Weirdest

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What's the oddest thing you've ever eaten? Or, something that someone else might think is weird? Because what's perfectly normal to you and your region/culture might not be to someone else...

(Yeah, this was inspired by the squirrel thread.)

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Thursday, 23 September 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

For me, I guess it would be all the things my mother picks and makes into Korean food: thin brown fiddleheads, goldenrods (after they've only just sprung up in the springtime), these odd leaves that grow straight out of the ground, dandilion greens, etc.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Thursday, 23 September 2004 15:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Turkey and gravy soda; probably the only thing I've eaten that everyone considers strange.

(Beyond that, as an ex New Englander who relocated to the South, lived in a Vietnamese neighborhood, and is currently living in the Midwest, with fifteen years of studying regional and fusion cuisines, I don't think I can recognize weirdness anymore.)

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 23 September 2004 23:55 (twenty-one years ago)

A cow's spinal cord? A delicacy in Israel.

Also: deep-fried and battered scorpion. Mmmm.

― ng, Friday, 24 September 2004 02:07 (twenty-one years ago)

The lime jello with spam and froot loops was the most totally horrid thing I've ever tasted, but generally people are more freaked out by the fact I ate dog (Samoa).

― Jaq (Jaq), Friday, 24 September 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, I can't top dog and spinal cord... I've eaten alligator, though.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 24 September 2004 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just going to mention alligator in the "what other people might find weird" category, but it's pretty standard fare in Louisiana. I've never eaten alligator somewhere where eating alligator would be weird, if you see what I mean.

I have pigs' ears pretty regularly, which is weird for non-Asian Americans. I've had balut, which sounds weird -- it's a fertilized duck egg incubated until the embryo is partially developed -- but doesn't taste weird (like a normal hard-boiled egg with a piece of duck meat on top).

Ostrich used to be considered weird in this country, but it's just a step down from buffalo now (buffalo would've been weird not long ago, come to think of it).

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 24 September 2004 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm 180 degrees from my food attitudes when younger - wouldn't touch seafood of any kind (except Mrs. Paul's fish sticks and Howard Johnson's breaded clams), nor ham, nor liver in any form. Cheese was also suspect, unless it was orange. At some point in my late 20's, I became a food adventurer and then a few years later started traveling extensively, eating whatever the local people were eating. There are still some textures I don't like, but overall the food's been great. What I consider the weirdest food is that stuff for vegetarians that is made up to look like meat - I mean, why paint tofu with soy sauce and shape it like a mini-turkey?

― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 27 September 2004 02:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know how bad any of you think this is...

Giant African Land Snails (sufficiently big you have to slice bits off them)
Hedgehog
Chicken Gizzard
Grass Jelly
Crocodile
Reindeer Jerky

My other half had Springbok Biltong when she was in South Africa. She got food poisoning from the waterlily sauce. A colleague has been to that restaurant in South Africa where they claim to serve most every meat. She had elephant the first time she went, and following the howls of protest from her kids ("Mum! You've eaten Dumbo!") she decided to have warthog the second time. On her return, she took the kids to see The Lion King as a treat for her having been away, as it had just come out. Big mistake.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 27 September 2004 11:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Man, I can't even picture those snails. I've been disappointed every time I've tried to cook them (regular snails, not GALS), but I think it's because I've only been able to find canned; I'm sure freshness makes a big difference.

I have never let my ex live down the fact that the first time I visited her, when she was living in Philadelphia, we saw fresh lion meat for sale and I couldn't convince her to try it, so I made a steak instead.

I 180ed with seafood too, going from only eating clams or shrimp occasionally to loving it all -- I chalk that up to moving from New Hampshire, an hour and a half inland, to New Orleans.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 27 September 2004 11:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been trying to think of ananswer to this but can't. I don't think there are any weird foods, unusual maybe, or rare, but not weird. If it's edible, I don't see what's weird about eating anything

― Porkpie (porkpie), Monday, 27 September 2004 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/animal-zone/Images/HandSnail.jpg

They're not small.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 27 September 2004 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

that's going to need a lot of garlic butter

― Porkpie (porkpie), Monday, 27 September 2004 12:20 (twenty-one years ago)

You know, Uzumaki might have spoiled giant snails for me.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 27 September 2004 12:23 (twenty-one years ago)

In terms of regret, I wish I'd had fugu in Japan. We saw a restaurant and were going to go in, but they generally only serve fugu and the other half was fish-ed out by then (she's not keen on fish anyway - yes, I know, big mistake in Japan - and had just had enough).

x-post - the snail was rubbed in some kind of hot chile powder and served dry. It had only been fairly lightly fried, I think.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 27 September 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

porkpie, the wierdest thing was your years of veggie-ism ;) i believe the phrase is "zeal of the convert" (haha, i typed that as veal first).

i seem to recall having cow's udder once, but (as i was a smallish child at the time) my "funny" uncle might have been winding us up...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Ooo yeah, I had a bite of cow's tongue once. Wasn't too into it.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 12:18 (twenty-one years ago)

cow's tongue is great, and a staple of northern British Sunday teas. Until I had the lamb's tongues at St John I'd have said that my mum's Ox tongue was the finest, most tender meat I'd ever eaten.

― Porkpie (porkpie), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

...I'm going to hold my tongue...

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

Fried grasshopper tacos, a Oaxacan specialty.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 10 February 2005 01:57 (twenty years ago)

They are called chipilinas

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 10 February 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

My great great auntie Gwen used to tell us she was giving us pigeons' milk in our tea. This was a lie, but I wish it wasn't!

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 10 February 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

I have eaten woodlice.

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 10 February 2005 16:07 (twenty years ago)

On purpose?

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 12 February 2005 01:11 (twenty years ago)

is there any weird food that's not animal-based?

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 13 February 2005 21:36 (twenty years ago)

I think Oaxacan corn fungus is pretty weird, and not animal based. We do seem to have more issues with animal parts.

― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 14 February 2005 03:10 (twenty years ago)

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