Andrew, of Bizarre Foods fame, tried a heck of a lot of things I wouldn’t even want to be in the same room with. He ate most of them, including the very ripe cheese with maggots. But I have fond memories of when he tried iguana - in Mexico, maybe? The recipe? Hold the whole iguana over flames until the skin is burnt off. Boil. Eat. “That’s just awful”
There’s an Indonesian dish made with the gelatinous part of a cow hoof; I’m blanking on what it’s called now. It looks horrible and has a horrible texture, in my opinion. I tried one nibble and couldn’t do it, so can’t really comment on the taste, but I imagine the taste is fine, since the hoof is just a palette upon which to add tasty Indonesian flavorings. But I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure.
I was served up a Portuguese dish called cozido, which is a stew made from boiled meats and vegetables. They don’t bother with trimming the meat, so there are giant gobs of fat floating around in there. That doesn’t bother many, but it’s revolting to me, and watching some of the workers gnawing on it made my stomach lurch. I had to leave.
My farewell lunch in Mali was boiled mutton. I don’t like mutton, and I especially don’t like boiled mutton covered with flies. The locals are understandably not so easily revolted, but it was a hard pass for me.
I did manage to eat the chicken soup in Guatemala, although I took the chicken foot out first.
Mine is pretty tame compared to the other stuff in this thread, but vegemite. I was extremely disposed to liking it, and disappointed in myself for hating it. I was also glad I hadn’t bought the big jar.
Hakarl would top my food experiences, and I’ve been around.
Mine would be sea urchin, and pork blood stew. Also some kind of Korean raw crab dish.
Mine was years ago, back in my 20s, I went to lunch with a friend one Sunday at a restaurant in Detroit’s Mexican Village. I was a little hung over and had heard that Menudo was good for a hangover, so I ordered a bowl of it.
When I saw these rectangles of honeycomb-patterned tripe floating on top, I said ‘nope nope nope’. Told the waitress I’d pay for the menudo, but please take it away and bring me a burrito platter.
It tastes, to me, like the ocean smells.
I have had cricket, mealworms, rattlesnake and yes, of course- (SoCal native)
Really, the soup is great, but the tripe is often too chewy for me. I rate the soup itself a B+ and the trip a D.
The most unappetizing thing I ever ate was balut: a boiled duck egg with a duck embryo inside. The taste was nothing to write home about (bland boiled egg and boiled fowl) and the gristly texture was gross.
I had hakarl in Iceland on my honeymoon, and I’m pretty sure—though I can’t swear to it—that it was the same place that Zimmern went when he had hakarl. My comments:
- The texture was pleasing: firm, flaky, neither oily nor dry.
- The flavor was surprisingly mild.
- The aroma was like having an icepick made of solid ammonia shoved up your nose.
I’ll match that with chicken soup in a restaurant in Soviet Moscow, where I had to pick the feathers out.
Given my general “Why would you not?” approach when it comes to trying foods*, I’m coming up surprisingly blank here.
Andouillette is a French sausage made of tripe (I found that out later). I managed about half of it.
You see Gésiers on menus in quite a few areas in France - goose gizzard, which I think is part of the neck. I thought I should try them so I ordered a warm salad which was mostly sausage but with a garnish of gésiers - one of those occasions where my French wasn’t as good as I thought it was. Actually, a huge heap of steaming gizzard with a garnish of sausage. If warmed corned beef was made of liver… that’s the sort of area we’re in. But I finished it, by god, only mildly distracted by the tears of laughter dripping off Mrs T’s chin.
I’ll rattle my memory for some more misadventures.
j
* - But not shellfish, unfortunately. With very few exceptions, me and shellfish just don’t get on. (Plus I can’t eat red meat, but that’s another story).
When I was in Iceland I went to Cafe Loki and ordered a meal that included a tasting of fermented shark. Having heard several horror stories, including one about people throwing up after eating it, I put off trying it until I was almost finished eating the rest of the meal. I agree with your comments on the texture and flavor, but I didn’t notice any particularly sharp smell. Maybe my sense of smell has gone the way of the rest of my body.
I haven’t travelled enough to be exposed to a number of things, and not masochistic enough to buy a lot of things just to brag about them, so mine will be pretty tame.
The one that I just noped out of after a few bites was Japanese natto. The flavor, the funk, and the texture (!) just crushed me.
The other is conditional - it wasn’t worst, it was in fact pretty tasty, but it nearly broke me and I certainly didn’t buy any more!
It was a hot sauce by Mad Dog, their Silver 357 running 750k Scoville. It was tasty for about one tenth of a second before the heat overwhelmed everything else. I did end up buying a bottle of their “normal” 357 (less than half that hot) but I’d use like .5-1 tsp to flavor and heat an entire skillet’s worth of food.
The only thing I ever saw him incapable of eating was walnuts.
In Beijing, I had duck tongue in gelatin.
Not hugely flavorful.
Anecdotal, from a work colleague that went to India. Some type of soup with little floating frogs looking up at him.
Tried chitlins once. Won’t do that again.
I mistakenly thought they would be crispy, like pork rinds. The name sounds so crunchy.
Badx3.
Chitlin’s are shitty(literally)
Cracklin’s are crunchy shit…just as bad.
If you like eating what poop smells like, go for it.
Not me.
First job out of college was a commercial cleaning company, did not have a regular schedule, very variable. Finished up a job on a Friday night, stopped by a friend’s place, our current “hangout”. Crashed on the couch, wasn’t going to drunk drive the work van. On the way home the next morning, I stopped at a gas station and bought a quart of chocolate milk. Start back home again, took a chug and was “wait, what was that??” Take a much smaller taste and it was chunky! Checked and it was well past the expiration date. I turned around, went back to gas station and was a very angry asshole, demanding my money back. If I knew what the next 24+ plus hours were going to be, I would have pulled them over the counter and started to swing. Back on the road, I had to pull over to vomit. Spent next day and half absolutely suffering, nausea and cramps, trying to purge my body of the evil inside of me by any orifice possible. Couldn’t sleep, had a hard time even standing still, sitting or lying down. Spent most of that time just pacing. Guess who double checks expirations dates on dairy products ever since.