For those of you who have had the opportunity to travel around the world, what is the weirdest thing you have eaten so far? Mine was a snake!(I found out after finished eating it lol)
It's only weird to me, since in some countries they eat sausage made from blood on a daily basis, but I find eating something like that pretty disturbing. I ate it once or twice as a kid (over in Russia), but wouldn't touch it with a nine-foot pole today. Sorry if I offend anyone by saying this.
Wow, I saw the topic and immediately thought of the time that I had black pudding in Glasgow. It is blood sausage, of course. There are only a couple of things that I have eaten that I would not try again and this is one of them! I even like Haggis, also a Scottish dish made up of sheep stomach/intestine, but black pudding is a no go for me. Have also had alligator, reindeer, pigeon, buffalo, and other "exotic" meats and liked them all. The best steak that I ever had was cut from an ostrich, by the way.
Once I did eat the whole brain of a pig by accident, didn't want to be rude and was starving. This was somewhere in Romania at someones house far from any town. Other worth mentioning: wild boar, raindeer, moose (even the heart of it)
Pig brain and Moose heart are indeed pretty weird; and your post somehow reminded me that I once ordered cow's tongue at a Mexican restaurant in San Diego. The restaurant served traditional Mexican food as opposed to the tacos, burritos, etc., that most Mexican American restaurants serve. It is out of business now, unfortunately. I tried rattlesnake in Texas, once, but it was only a bite and I really do not remember it much. Have eaten a fair amount of eel, however. I hope that more people ring in with their own weird, eaten foods. Fun thread.
Don't feel bad. I ate "blood sausage" many, many times when growing up. We raised and killed our own pigs, and no part of the pig got wasted. The blood was boiled with onions and nutmeg if I remember well, and the taste wasn't bad. I didn't care much for the texture, however. Nowadays, you couldn't pay me enough to eat that kind of sausage. Knowing that you're eating boiled blood is disturbing indeed.
“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is a normal state of things.” - Assata Shakur. The queasy feeling when you're eating weird things is mostly because you're doing it for the first time. If you, however, continue eating that weird food whatever it is, it becomes normal. What seems “weird” or “bizarre” in one part of the world is typical or regular meal in another. It's just another example of adaptation, more precisely of psychological adaptation.
This is a great point, though I enjoy eating new and different foods and typically approach them with great interest. In fact, the weirder, the better. In addition to thinking that perhaps I am ingesting some otherwise hard to get nutritive supplement, I like to eat things that taste different just from an "alleviating food boredom" perspective. The reason that I did not like black pudding (blood sausage) is that it left a strong aftertaste of fresh blood in my mouth (like after a visit to the dentist...)
I did and the ones that I was served (at a very fancy restaurant) tasted like the frog had been sitting deep in the mud of a fetid swamp its entire life. I really tasted swamp in them and that is why they are the only other food that I would not try again (blood sausage being the other one.)
I have seen the show a few times, though I would not consider myself a regular viewer (mostly because my wife and kids refuse to watch it.) I would probably be willing to try 80% of the foods that I have seen him eat. Some are a bit much, even for me.
Hmm from where I am, we are used to eating grilled blood (betamax), chicken intestine (Isaw), chicken head, chicken feet. Fried one day old chick, fried balut - they actually tastes good. I just dont know if y'all are gonna like it
What about drinking something weird / interesting? I tried kvas, koumiss, samogon (Russian moonshine).