Okay, you're serious: What is the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
I've had my fair share of odd things to eat, but the weirdest I think would have to be raw periwinkles.
When in France for my junior year abroad my gf (now my wife) at the time had her parents visit us in Paris. They took us out to eat at a really nice restaurant and the house shellfish platter intrigued me. I thought that what I was ordering was some raw and some cooked types of shellfish. What I got was ALL raw: oysters/clams/scallops/etc....but the oddest thing was raw periwinkles (for those of you who are fortunate not to know/have one of these..they are tiny snails).
Although really small, I was able to taste them and have to say I will never eat them again:) So what is the strangest/weirdest/ thing/food/spice/ingredient you've ever had?
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28 Comments:
Three answers, all from my friends in Taiwan...
1) Wild Bird - a "robin" sized bird, plucked and cooked whole (cleaned) but whole (head , bill, legs, feet).... the supposed delicacy was crushing the skull and eating the brain.... I passed!
2) Deep fried "half" fish - a large fish (unknown species) who's lower 3/4s had been deep fried but who's mouth was still still opening and shutting and who's eyes were still moving. It was well cooked and was good but the appearance was disconcerting to say the least.
3) For one trip's "exiting (Me) dinner", they offered lobster. Being from New England, while not crazy about lobster, I was thankful that I wasn't getting something wierd, and said, "sure, great".
After much conversation, and eating peanuts with chop sticks.... I was getting better at chop sticks... the lobster arrived.
The tail meat had been sliced into many "chop stick" sized pieces on a platter, and the upper half of the lobster was standing up on it's shell on another platter.... hmm, thought I, one lobster for 8 people..
The platter with the tail slices was rotated to my "place of honor" and I was asked to start the meal....
As I reached for a piece of the tail meat, I noticed that those pieces were being served on ICE. Yup, raw lobster tail (didn't taste good or bad, kind of salty but OK). As I chewed, I noticed the upper half of the lobster was moving, legs waving to me (not a New England lobster, so tiny claws).
And of course, the mouth was blowing bubbles.
The restaurant took the upper half of the lobster and made a wonderful lobster "bisque" out of it...
OK, there's three wierd dishes... I can do more...
Smile
rgwra at 4:00PM on 03/01/09
Occhi di mare , , , a sicilian sea creature . . . horrible and horribly salty
fewteeth at 5:34PM on 03/01/09
Armadillo....maybe it was supposed to taste good but I was 11.
arm1970 at 6:05PM on 03/01/09
fried ants, grasshoppers and bees, with my son's 4th grade class. I could not bring myself to try the mealworms, which is my ultimate gross-out, phobia bug (way worse than a spider or centipede)
deetroitMI at 6:19PM on 03/01/09
Weirdest has to be the frozen raw whale meat. I was visiting Japan with a friend, and she ordered something off a menu handwritten in kanji at random (neither of us reads or speaks Japanese). The waiter just laughed at us. When it came, it looked so bizarre that she took one bite and refused to eat more. So I ate it. It tastes like fishy beef. To this day, I'm not sure what to make of the frozen presentation, but I didn't get sick and it didn't taste awful.
@deetroitMI, I had mealworms sauteed in butter years back at an entomology lecture. If you can get past the way they look, it's mostly a texture thing. Any flavor they may have had was covered up by all the butter.
bialy at 7:43PM on 03/01/09
Nail polish on a cracker.
nightowl at 8:39PM on 03/01/09
Tripe, usually in menudo, but just plain once in taco form.
Brains, my dad used to eat scrambled eggs and brains tacos when I was younger and I tasted it.
Fish eyeballs, deep fried at a Korean restaraunt with my adventurous nieces.
Pickled eggs, according to my grandpa it's an old school bar food. I thought it was funky.
PumpkinBear at 8:43PM on 03/01/09
Sipunculid worms in jelly. It's a specialty of Xiamen, China, where my grandfather was raised. The sand-dwelling sea worms are boiled and entombed in aspic, then eaten with wasabi and/or vinegar.
They are, to my palate, absolutely foul. Not much of a flavor, but the texture is horrific. And that's coming from someone who loves raw squid, raw octopus, and jellyfish.
Here is a picture of the worm jelly.
Michele Humes at 9:01PM on 03/01/09
Umm....Nightowl....ummm.you''d be dead. Thanks anyways for your comment.
Cheers
wellfunk at 9:03PM on 03/01/09
DUDE, okay Michele you take the CAKE JUST FOR THAT PIC! Dear goodness, that was f-ing disgusting!!! Okay, "I'm Not Worthy!":)
Cheers....
wellfunk at 9:05PM on 03/01/09
Absolutely hilarious that you posted this now. Just tonight we were talking and I asked my hub if he'd ever eaten clams or periwinkles at the beach. He grew up in Boston, spending summers at the shore; I grew up in TX spending summers at South Padre and Port Aransas.
We Always dug up and ate the colorful little periwinkles on the beach.
I hadn't thought about that EVER. Mentioned it tonight and you asked the question. Kismet is an interesting thing.
carolrsfMISSESTEXAS at 1:40AM on 03/02/09
Shark steak -- okay, fine, listening to this list, it's fairly tame, haha, but I've never told anyone who hasn't raised their eyebrows at least a little bit. It was very salty, tasted a little like flounder but with a firmer texture, almost like a scallop. Very good, though.
kfarrel3 at 1:53AM on 03/02/09
Dog. And I have to say, it was pretty tasty. I didn't know it was dog when I ate it, but after finishing the meal, my friend turned to me, smiled, and said "Guess what? You just ate Toto."
chisai at 7:46AM on 03/02/09
The weirdest thing I've tried lately would have to be menudo. I went to Mi Tierra Bakery and Cafe in San Antonio (it's pretty famous) and saw this on the menu. I asked the waitress what it was since there was no explanation other than "it's a local favorite" and she insisted she bring me some.
She set down the bowl of cow intestine floating around in a liquid and I nearly gagged. I had to try it since I asked for it but I could barely keep it down.
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 5:43PM on 03/02/09
No, I wouldn't. I was dared by my sister to eat nail polish, so I dabbed a bit (think a circle the diameter of a pea) on a saltine and ate it. It tasted really bitter and nasty, but I'm still alive.
Other than that, I guess the weirdest thing I've eaten is alligator. Mine is the lamest of all.
nightowl at 5:49PM on 03/02/09
Weird is totally subjective, don't you think...
Whale, silk worms, frogs, tube worms, the blood of all kinds of animals, chicken intestines, duck tongues, fish gizzards, fish sperm, the body cavity lining of certain kinds of frogs, raw sea cucumber, cordyceps, deer tendons, offaloffaloffal...it's all lunchables to SOMEONE out there.
In my case, its omnomnom to the Chinese.
fuuchan at 7:11PM on 03/02/09
Snake, alligator and frog legs. And blood pudding (British and German). But for some reason, the thought of eating snails - cooked or otherwise - grosses me out to no end. Probably because they used to slither their way across my Girl Scout Camp cabin floor...
TheCheapChick at 8:21PM on 03/02/09
Brains
I was probably 6 or 7 and ate it, then was told what it was. If you don't think about it, they're quite tasty.
veggieout at 10:21PM on 03/02/09
Dogs (yes, dogs) on two occasions because I thought they were pork. Now, before I get any hate-replies from dog lovers, please have an open-mind, ok? What's acceptable in one culture may not be in another and vice-versa. I won't seek out dog meat on my own (my stomach gets queasy just thinking about it), but it's a meat sometime served in Manadonese cuisine (a city in North Sulawesi, Indonesia).
Another animal featured in a famous Manadonese dish is paniki or bat (fruit bat, not the vampire ones!). Now I *would* seek out this dish! It's cooked with lots of herbs, spices and chilies. The meat is dark and lean, with a slight game-y taste (no, it doesn't taste like chicken!), and I love to suck on the bat wings! (slightly rubbery, with no real taste of their own. It's mostly a textural thing).
Another out-of-the-norm animal eaten as food in that region: mice (field mice which feed on grains; not filthy city mice!). But I'm relieved to say that I have never tasted it (yet).
The trio of animals I mentioned above are sometimes known euphemistically in Manadonese restaurants as 'Pluto, Batman and Mickey'!
cucumberpandan at 10:41PM on 03/02/09
Its true that weird to some is a normal wednesday lunch to others. But for me it has to be pig tongue. The flavor was fine but the texture was incredibly tough and stringy. But it couldn't have been too bad because I've willingly ate it on two occasions. I have also eaten Kangaroo, Alligator, Sea Urchin, Tripe, turtle, chicken hearts, and many others. I am an adventurous eater and will try almost anything. It has a lot to do with how you grew up as well.
My italian immigrant grandparents thought nothing about eating anything that was around and many of their normal eats seem weird today. Some of the older delicacies that I can no longer find are Calf brains, pig knuckles, pig skin (essentially a roll of fat), and literally the crowning achievement capuzelle (No idea on spelling) which is the whole head of a goat. They ate everything from its tongue, to its eyes, and they fought to see who got to eat the brain.
twoojoe at 10:53PM on 03/02/09
Alligator, blood sausage with tongue, the paste they used when I was in elementary school, mystery meat Tuesday in elementary school, and Kierel.
pjracz10 at 10:39AM on 03/03/09
Witchetty grubs!
But I'm not as daring as I used to be
kevster at 11:56AM on 03/03/09
Weird IS quite subjective.
In Okinawa, it's not unusual for my family to have horse stew, grilled snake, sea urchin, fish head soup, pigs feet soup (ashitibichi is awesome!), ox tail soup, etc. which I've tried and LOVE them all.
I've told people at work that weren't at all surprised by the foods above, and I tell them I eat something so every day like grilled eel, deep fried frog legs, snails in butter, grilled octopus, and I get a hideous look and an EWWW!! like I ate their best friend. o.O
*shrug*
Cassaendra at 12:11PM on 03/03/09
Deep-fried dandelion blossoms, pine needle tea, beet ice cream.
I mean, I'll eat eel, alligator, snails or sweetbreads any time of day, but I don't think dandelion donuts are a regular part of any culture's diet.
popcornfordinner at 12:42PM on 03/03/09
I've had periwinkles too but not raw. We picked them from the beach near our house, cooked them and pried the meat out with a needle. I liked it but I was also too young to know it was weird.
I've also eaten road kill. I was at a historical reenactment and a deer got hit by a car and landed on the property where the event was taking place. The reenactors called whoever you are supposed to call in this situation and got permission to cook it for the communal dinner that night. Probably some of the freshest meat I've ever eaten.
swampyankee at 3:26PM on 03/03/09
maybe it was this evening's dinner, a scrambled goose egg. it took me three tries to crack it open and was scary to look at in the pan, the yolk was so big.
it didn't taste very good, either.
cybercita at 8:29PM on 03/03/09
I've noticed this trend. If kids are offered new foods in an attitude thats "no big deal" they are more willing to try them. And are also more likely to be willing to eat new things when they are making their own food decisions.
That being said, I've always been willing to try anything at least once. My list includes a lot of different seafoods:
Shark, eel, abalone, sea cucumber, cuttlefish, snails, bird's nest soup, pork blood, every organ meat imaginable (heart, lung, kidney, stomach, tongue, gizzard...), frog legs, ray/skate, turtle.
my usual "trump card" for this question is sea cucumber or the bird's nest soup. Not a big fan of either one.
engmcmuffin at 10:13PM on 03/03/09
Live piballes (baby glass eels), spit-roasted chiguirro (giant guinea pigs), and hormigas culonas (roasted "big butt" ants) are all delicious and pretty odd, but the stomach churningest was bolut: boiled duck embryo I had in Cambodia. The one I ate had the flavor of kind of overcooked hard boiled egg with a bit of crunchiness from bones and such. It was served with rau thom, white pepper, and pickled garlic. I ate it on the street on a plate slipped into a plastic sleeve like a condom. I hear that it's supposed to be softer cooked, which would have probably tasted better, but been slightly more disgusting. Here's a couple pics.
GoodEaterKenji at 12:17PM on 03/06/09