SOS in my youth my mom would make shit on a shingle… it was hamburger that was cooked then a white type of pasty gravy and onions served over toasted white bread or mashed potatoes. I still hate crumbled up hamburger in anything except sloppy joes.
also the mixed vegetables in a can Veg All that was peas carrots and little square potatoes…yuck
There’s a woman on You Tube who likes to film herself eating “weird” (to Americans) regional and ethnic things. She took advantage of a chance to try balut, and the thing that really freaked her out was suddenly tasting liver. The duck embryo wasn’t old enough to have feathers, but it did have a few cartilaginous bonelets which gave it a bit of a crunch.
For me, it’s anything involving whole factory mushrooms. I like the slightly bitter taste it gives to chicken marsala although I pick out the actual mushrooms. I like wild mushrooms. But the slimy, chloriny taste of run of the mill mushrooms is the worst thing I’ve tasted, even certain notorious types of preserved fish. Although I haven’t tried casu marzu (live-maggot cheese) or Hakarl so those might beat shrooms for the worst properly-prepared thing if I ever tried them. On the other, weird hand, I sort of want to try Hakarl with casu marzu on top of it just to see if they cancel each other out and make something semi-tolerable, so if someone offered me that dish or a whole factory mushroom, I’d choose – probably the mushroom. But I’d have to think about it!
Basically, just don’t even tell me that something you’re serving me is fermented, unless it’s beer.
No, I agree with WOOKINPANUB. The problem is peppers, which my mother always used, and which I thought were the key ingredient. I like peppers and I like cream sauce, but put them together and the creamy texture plus the peppers’ sweet/bitter/sour flavor equals a fair approximation of vomit.
I could choke it down until I came across a piece of gristle, which makes me gag under the best of circumstances. Never again.
Husband eats hamburg n’ gravy over hamburger buns as though it was the finest ambrosia. Can’t get enough. I would rather not eat at ALL than that…
I was going to mention Veg-All. You think, 'it’s just canned vegetables, not exactly tasty, but how bad can they be? ’ But Veg-All is in a class by itself. I don’t know what they put in that can that makes it taste so vile. It’s hard to ruin a bland bowl of canned vegetables, but they manage to do so.
Not even salami and chorizo?!?! :eek:
Or pickles? (Well, okay, it depends what kind you get, but I’m talking like New York sours and half-sours.) And Tabasco sauce!
There have been several items mentioned here that I fully expected. Surströmming, century eggs, balut.
I’ve often wondered how someone determined these were actually food. My best guess is that they were the results of drunken college bets that didn’t result in casualties.
I’ll also have to agree with the objections to aspic and jellied foods. The texture just kills it. Though oddly I’m fine with oysters on the half shell.
The most mundane nasty surprise that I ever got was the first time I tried chestnuts roasted on a open fire [cue the music]. I thought I got a bad one at first and spit it out only to find out that all of them are like that. They don’t quite rise to the level of vomit worthy but they certainly aren’t very good. They are just these little balls of sickly sweet, mealy abominations. I have learned to choke them down from repeated exposure but I have never actually liked a single one. This comes from someone that has the pickiness of a sewer rat.
^ Actually, I can go with that. Maybe not “worst,” but certainly not living up to expectations. I lived in Central/Eastern Europe for five years or so, and, as Christmas came around, roasted chestnut vendors would show up all over the place. I love the idea of roasted chestnuts. It’s a wonderful seasonal memory. They smell great. But the reality? Every single time I’ve had one, I’ve been disappointed. I don’t agree with your description of “sickly sweet” (the ones I’ve always had were not much sweet at all–maybe you had some prepared with sugar), but they were bland as shit, mealy, and just reminded me of slightly nutty potatoes.
Chorizo isn’t fermented, it’s cured. If your chorizo is fermented, not only is it not properly prepared but whomever prepared it should be facing possible jail time for “endangering public health”.
I’m going to assume durian does not count since properly preparing it means just taking the skin off. So my answer for this thread would have to be jellyfish. I saw it on the menu in a Korean restaurant here in Honolulu the first time I lived here and thought why not, it might be wonderful. “Fucking awful” does not even begin to describe it.
Chorizo (and I’m talking the Spanish type, not the Mexican type which is a fresh sausage), like salami and many other cured sausages, is, indeed, usually fermented in the curing process. That is what gives it its slight tang.
Feel free to read here if you don’t believe me.
These processes are not mutually exclusive.
A man I dated in college once had an opportunity to try fish lips. For 99 cents, why not, right?
So, they placed their order, and the server brought out a platter of things that looked and tasted like gelatinous rubber bands. :o Not BAD, but not good either.
However, definitely worth 99 cents to say he’d tried fish lips and have the chance to tell people about it. 
IMHO, Veg-All is like canned stewed tomatoes; they are meant to be cooked WITH something and not eaten alone, unless of course you’re really, really hungry.
My mother sometimes served those stewed tomatoes as a side dish; she was the only one who ever ate them. However, I buy them all the time and throw it in my Instant Pot with a chunk of meat and some other veggies, and have a nice stew within the hour. 
I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet.
The first time I ever heard of this, one of my friends told me that her mother used this to make chicken and noodles, and it was very convenient (and tasty, once all was said and done). The idea sure sounds disgusting, however.
I also remember reading a reference to Spam where the person said, “That jellied shit that surrounds it reminds me of alien jizm.” LOL
That reminds me of another one, not so exotic. Boiled peanuts takes a popular and respectable snackfood and gives it a mealy, lima bean-like texture. I always get some when I travel to where they’re available. “They can’t be as bad as I remember.” Nope, still bad, not good at all.
What a coincidence. I had the opportunity to try fish lips with a girl I dated in college. Unfortunately, I’m talking about her kissing style.