also, fried chicken feet, and dog a couple of times.
In Subic Bay, PI, I had monkey on a stick, but only because I went to the wrong tent. I was looking for pork on a stick. I may have been drinking.
I Sicily I had calamari that had been flash fired, and was still fresh enough to wrap around my tongue. It wans’t alive, but had been fried so quickly that the reflexes were still working.
Herring Milts - sometimes incorrectly called Herring Roe (which would suggest fish eggs and might be vaguely normal), it’s actually the sperm duct of a male herring. Tastes lovely fried in butter on toast - like a fish paté. The wife tried a bit but was NOT impressed. I finished the lot however. In the UK you can pick it up at most fishmongers and sometimes supermarkets at certain times of year.
… I’ve lived a bit of a sheltered life, but still. A colleague offered me a bite of her smoke eel sashimi at lunch. Nastiest thing ever: Overbearingly fishy, simultaneously slimy and chewy, smoky, salty. Was it supposed to taste that bad? :eek:
Guinea pig, in the Peruvian Andes. Greasy, and full of tiny bones.
In the “not meant to be eaten” category, a mouthful of homogenized raw rat liver. This was during my grad school days when we mouth pipetted everything (yeah, I know…academic labs didn’t care much about OSHA back then). It was suspended in a sucrose buffer, so actually tasted pretty good.
Are you talking about unagi? That’s usually one of those things I usually find people who aren’t too keen on sushi enjoy. But I don’t think I’ve ever had it slimy and chewy, so I wonder if you’re talking about something else.
That reminds me: hashima, which are frogs’… fallopian tubes? Everyone says it’s something different. You’d expect fallopian tubes to be solid, but these are jelly-like. Usually made into sweet soup. No distinctive taste, and not very expensive.
Speaking of jelly-like seafood, fish maw. This is spongy and tastes fishy.
I’ve had those, and also the hotter (depending on growing conditions) Trinidad Scorpion. The first time I had one was early in the morning on an empty stomach. The heat in the mouth wasn’t that bad (once you get to habanero-level heat and up, it’s all the same to me), but the stomach cramping, nausea, and subsequent vomiting an hour and change later was. Never had a pepper do that to me before. Then again, never was stupid enough to try “the world’s hottest pepper” on an empty stomach before.
Oh God(dess) .. you did that too!? Separating organelles, right? :eek:
One time, I was threading some holes in custom clamps and didn’t realize how hot the tap was getting, even with the cutting lube. I grabbed the wrong part and - natural reaction - stuck my finger in my mouth. Cutting lube tastes JUST LIKE Miracle Whip; which I didn’t like before, and still don’t.
