Most Unusual Food You've Ever Eaten

[AtomicKitKat]

Well, let's see:

Century Eggs(blackish, made from eggs in ammonia)
Pig Organs(you name it, I've probably eaten it)
Cow Organs(heart, lung, stomach, intestines, liver no brain ever since BSE/MCD came out)
Goat(same as pigs)
Fried Cicadas(at a Science expo)
Chicken/Duck/Pig/Cow/Goat Blood(coagulated into tofu-like cakes. Strangely hard to find these days)
Chicken/Duck Brains
Crocodile Flesh
Shark's Fin
Turtle flesh/gelatin
Flightless Bird Steak(Ostrich/Emu)
Kangaroo steak
Chicken/Duck Feet

Please tell me which of the above you've eaten, as well as anything else "interesting" so I can try beating it. :P Note that most of the above are at least partially cooked and none of it was alive at the time of consumption. We're all "civilised" people here after all. ;)

[ShadowHM]

What is unusual to one may be mundane to another, as I am sure you already knew. :lol:

From your list, I have tried:

Alligator (close enough to crocodile?)
Turtle
Ostrich
Emu

Other things that some might find exotic, and are mundane if you grew up in a hunting environment and/or know hunters:

Venison
Moose
Cariboo
Rabbit

[Occhidiangela]

Dog.

Brains. IIRC it was monkey brains or pig brains, my brother and I remember it differently.

Horse (In Vicenza Italy, and it was delicious!)

Abalone

Racoon and snake (Both in survival school. The memory of how we treed and then killed the Racoon is my most vivid 'caveman' experiences ever. About nine of us got into a circle, to trap it once it fell from the tree, with sticks in our hands and beat it to death. As hungry as we were, that 'coon was pretty darned good eating!)

Frog's Legs (once)

Snalls (Once, in Dubrovnik, and as far as I am concerned, you can keep your escargot, I prefer Gulf Shrimp)

Alligator/Crocodile (In Singapore)

Sushi/Sashimi (I consider raw fish to be a weird food, bait on a plate)

Squid and Octopus (And a wide variety of shell fish that I did not recognize. Had it frequently in Italy, more bait on a plate really)

Some stuff in Egypt in a stew: none of us knew wat it was, but it sure was delicious. :) The ouzo, on the other hand, I remember all to well . . .

Pasta with squid ink as a sauce. Italy.

My wife once ate Grasshopper, but I was not there to witness it.

[Scorzonera]

Yup.

Have eaten
- A wide selection of animal organs
- Different dishes made of blood
- Shark
- Turtle
- Ostrich

as well as
- Whale
- Frog
- Rattle Snake
- Sheep's Head

not to mention some of our national fish specialities...

[Ace 777]

I've had Aligator (salty, but good nonetheless) and Shark Steak (very good).

- Ace 777

[TaMeOlta]

I've done squid (or was it octopus ?) once , never again :P

[--Pete]

Hi,

I have, however, eaten the native food on three continents as well as that offered in many resultants (although that seems to be seldom authentic -- partially because of Board of Health rules :) ).

I've eaten just about every form of seafood there is. Except for some of the more pungent lutefisk, I've yet to meet a fish I didn't like -- even "bait on a plate" (Thanks Occhi).

I've eaten a fair selection of mammals, marsupials, reptiles and mollusks. And I've eaten a fair bit of almost all their organs. With the exception of chicken (don't ask) they've mostly been pretty tasty.

I cannot remember ever eating something that was still alive (although in mosquito season in the Okefenokee I've probably swallowed a few live ones -- their fault, not mine). I have eaten a fair amount of raw meat, mostly lamb and beef. Some Lebanese dishes are delicious but cannot be served in restaurants in the USA.

Yes, I've never eaten any unusual foods. At least, no foods considered unusual by the cultures that normally eat them ;)

--Pete

[ShadowHM]

Sushi/Sashimi (I consider raw fish to be a weird food, bait on a plate)

There have been Japanese restaurants serving sushi and sashimi here since long before I moved to this city. Now it counted as exotic to the country bumpkin I was 30 years ago, when I had my first taste of it. But it is standard 'let's go out for some food that I haven't got the time/skill/patience to make' fare now.

And I LOVE the fish eggs. Nothing like the smooth slightly salty pop of a salmon egg in your mouth, or the crunch of flying fish eggs. My children still get embarrassed by my love of this food. They definitely cringe when I ask my friends the fishermen to let me have some roe when they pull up to the dock from a trout or salmon fishing expedition, even as they join me in the eating.

Bait on a plate, eh? I have to agree on one part......the fishermen are sometimes reluctant to part with the roe, on that very grounds. :P

[Occhidiangela]

I acquired a taste for squid, and for "alicci" ==could be dialect for the sardine as prepared when fresh caught a garlic and olive oil sauce== prepared as it was in Campagna. I was usually was able to enjoy the octopus when served, though sometimes it was hard to chew.

The habit in America of deep frying squid/calamari seems to ruin the excellent and sweet flavor of a squid prepared by some one who knows what he is doing. Of course, squid and octopus in a Sri Lankan restaurant, done spicey HOT, is a whole different experience. :)

Given a choice, though, I rarely order squid any more, partly because no one in the States seems to know what the heck they are doing with it, other than breading and deepfrying.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Yet another advantage to living in (really, near) Seattle. It's just a couple of hours to the Greek district of Vancouver, BC and the best Kalamari this side of the Atlantic ;)

And, yes, deep frying it is an insult. However, I once had Hawaiian style charcoal broiled squid. While it tasted good, it had the texture, consistency and chewability of a Goodyear product. Guess that's how the Hawaiians get those beautiful smiles. :)

--Pete

[AtomicKitKat]

Reviewing the list:

Venison. Done. Did not include it because it's fairly common(if somewhat expensive)

Squid/Octopus/Cuttlefish/Cephalopod. Done. Tasty. Might I suggest boiling it? About 4 minutes for squid(well-sliced with a herring-bone cut), 6 for octopus(or half a day if making soup), and blanched for cuttlefish.

Crustacean. Probably every type available. Except maybe the Japanese one that feeds off dead sailors.

Sushi. Too common. I've eaten every possible type available to me. Ranging from urchin to jellyfish to shark's fin to amberjack and everything in between.

Frog's Legs. Fun. Like mini chicken. Except tastier.

Snails. I once contemplated eating the garden variety(yes, the kind with the brown and beige spiralling shell), but avoided it on the grounds that it might be poisonous(or at least that's what a guide book told me)

For other molluscs, I've eaten:

Cockles
Limpets
Oysters
Scallops
Mussels

In various states of:

Raw,
Cooked,
Dried.

I've even eaten dried seahorse and flying lizard(technically, I only scraped a small bit off them because I was in a Chinese medicinal shop at the time and din't have the money to buy them)

I think it's fairly safe to say I've eaten from pretty much every animal group except the monotremes(echidna and platypus), which are a sub-type of mammals/marsupials anyway. Well, and the cetaceans(whales/dolphins) which are also mammals. But that's splitting hairs. :P

[Naddybear]

Sheep's eyeball.

In a Jordanian restaurant when I went to Italy. I will never do that again. Not going to Italy, i was born there and want to go back as often as possible. The eyeball i mean. Why did i do it? The guy who took us there was a client of my bf's dad and evidently its a big delicacy and an honor for the person to be offered the eyeball so i wasnt in a position to refuse. I tried to just swallow the dang thing but its, well, big. So i had to bite down on it. Ugh. It was semi cooked i guess, it was, sort of crispy shell with goo in it. It didnt taste like anything tho that i remember. It was just the texture I cant get out of my head and sometimes keeps me awake at night.

[AtomicKitKat]

Hehe, the description of the eyeball reminds me of yamballs here in the Orient. Crispy on the outside, smushy on the inside. :P

[Iolair]

Hmmm, not sure if it's really unusual, but...

The testicles from a bull. Wasn't really tasty, I cannot recommend it.

A socalled 'Beef Tatar', which is a piece of bread with raw ground beef on it. Atop the beef, you put a raw egg yolk, horse radish, beet and lots of salt and black pepper. This one is really yummie, not much can beat it.

Rook beastmeat. Had a peculiar taste, but I think it was the cook that spoiled it (not me though, hehe).

Ostrich/Kangaroo, which I have trouble thinking of as peculiar.

Horse, of course. I thought everybody had tasted horse? It's a very normal thing to eat around here..as long as the kids don't know it's horse. Children refuse to eat horse.

Ants. Yuck, these tasted badly..really badly.

Snails, frogs, venison, lots of birds, rabbits. But I'm don't think it's unusual..just expensive. Very tasty though.

Jellyfish. Taste just like saltwater.

My ex-bf's greatgrandfather had eaten human meat. He told us it tasted like chicken. The best part should according to him, be the part of the palm, right under the thumb. The big muscle there.

It's quite interesting to see what people consider peculiar as food. But as Pete said..he hadn't eaten anything that was peculiar in the region where he ate it. Nothing is really peculiar to eat when we think about it (exept human meat).

[Jonathon Spectre]

Living fire-belly salamander.

My review: Cold and squirmy. Better to keep as a pet than to use as a snack.

JS

[AtomicKitKat]

Funny. Never ate horse before. Considered eating dog, cat, rabbit, snake, don't have the:

Money. Whether buying a body or a live one to raise, it costs $$$.

Time. And either way I still have to prepare the body(removing poisonous/inedible insides)

Beef Tartare sounds great. I must try it if/when I ever visit wherever it is they serve it(Denmark?)

Never EVER eat the following livers:

Dog/Bear

They contain lethal doses of Vitamin A.

[The Luminaire]

To be honest, Id have to go with Haggis. It really looks worse than it tastes though.

Once you get past the mind factor of eating sheep intestines, its kinda like stuffing.

One thing I havent tried though, that Ive seen, would be vegetarian Haggis. Not sure how they pull that one off, but it'd be interesting to investigate. :)

[yangman]

Being Chinese who's lived in Japan, nothing's really too strange to me.
Lets see...

- Boiled, possibly also stir-fried grass-hopper. Too young to remember, but it was actually quite good.
- Boiled silk-moth worm. Actually, more accurately the form where it goes from catapillar to moth -- the term escapes me at the moment.
- Turtle. More skin than meat -- don't really like this one.
- Frog - not just the legs.
- Dog meat. Probably some other ones too -- you never know what you really get. :blink:
- Almost every form of Sushi and Sashimi except Fugu (blowfish). Fugu's just so darn expensive.
- Shark's fin -- very delicious in soup.
- Fish eye -- more like sucking the soft-tissues off of it since it gets really hard when you cook it.
- Fish/shrimp brain.
- Probably all 4 of cows' stomachs.
- Cow intestine.
- Chicken heart.
- Pig ear.
- Pig tongue.
- Chicken liver.
- Pig hooves.
- Duck/chicken feet.
- Rooster crowns.
- Pig blood puddin.
- many, many, many different types of plants, whether leaf, root, or some other part.

I don't think I've ever had something that was actually alive.
There was one case where the sashimi served came with the head of the fish and the lip was moving, but that doesn't really count.

[WarBlade]

Beef Tartare sounds great. I must try it if/when I ever visit wherever it is they serve it(Denmark?)

Yes. Or in my case every once in a while through my involvement with The Danish Society (inc.) Auckland.

The smørrebrød is a traditional open faced sandwich style of food preparation starting with a dark bread base with various selections of foods piled high on top . . . yummy :) The first course is an entree of sild (marinated herrings), which is available in three main styles I know of. The national drink being a potato-based alcohol we call snaps (Akvavit is the official name - similar to vodka) stands ready at the side for the frequent toasting. Then comes all the rest of the smørrebrød selections and more imbibing of alcohol.

The toasting BTW maintains culteral elements that have existed since pre-Viking times.

Another Scandinavian food I've tried is surströmming. Surströmming is something available in Sweden and had it origins in very cold weather of a bygone era. The people combined two methods of preserving food, chilling and salting, to preserve fish. They'd salt it heavily and bury it. Late in winter when food was scarce they would dig it up and eat it.

Nowadays surströmming comes in a can, but is still only available seasonally I think. The usual method of opening the can is to first submerge the can, either in a sink or a bucket, and proceed to open normally with a can opener. The reason for this will become apparent should somebody accidentally get some of the juice on himself . . . Which I had the extreme satisfaction of witnessing first hand one time when one of my re-enactment cohorts decided he could get away with opening the can whilst lying stretched out on the ground and holding it at arm's length. After an amusing impression of land mine defusing operation the initial squirt copped him full in the face and the resulting string of expletives and facial contortions lasted a full minute.

It was very gratifying. :)

After I've eaten surströmming, people who are familiar with the aroma were able to tell I'd eaten it two days after having done so. I've heard reports that others have been caught out up to four days afterwards.

It's extremely vile BTW. Sort of a salty raw partially liquified substance kind of a flavour, quite unlike anything resembling the fish it once was.

[Iolair]

Beef Tartare sounds great. I must try it if/when I ever visit wherever it is they serve it(Denmark?)

Yes, Beef Tatar/Tartare/Tartar is served in Denmark. See if you can get a 'snaps' to go with it. A fairly strong drink, that goes well with the food :)