# What is the most unusual thing you have eaten?



## la reine victoria

Hi All,

Following a discussion, which is currently going on in the English Only forum, concerning the consumption of goat meat, I am inspired to ask "What is the most unusual thing you have eaten?"

Did you know what it was before eating it? Or was it disguised as something else, and then you were told?

I first experienced the taste of goat meat when I was doing some archaeology in Iran. I wasn't too keen to eat an animal which I had always regarded as a homely farm animal kept for milking. I was once given the opportunity to milk a goat when I was living in France.

However, it was a case of "eat goat or be hungry". What made it worse was the fact that the daily goat arrived, all alive-o, at our "dig" house in the morning. My boyfriend used to feed it with breakfast naan bread, saying "Every little helps." 

I also had a share of the occasional gazelle. This didn't worry me as it is much like venison.

My other "most unusual thing moment" happened in Sardinia. I was with three other people and we chose to camp on an isolated beach. One of our vehicles (a camper van) got bogged down in the sand. 

Suddenly, from a seemingly abandoned wooden hut, a very ancient Sardinian man (with skin like tanned leather) emerged, bearing a large shovel and two wooden planks. He worked tirelessly to free our van and, to reward him, we invited him to share our dinner. He arrived at the appointed time, looking spruced-up, bringing us gifts of wine and "a mysterious something" wrapped in a plastic bag.

At the end of the meal the bag was opened. To our horror he produced a lump of very sweaty cheese which was alive with small maggots.  He told us this was a Sardinian speciality, not to be missed. I didn't wish to offend him by refusing so I plucked up courage and managed to eat some. It was absolutely delicious! Two of my friends (male) followed my example but the third (female) had quietly slipped away to bed.

Finally, in southern Spain, I had my first taste of raw sea-urchin. Off a beach near Malaga some local boys were diving for sea-urchins. My boyfriend and I were interested in watching them. They were very friendly and invited us to try some. Verdict - delicious. 

Also in Spain I ate tinned sparrows in a piquant sauce - imported from France. Very good.

Please don't think me heartless. I'm just adventurous.

Looking forward to some interesting replies.  




LRV


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## Chaska Ñawi

Before we go any further with la reine's discussion, I'm going to remind everyone of our parameters.



> Remember the Cultural Discussions Forum is basically just that: a place for discussions. Formulate questions that are open-ended and promote thought-provoking, insightful conversation.



La Reine has done this for us; it is now up to everyone to make sure that their contribution is thoughtful and does not drift into simple lists or chat .... which is a real risk with a topic like this.

I'll drop by later with a menu!


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## barkley04

Well, in tunisia, we eat goat meat usually in summer because it is refreshing. It is delicious by the way.
Once in France, I had eaten the frog's thigh ( les cuisses de grenouille) and they were tasty by the way.


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## panjabigator

I never really considered anything I eat as unusual, since I eat them all the time.  People usually cringe at me when I mention I eat lamb or goat and then are quite shocked to hear I do not touch the cow.  I cannot think of something in Indian cooking which is too unusual for western cuisine, aside from goat I assume.


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## Chaska Ñawi

In developing countries nothing is wasted.

When my Bolivian hosts butchered a ram for All Saints, we started with the perishable parts.  First came the intestines, carefully rinsed out and snipped into little rings, served in soup with quinoa.  Next came the lungs, brain and other organs, served in another soup with potatoes.  Then we ate the head.

As a rule everybody ate meat only on Sundays, and a chicken, lamb or whatever would be divided into 13 equal portions, one for each of us.  You would get your serving of soup, and the meat portion might be a head or a part thereof, depending on the size; a leg, etc.  At first I found it difficult having my food looking or grinning back at me (the pigs weren't in the habit of brushing their teeth before they were killed), but got used to it.

We also drank a lot of chicha, an alcoholic drink made from a corn (maize) base.  The corn could be ground, but was more often chewed by the makers to break down the starch a bit and start the fermentation.

On the Canadian side of the coin:
Our children have been raised to eat octupus, snails, wild game, animal bits and bobs, and various and sundry delicacies from around the world from the get-go.  They will try anything.  I was inordinately pleased a couple of weeks ago when they were offered fresh Malpeque oysters...something they had never previously tried or even seen.  They accepted their shells of semi-liquid oysters without hesitation, ate them with great enjoyment, and happily accepted seconds.  I make many mistakes in parenting, but here's something I got right!


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## Cereth

I´m too picky when it comes to food... i consider i have never eaten unusual food...well unless you think "nopal" (some kind of cactus) is unusual..nopal is soooo delicious...
I have think several times why i don´t even dare to think i can eat deer or goat meat...and i eat pork meat which is less healthy...

In Southern Mexico is far common eating "chapulines" grasshopers with lemon, salt and chili, i´ve never tried though.

Maybe the most unusual thing i´ve eaten is "huitlacoche" a dark fungus from corn, eventhough it looks horrible it´s quite tasty!!!

Another unusual think that mexicans do is adding salt, lemon and chili to the fruits (well we don´t do this with bananas, berries or peaches) but apples, oranges, pears, watermelons, papayas, mangos, coconuts, cucumbers, etc, etc are all welcome!!! i had a friend from puerto rico who couldn´t just believe why we do this....!!


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## danielfranco

Two things, both in Mexico when I was but a small boy:
Believe it or not, thirty-five years ago there used to be vast empty fields of grass in Mexico City in between housing developments (nowdays it's all paved over). When I was a kid, we would grab a large plastic bag and drop a stone in the middle of it and hold it between two children, and then we'd run through the fields. We'd catch all kinds of beastly insects (some rather scary-looking), but we'd sort through them to keep only grasshoppers. Then, we'd run back home with our bounty of creepy crawlers and our moms would flash-fry them in a skillet with some oil and lots of salt...
Although it was very uncomfortable to chew on the legs and hard exterior of the bug, they were very tasty and light... It was like eating a potato chip made of air! (still, when the little legs got stuck between your teeth you might go into the crying meemees, you know?)
The other one was even simpler. When my father would take us into the mountain ranges to visit tiny hamlets (I still think he did some kind of missionary work, but I'm still not sure about it...), people would ask us if we wanted "atole" (in Mexico City, the "atole" is a hot beverage made with sweetened milk and thickened with oatmeal, so it's very sweet and yummy). Of course we wanted some, greedy little sweet-tooths that we were. But, oh my gosh! Their "atole" was a powdered mixture of ground corn and molasses lightly sprinkled in a cup of tepid water. Puagh! Yuck! Eeeeek! My father would then rap us rather hard on the head and would make us drink it down, all of it!!
Well, as a child, I didn't understand that those people were sharing their meal for the day. And, sometimes, they'd go without just to be able to share it with us...


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## Bonjules

Nothing more exotic than oppossum.
Was lying there, in a street in suburban Ohio. Fresh roadkill.
Opened it up, looked at the liver, kidney, heart - looked all perfectly healthy. Why waste the poor thing, I thought, it's dead already.
Must say, it was the finest tasting meat I ever had.
Tried some beaver too, but it has a bit of a 'swampy' side flavor.
Forget about racoon, 'strong' odor, not for the faint-hearted.


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## maxiogee

In a calculated and deliberate attempt to shock someone many years ago I picked a tulip out of a vase on the table in a bar and ate it. Not unpleasant.

As a child I ate - raw - the contents of a sea-urchin's shell.

I am rather a latent-vegetarian and eat little meat these days - but I've never turned down any new meat offered. I've had ostrich, alligator, pigeon, and many varieties of fish including eels and all manner of shellfish.

I've had more smelly, no strike that, downright offensive, cheeses than I can remember. I've never met a cheese I didn't fall in love with.

In my drinking days I never refused anything alcoholic and best remember some magnificent illicit poitín from the west of Ireland.


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## Vanda

In the Northeast area of the country there is a typical famous dish called _buchada de bode_ - he-goat tripe stuffed with all its tripes, small  inside parts (miúdos),  blood and all kinds of spices. These things are sewed inside the tripe (bucho) and then this is cooked with the bacon and the he-goat head in a great amount of water for 5 hours. They say the smelling is awful. To be precise, I read someone saying it smells like _m***e_.  Also they say it is a *very heavy* food. Some people eat buchada almost everyday. Brazilians tourists, many of them like me, have their stomache turned inside out just imagining about this food. 
There is also sarapatel, made of all the interior small parts (miúdos) of a pig and its blood. 
Sorry, I can't remember the most unusual food ever eaten. There must be one, even though nothing I consider disgusting.


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## Bonjules

Vanda,
That word 'miudo' intrigues me. Sounds like 'menudo', a mexican dish made from tripe (Prob. beef stomach, but may be pig, I forgot)  with hominy, served with  bowls of oregano, onion and jalapenos. It's a 'hangover cure' and quite delicious. (Also available in L.A., try some of the places along Pico Blvd.)
 Your description sounds mouthwateringly 'rico'!! Wish I could have some.
saludos
bj


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## Vanda

Bonjules, almost similar dishes, right? Well those who are grown up in those regions love and can't imagine themselves living without it . For my part I can't stand thinking of it.


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## moirag

In Spain they eat -  among other things too numerous to mention - pigs' ears and coxcombs (fried with parsley and garlic, of course!).


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## panjabigator

People eat pickled pigs feet right?  Scares the crap out of me....keep your stinking feet to yourself!

I remember now eating a snail raw when I was young...I chewed on it and spit it out.  I have no clue why...

People in Florida eat Alligator.  Is that eaten in Brazil as well?


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## Bonjules

Nutritionally,  there is little difference between the various kinds of meat - or protein (-cartilage etc.)for that matter.
So the preferences for or the inhibitions  to what we normally (are willing to) eat are of course merely cultural. The hungrier we get, the less matter our cultural biases. Right up to behaviour I don't want to get into here but which is documented on many occasions.
Snails are tough, I think you need to boil them twice - somebody out there who knows how to  prepare them?


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## ireney

Well, in the same way as panjabigator, I still have to eat something that is exotic by Greek standards, though my boyfriend has 'promised' me to take his revenge for my tricking him into eating something that he found delicious in taste but repulsive as a thing to eat, by making me eat dog when we travel to certain countries in Asia.

The following is a list of things I've eaten that friends from other countries have gone "yuck!" about, although I refer to them in general (as in "we Greeks") to show that these are quite standard eating for everyone around here.

Goat is not considered exotic at all. In fact, with Greece being mountainous and rocky, we have more goats than sheep (and cows of course), so eating goat is pretty standard (preferably roasted but when it's older usually as a soup which smells foully while cooked and takes an amazing amount of time to do so).

Intestines are delicacies. Snails too, provided someone goes through the trouble of cleaning them thoroughly (which is a chore since you have to keep them alive and feed them special food -is it flour I wonder?- and then rinse them off prior to cooking). Sea-urchins are not _supposed _ to be cooked. The same goes for just about anything that sticks to sea-rocks (clams and such)  but mussels (we usually cook those). We eat, in fact, pretty much anything that comes out of sea but sea-weeds, sand and rocks (have you tried octopus either grilled -its tentacles- or boiled? Tasty!).

There's also a kind of tripe-soup that is made by various parts of a pig you'd normally throw away but it takes talent to make one that not only tastes nice but also doesn't smell awful (which is why you won't find many Greeks of a younger age willing to try some).

Lungs and stomachs and spleens are considered very tasty too and are part of the traditional cuisine. Same goes with brain although I don't agree with those who go after fish-heads especially when it comes to medium-sized fish (usually eaten fried) such as a red-mullet. Fish-heads belong to the cats. Some people have also found curious how we fry and eat whole (as in "you take the fish as it is and fry it not bothering to take the intestines out unless it is a 'bigghish' one") tiny fish such as the fry or the sand smelt -got these from my dictionary, I hope they are the correct names). Testicles are another chewy delicacy around here.

One thing though. The majority of Greeks like their meat well cooked. We believe that blood is ok on a live animal or an uncooked _part_ of the animal but stakes are not supposed to bleed.


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## maxiogee

ireney said:
			
		

> One thing though. The majority of Greeks like their meat well cooked. We believe that blood is ok on a live animal or an uncooked part of the animal but stakes are not supposed to bleed.



Vampires like their _stakes_ rare - very rare!


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## ireney

Oh God! I did it AGAIN!!! I am not going to correct the mistake as I laughed really hard with *maxiogee*'s post and I hope others will too.

Obviously we are not famished enough to try to cook stakes and I have never seen a stake bleed.
Furthermore stakes are related with animals in only two ways: Keeping them penned in while alive and possibly, if one is brutal or really poor or prehistoric or whatever ,by being used to begin the process of turning a living animal into *steaks*



At least this time it wasn't as bad as calling someone "depraved" instead of "deprived"


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## Vanda

> People in Florida eat Alligator. Is that eaten in Brazil as well?/QUOTE]
> 
> It was. Maybe it is. This is because it is forbidden to chase them as they were on the verge of being extinct. It's delicious! Much more than any fish. I've already eaten it.
> I forgot mentioning the components of a feijoada because it's a so common dish here and we love it. Well the real feijoada takes pig's ear, tail and feet among other things (sausage, tenderloin, bacon, smoked pork ribs).


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## Bonjules

The stakes are high that the mods will delete this if we get further into steakes vs. stakes(unless they felt they had no stake in it).

Moderator note:  Yes, these should indeed be deleted .... but I'm snickering too much to do anything about it.  Behave yourselves, or I'll stake my supper steaks that I'll feel a mean st(r)eak coming over me!


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## panjabigator

Chaska, that was very creative!  Ok, back to the topic at hand.

Do any of you feel that your meat "tasted just like chicken?"  A lot of times, meat is qualified to taste just like chicken in the US; I have heard gator tastes like chicken, but I see no point in eating a "strange" meat if it has nothing new to offer.


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## Josh_

When I was on the Greek of Lesvos I had my first taste of octopus.  It actually was not too bad.

I lived in Egypt for a while, and I would have liked to tast camel, but never got around to it.  I never really heard much about eating camels there, and to the best of my knowledge, I think it is rare.

I think this will take the cake, so to speak, as the most unusual thing ever eaten.  At my cousin's wedding they had a unique delicacy that requires great courage to eat as there is a psychological aspect one must overcome knowing what this really is. The delicacy is called Rocky Mountain Oysters and rather than telling you want it is, I'll just let you click on the link below.  At the wedding they served it with a sauce (tomato based) and it actually wasn't half bad.  If you want to play a joke on a friend, have thenm eat one first, and then tell them what it is.  Without further ado:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_mountain_oysters


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## Josh_

panjabigator said:
			
		

> Chaska, that was very creative!  Ok, back to the topic at hand.
> 
> Do any of you feel that your meat "tasted just like chicken?"  A lot of times, meat is qualified to taste just like chicken in the US; I have heard gator tastes like chicken, but I see no point in eating a "strange" meat if it has nothing new to offer.


I think that there must have been certain meats that taste similar to chicken, and that's how the phrase came about, but it seems to me that, nowadays, it is more of a joke than anything else.

But I believe this is somewhat off topic.


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## Vanda

The only way someone convinced me to eat frog , fried frog, was telling me it was chicken. After I ate they told me the truth. Well, it reminds fried chicken, but I wouldn't eat it if I had known what that really was in advance.


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## maxiogee

panjabigator said:
			
		

> Do any of you feel that your meat "tasted just like chicken?"  A lot of times, meat is qualified to taste just like chicken in the US; I have heard gator tastes like chicken, but I see no point in eating a "strange" meat if it has nothing new to offer.



Excellent question panj2 - and one which probabkly deserves a thread all to itself.
I eat little meat as I have never really liked the taste and texture and the fat and gristly bits turned my stomach. But it does appear that (a) almost all 'white' meats taste like chicken, and worse than that (b) chicken no longer tastes like chicken.
I take it that the intensive rearing systems are to blame for (b) and that the public's acceptance of tasteless chicken is to blame for (a). Were the customers to demand food which tasted 'real' — and were they to be prepared to pay the price for it — they would get it.

I also can't help thinking if western palates are not becoming jaded. Everything is seasoned and spiced and flavoured to such an extent that few people know the pleasure of a piece of un-sauced meat. As an example of what I mean I quote from the menu of our local newly-arrived Starbucks coffee-shop —> Banana Caramel Frappachino Blended Coffee! I beg your pardon? What exactly am I meant to be tasting here?


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## Josh_

I found this article which explains possible roots for the phrase "it tastes like chicken:"

http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20000717chicken1.asp


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## Cinesina

In Indonesia it's quite common to eat everything.. in some provinces we eat rats, bats, cats, dogs, worms, monkeys, horses, etc, i live papua in the eastern part of indonesia borders with papua new guinea, and people do eat kangaroo in the eastern part of the island... yup that cute animal... the more remote you are, the more strange animals you will eat...
and even in the middle of our impenetrable jungle, some of the tribes still cannibal.. which is apparently still part of the culture...


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## badgrammar

Alright, I love horse meat.  I love horses alive, but their meat is just so very good.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> I found this article which explains possible roots for the phrase "it tastes like chicken:"
> 
> http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20000717chicken1.asp



That was really interesting, Josh!  I wish they'd taken it a bit further, though, particularly Joe Staten's research.

My chickens are free-range, so they never ever "taste like chicken".  I'd disagree with the claim that all birds taste like chicken, incidentally; I ate frigate birds in Polynesia, and they tasted like their diet - fish.  I ate pork there too - the wild pigs eat wild fruit, and their flavour is extremely fruity.  A chicken that eats lots of grasshoppers tastes much different than a chicken that eats mostly corn.  

I'd be more inclined to say that, as a rule of thumb, meat tastes like what the animal's been eating.  Perhaps this is why I didn't taste much difference between the iguana, the chicken and the pork tacos at my local Oaxaca (Mexico) bus station, but the venison tacos had a very distinctive flavour.

However, in my part of rural Bolivia the pigs lived almost exclusively on a diet of excrement .... and I don't remember it affecting their flavour adversely.  Another theory blown out of the water....


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## Bonjules

Exactly, Chaska said it very well.
The reason every thing tastes the same and not very interesting is the mass production of meat, geared toward rapid growth and disease prevention(likely in crowded conditions). so all these animals in all the factories eat essentially the same thing and the same antibiotics.
There are higly prized lambs from some areas in Spain where certain grasses grow exclusively.
     The uniformity of the taste is depressing; I remember some naturally cured ham from my youth in Germany - people have really no idea any more what ham tastes like. Everything is cured now in very concentrated nitrate/nitrite salt solutions ( the 'cold cuts' too) and salt is all you can taste, really.
Same thing by the way with the cardboard-taste tomatoes you buy - who still knows what a tomato tastes like?


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## la reine victoria

Welcome to the forums, Cinesina.   

I'm not at all surprised to read your interesting menu.  I feel I could be brave enough to try everything, provided I was unaware beforehand that it might be a cat or dog.  No monkey, thank you.

I've been pondering on worms - would I eat them?  Certainly not in a stew - possibly crispy fried.  After all I eat prawns which, when peeled, closely resemble large maggots.  I also eat winkles and whelks (when I can get them) and these are just members of the snail family.  I absolutely adore snails in garlic butter.  A friend of mine actually made a snail sandwich in a very high class restaurant in Nuits St. George.  Luckily there was a large group of us at the table so his uncouth behaviour went unnoticed by the other diners.

Kangaroo and ostrich meat are available in the UK and I would be willing to eat these too.

I'm sure our ancient ancestors would have eaten anything which moved. 


LRV


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## Bonjules

I forgot something important - if I may further ruin your appetite (sorry).
When I moved to Puerto Rico I did a little research to see if the animal feeds sold here could be tested for contaminants (Pesticides, herbicides and so on) since I always like to keep some chickens.
I talked to a lot of places, university labs (in the US)and the like and it turns out there is no control whatsover of what goes into the feed anywhere in the U.S.,which is why they declined politely - they wouldn't even know how to go about it.
So the next time you serve your 'chicken', remember: you might be eating something very 'unusual' indeed.
Cheers


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## pickypuck

Maybe it is not too exotic but for me it definitely was... in France a couple of times it was served in the restaurant universitaire wheat, cooked like if it was rice... and in the supermarket there were lots of pistache Danets. So far it's the most unusual thing I've eaten but compared to what you've told...  

¡Olé!


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## badgrammar

Doesn't anyone enjoy horse around here?  No steak more tender, no meat finer...


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## brian

In Louisiana we are famous for our gulf/swamp/marshland seafood.  We eat a lot of different fish, shrimp, oysters (raw on the half shell or fried or cooked in a gumbo), alligator, etc.  I personally think alligator is incredible because it has a very distinct flavor (not one of chicken) while the texture is somewhere between fish and chicken...I love it.  My favorite food here, though, is boiled crawfish.  They are kind of like mini lobsters, at least in appearance, but definitely not in taste.  While lobsters are generally thought of (in this day and age) as a delicacy, crawfish on the other hand are thought of as bottom-dwellers and gross by people outside of the southeast US.  Many refuse to eat them because after boiled they're still sometimes quite dirty and still have their eyes and antennae and all.  Plus you have rip the tail off from the body, and locals (myself especially) suck the heads since that's where all the flavor is. 

On another note, my dad has recently been traveling to some more remote parts of China for his work, where the Chinese person most fluent in English can hardly make an English sentence.  Needless to say, he generally doesn't know what he's eating since they can't explain it to him.  He's very much into cooking, at least here in the States, but he said he's been to restaurants and seen things (mostly sea creatures) that he has never seen before in his life.  Some of them were delicious, but some he could hardly stomach.  Because of the customs associated with the Chinese there--at dinner he was considered a sort of "guest of honor"--he was obligated to eat whatever they served him.  I'd be interested in hearing some descriptions of more "unusual" Chinese (or other Asian) dishes...


Brian


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## Cinesina

Thanks LRV

I haven't tried it all, but at the end i think it will taste almost the same. It's only our mind who say we cannot eat that. Let's say if we don't know what sort of meat is that and it served with some spices.. onions.. garlic.. soy sauce.. and it's delicious... 
The only different is, in here they cook it not with the gas stove , like cat and dog for example, they mixed it with some kind of leaves and chopped it together and put it inside the bamboo, and put it on the fire..
The monkey, mostly they eat the brain, with a kind of straw.. yuck 
Anyway... it might be disgusting for other people (including me  ) but for them it's just a common thing, nothing special.. 



			
				la reine victoria said:
			
		

> Welcome to the forums, Cinesina.
> 
> I'm not at all surprised to read your interesting menu. I feel I could be brave enough to try everything, provided I was unaware beforehand that it might be a cat or dog. No monkey, thank you.
> 
> I've been pondering on worms - would I eat them? Certainly not in a stew - possibly crispy fried. After all I eat prawns which, when peeled, closely resemble large maggots. I also eat winkles and whelks (when I can get them) and these are just members of the snail family. I absolutely adore snails in garlic butter. A friend of mine actually made a snail sandwich in a very high class restaurant in Nuits St. George. Luckily there was a large group of us at the table so his uncouth behaviour went unnoticed by the other diners.
> 
> Kangaroo and ostrich meat are available in the UK and I would be willing to eat these too.
> 
> I'm sure our ancient ancestors would have eaten anything which moved.
> 
> 
> LRV


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## TimLA

What a great thread!

I've learned that I'm very adventurous in terms of food, since I've tried most of the delicacies mentioned here.

I've eaten coratella in Rome (lungs, heart, kidneys) but my most recent experience was in Palermo. There is a famous restaurant there called "Antica Focacceria San Francesco" in which they serve Meusa sandwiches. Meusa is boiled, sliced beef spleen (milza) - served with mayo on a burger bun. What a clash of civilizations! Tastes "organy" as it should, but not bad at all.

I have no doubts that next time I'm in Palermo I'll see a McMeusa.

Chow!


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## foxfirebrand

The only things mentioned so far that I haven't (knowingly) eaten are bats, rats, monkeys and camels.  The things I've eaten that weren't mentioned (that I can think of at the moment) are snakes, ants, spiders.  Also whale, donkey, bear and dog meat.

I could mention sharkfin and turtle soup and a host of other things-- but do they qualify as unusual?  Does squirrel?  Does armadillo?  Pronghorn (a sort of antelope)?  Depends on where you're living, I guess.

For me, the only "unusual" item was the dog-- a stew ingredient that took me by surprise, as my hosts intended it to.  But it's not an uncommon ingredient according to most of the world's population.

Oh I forgot one thing mentioned that I haven't tried-- coon meat.  I have the mother wit not to chow down on skunk as well, even given the opportunity.
.


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## cherine

Hi, this is a belated reply to Josh's post 



			
				Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> I lived in Egypt for a while, and I would have liked to tast camel, but never got around to it. I never really heard much about eating camels there, and to the best of my knowledge, I think it is rare.


True, camel meat is not very common, specially in cities. It's eaten more in the rural areas. I think I've tasted it once or twice in my life, but I can't remember what it was like.



> I think this will take the cake, so to speak, as the most unusual thing ever eaten. At my cousin's wedding they had a unique delicacy that requires great courage to eat as there is a psychological aspect one must overcome knowing what this really is. The delicacy is called Rocky Mountain Oysters and rather than telling you want it is, I'll just let you click on the link below. At the wedding they served it with a sauce (tomato based) and it actually wasn't half bad. If you want to play a joke on a friend, have thenm eat one first, and then tell them what it is. Without further ado:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_mountain_oysters


Now this is interesting, because those "oysters" are eaten in Egypt, specially by men (I don't think women eat them, at least out of disgust, I would never taste those ), people call them by their common name "makhaaSi" (which, in itself, sounds disgusting). 
The interesting thing is that, on the contrary to the American belief, eating those is not challenging at all, men here regard it as symbol of virility in the sense that eating them will increase their verility (!!!).

Now, as for what's more unusual for _me_, we don't have that great variety of cuisines in Egypt, and I haven't travelled in my life. But the first unusual food I ever tasted was the Chinese sweet and sour food. In Egypt, people are used to eat food that's either sweet or sour, never both in the same time/dish. But I did like it a lot, and it's getting some popularity, though not much.


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## la reine victoria

badgrammar said:
			
		

> Doesn't anyone enjoy horse around here? No steak more tender, no meat finer...


 




A resounding NO! from me Bad G. I most recently saw horse being eaten when I was dining al fresco in the large square surrounding the old railway station in Lille. It seemed to be very popular - people were tucking in with gusto, mopping up the juices with their bread and generally smacking their lips appreciatively.

Adventurous as I am with food I have good reason to avoid eating horse.

At the end of the war (yes, I am old) my mother used to take me shopping at our local market in London. Because of food rationing and a general scarcity of "standard" meat (a chicken was a luxury, eaten only at Christmas time) there were many butchers' stalls with nothing but horse and whale meat for sale. I have a vivid memory of the horse meat - very dark flesh surrounded by almost glowing yellow fat. Since there was no refrigeration it was invariably covered in swarms of flies. The foul smell pervaded the whole of the market. My mother said she wouldn't even feed it to our cat!

I was offered "cavallo" at a remote, small restaurant in Sardinia. There was no menu, we were simply told what was available. The memory of the chef/waiter will stay with me forever. He said, "cavallo" and, thinking we didn't understand, proceeded to do a fine impression of a horse. He made clicking noises with his tongue to imitate the sound of hooves while moving his arms to make them look like a horse's galloping legs.

I suppose it's a psychological issue with me.  On your recommendation, Bad G, I shall steel myself to try some next time I'm in Lille.  I think several goodly beers will be needed beforehand.  

Some of you have mentioned tripe.  It's funny how we English use this word idiomatically to mean "rubbish" - "What a load of tripe."

Personally I love it but it's no longer seen in the south of England.  Maybe it can be found in the north.  It is the cow's stomach which we stew gently in milk, together with plenty of sliced onions.  No salt should be added during the cooking process as this seperates the milk solids.

Has anyone eaten rams' testicles?  I saw rows of them dangling from rails at butchers' shops in the markets of Benghazi, Libya when I was there on yet another archaeological excavation.  Like my post-war horse meat, they were covered in flies!  I may have eaten them unwittingly since we always dined at restaurants - they were incredibly cheap.  Mostly we ate meat stew with rice and I recall that some of the "meat" had suspiciously gristly and chewy bits in it.  

Without causing any offence to Muslims I have to add that these Libyan restaurants had a row of marble sinks at the entrance (in full view of the diners) where the locals were obliged to "cleanse" themselves before eating.  The worst part was when they blew their noses into the sink then snorted water up their nostrils to make sure they were really clean.

I've eaten wild boar in Italy - absolutely delicious.  Also black pudding made with boar's blood and a few chopped up "bits and pieces".

Turning to the Chinese.  I very much enjoy a nice, crispy "spring" or "pancake" roll.  I've been told by a Chinese person that these contain boiled-up chicken's claws and  heads but this doesn't bother me.

I'm so glad I started this thread - it's been a real eye-opener.

The thought of sucking a monkey's brain through a straw gives me the shivers.  





LRV


----------



## foxfirebrand

How could I forget peyote, amanita muscaria, psilocybin mushrooms, morning glory seeds, and-- well, you get the idea.

Statistically, experience in this dietary category is not as rare as, say, being old enough to enjoy abalone before it was an endangered species. But no matter how many people eat these plants, nor how often, they will always rank among the most _unusual_ of culinary experiences, to put it mildly.
.


----------



## badgrammar

Cheez Whiz (spray cheese in a can), Velveeta, Pop Rocks and Marshmallow Fluff are right up there amongst the nasty chemical things I have ingested and nearly enjoyed.  Probably stranger items to eat than snacking on monkey brains when you live in the jungle, come to think of it. 



			
				foxfirebrand said:
			
		

> How could I forget peyote, amanita muscaria, psilocybin mushrooms, morning glory seeds, and-- well, you get the idea.
> 
> Statistically, experience in this dietary category is not as rare as, say, being old enough to enjoy abalone before it was an endangered species. But no matter how many people eat these plants, nor how often, they will always rank among the most _unusual_ of culinary experiences, to put it mildly.
> .


----------



## panjabigator

I have to ask...what kind of whale was it?  Isn't eating whale illegal everywhere?  Did you eat Dog in Korean food?


----------



## timebomb

Well, I have eaten quite a few unusual foods (frogs, turtles, snake etc) but the most unusual thing I have ever eaten must be "birds' nest soup".  It's really the nest of a bird called a swift.  The thing I often wondered is how our ancestors knew that it was edible, the fact that it's neither plant nor animal.

Loh K L


----------



## Cereth

Cinesina said:
			
		

> In Indonesia it's quite common to eat everything.. in some provinces we eat rats, bats, cats, dogs, worms, monkeys, horses, etc, i live papua in the eastern part of indonesia borders with papua new guinea, and people do eat kangaroo in the eastern part of the island... yup that cute animal... the more remote you are, the more strange animals you will eat...
> and even in the middle of our impenetrable jungle, some of the tribes still cannibal.. which is apparently still part of the culture...


 
I think i´ll prefer death before eating cat meat ..i just could not forgive myself  if i try it ..


----------



## panjabigator

Yes Cereth.  We love our pets too too much to ever even consider eating them.  I'd sooner eat my thigh then eat my dog of 16 years.


----------



## se16teddy

panjabigator said:
			
		

> I have to ask...what kind of whale was it? Isn't eating whale illegal everywhere?


Whale meat is common on menus in Norway, at least in the north of the country.  I understand from this article that it is minke whale. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5175970.stm


----------



## borhane

in the big sahara , people eat the fish of the desert :"cherchman" ( a kind of small reptile )
nb : the bedoins eat every thing that moves !! except the female of the cameleon so it can live freely !


----------



## Vanda

I ate whale's stake when I was a child. Absolutely delicious! Well, long enough before whales were in extinction....


----------



## Miguelillo 87

Well I have eaten only three weird food.
First ,. One day when I joined my aunt to a town in Edomex called Nopaltepec (Mountain where there are nopales) they give us a strange food, I did not recognize what it was and I tasted it, I hate the flavour and I just give another two bites, (I didn’t want to be rude) Later on they told me the dish was Escamoles, which it’s eggs of ants!!!! it’s like caviar only that’s the little sons of the ants!!!!
 
Second.- The family of my stepfather loves to eat grasshoppers as well as a lot of people who I know. When I taste them I love them obviously nothing in excess.(note,. In Mexico to eat grasshoppers is not weird, but I supposed it’s gonna be for you.)
 
 
Third.- That’s weird and funny. Someday my mother and I were vacationing on Acapulco (it’s a beach in Guerrero, Mexico) and we were ran out of money, so The only we had on the hotel room was a bottle of Buffalo (it’s a kind of hot sauce but dense instead of liquid) and a bag of chips(Lays I think it’s the trademark in USA), so my mother decided to go to the store and buy a package of bread (pan bimbo) and she prepared me , Chips’ Sandwich!!!! Obviously culined with hot sauce. And let me tell you it was delicious!!!!


----------



## la reine victoria

In early Victorian England fried *guinea pigs* were often served. I collect very old cookery books (plus books, books and more books) and somewhere I have a recipe for guinea pigs. I remember reading that after being gutted they had to be gently flattened with a wooden hammer, dipped in seasoned flour and fried in hot fat.

Are they not eaten in Peru? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they are.

To us, now, the guinea pig is among the top pets for children.

I couldn't eat one if I knew what it was.

I enjoy eating liver, kidneys and hearts but I suppose they are not unusual. 

Ice-cold jellied eels with a little vinegar and some white pepper are another thing which I adore. They are extremely expensive though. Sometimes I ask my friends if they like jellied eels. "Yuk! No." they reply. "Have you ever tried them?" I ask. "Well, no . . . . . ." 





LRV


----------



## cirrus

la reine victoria said:
			
		

> In early Victorian England fried *guinea pigs* were often served. ..
> Are they not eaten in Peru? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they are


Yes they are, an a valuable source of protein they are too.  I ate them in the sierras.  As someone who was brought up poaching I don't share your qualms even though yes the thing did look just like the things you would bring home with you from class during the school holidays.


----------



## Vanda

Another one. Our indians were used to eat _bunda de tanajura_, a kind of ant with wings, (they ate its bottom). After them the Africans slaves used to toast them and eat with* farofa, *seasoned manioc flour . Until today, in some places people like eating this delicacy.


----------



## panjabigator

So now people find it disgusting?

Due to the movie "Harry Potter," the jelly bean company "Jellybelly" has released new strange flavors, the kinds only children would like.  One of these such flavors is vomit, and from what I hear, it is 100% accurate.  They have a lawn clippings one, and it tasted like grass.  They also have a Ant hill flavored bean.  I was scared to try it because I was pretty sure the company probably extracted ant poison for flavoring, so I let my sister have at it .  She said it tasted like Raid (Ant killer).  

I love liver!  And Kidney!  mmm mmm good!

Are there any weird plants that people eat?  Or food combinations?


----------



## cirrus

Vanda said:
			
		

> Another one. Our indians were used to eat _bunda de tanajura_, a kind of ant with wings, (they ate its bottom).


I remember eating hormigas santandereanas in Bogota.  I can't say they tasted like chicken. Despite their name, they aren't ants but some sort of big beetle.  Not bad and way better than pork scratchings.


----------



## maxiogee

During a guest appearance on QI, screened on the November 11, 2005, *Jeremy Clarkson* said that seal flipper tastes "exactly like licking a hot Turkish urinal". He also ate whale (which he said tastes like steak but with an iron tang), covered in grated puffin. He said, "The waiter asked if I wanted some grated puffin on my whale and how do you say no to something like that?"


----------



## caravaggio

unos gusanos sancochados llamados suri..los crudos no me gustaron...en la selva amazónica


----------



## Buttoneer

I would say alligator nuggets, breaded & deep-fried on a Safari in Florida.    Delicious. Tastes like chicken.  Also, I have eaten Stuffed Derma.  A tasty Jewish dish consisting of Stuffed goose neck.  I have also eaten chocolate covered bees & grasshoppers, (Not for the faint of heart), squid (most of our Chinese buffet restaurants serve it), and that's about it.


----------



## foxfirebrand

panjabigator said:
			
		

> I have to ask...what kind of whale was it? Isn't eating whale illegal everywhere? Did you eat Dog in Korean food?


I ate whale meat in Bergen, Norway in 1961 (also reindeer, which I thought pretty unusual at the time).  Later in life, there were many years where venison was just about a staple at my house.

I had dog stew in 1963 or 64, while hitchhiking around Montana and Alberta.  Some Indians picked me and my friend up just before dark, and were kind enough to invite us to dinner and offer us space to throw down our bedrolls.

They didn't say the huge pot of stew had dogmeat in it, but after a while I was offered seconds, and the head of the household said "dig down for the pup."  After a bit of hunting around, up came the ladle with half a puppy's carcass in it-- the hindquarters.  

I have always been pretty game when it comes to food, so I accepted the slight challenge involved-- they had every reason to suspect us white kids had never eaten dog before, not knowingly, and were playing a joke on us but not a mean one. I think it was already on the menu that night, and they didn't batch it up just because we were there. 

The meat was good, tenderer than the larger chunks and joints in the stew-- I only wasted a little, couldn't bring myself to eat the paws.
.


----------



## krimo

Not unusual that much but disgusting. It was some kind of a big sausage. But don't ask me what was in it, I don't know and I'm not sure I want to ! Anyway, it smelled (and certainly tasted) like sh** to be perfectly honest. Probably the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten !


----------



## Victoria32

la reine victoria said:
			
		

> Some of you have mentioned tripe.  It's funny how we English use this word idiomatically to mean "rubbish" - "What a load of tripe."
> 
> Personally I love it but it's no longer seen in the south of England.  Maybe it can be found in the north.  It is the cow's stomach which we stew gently in milk, together with plenty of sliced onions.  No salt should be added during the cooking process as this seperates the milk solids.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...... Also black pudding made with boar's blood and a few chopped up "bits and pieces".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LRV



Good evening, La Reine...

My father was from the North of England, and so we ate black pudding as a matter of course when we were children, but I can't stomach it now, and my children have never had it, neither have they ever had tripe - my mother was a terrible cook, and maybe I just never had it cooked properly! (I mean no disrespect to her, cooking just wasn't one of her gifts.) 

The only seafood I've ever balked at, is 'kina' Maori for sea urchin, and rotten corn (another Maori delicacy -a nd yes, it is corn soaked in a stream until it rots. Yeechhh!)


----------



## panjabigator

It makes you wonder how on earth would they think to eat some of these things....rotten corn?  Who would know to soak it in a stream tell it rots and then eat it?  These inventers must of been the movers and the shakers of their day!


----------



## Victoria32

panjabigator said:
			
		

> It makes you wonder how on earth would they think to eat some of these things....rotten corn?  Who would know to soak it in a stream tell it rots and then eat it?  These inventers must of been the movers and the shakers of their day!



There are some interesting Maori foods - my daughter-in-law (Maori) tells me rotten corn is vile, but maori bread is delicious - made with potato, I think...

My ex-husband (Maori) ate eels (yech, you just can't kill them and they wriggle in the pan, even when chopped up!) and kina, but I drew the line at that... 

Yet, he'd balk at North of England delicacies such as black pudding (blood pudding is another name for it.) I don't like the idea much myself now... I had dinner with some German friends once who served me bratwurst and sauerkraut to be authentically German, well sauerkraut is an acquired  taste.  

It's enough to make me turn vegetarian all this talk of eating organ meats...
An Indian man (Hindu) I studied with lived on chips (BE hot chips, fries, not AE chips = crisps at the student cafe , because  they had nothing else for vegetarians..)


----------



## Bonjules

Yes, organ meats and innards...
they were certainly popuplar in Germany after WWII. Hunger and necessity are great cooks, they say. I miss eating some of them: tripe had many ways of being prepared, fried (after boiling) with egg, or 'sour' in a sauce made with vinegar..Kidneys are excellent when prepared well - good idea to soak them for a while to get rid of any smell of urine. 
Liver is of course a great dish, hot or cold: A well made 'chopped liver' in Jewish cuisine - what a delight. In the age of concern about beef or contaminants in general (concentrate in liver) creative cooks have even taken to preparing a vegetarian 'chopped liver', which can be quite good.
I kind of liked the idea that little was wasted then; that these meats are considered 'inferior' now by many I find a strange concept.
Caution: If you are going by chance for Polar Bear liver, be warned: Some researchers got very sick from eating it, it contains very high concentrations of Vitamin A.
Saludos


----------



## skatoulitsa

ireney in an earlier post described all the things we greek people eat that other find disgusting, like intestines, so I won't get into that.

I have another one though that I don't think many greek people eat either. People from the area my dad is from make a salad from some very prickly plants. When you gather them you have to be very careful not to get prickled, but after they are boiled they are easily edible. This is the only picture I could find online:
http://www.mani.org.gr/hlorida/01skolimos/01skolimos.JPG

but I think you are supposed to eat them before they get tall and get flowers.


----------



## Poetic Device

What's that meal that (I think) Scottish people eat?  It has intestine, heart, stomach and a few more gross things......  It begins with an "h".  WHat the heck is it called????


----------



## pickypuck

Poetic Device said:
			
		

> What's that meal that (I think) Scottish people eat? It has intestine, heart, stomach and a few more gross things...... It begins with an "h". WHat the heck is it called????


 
Haggis

¡Olé!


----------



## Poetic Device

Good Lord!!!!  Has anyone here tried that?


----------



## Kräuter_Fee

For me goat meat is normal, I have eaten it before.

Snails are normal here (in Spain and in Portugal), I've eaten them many times and they're yummy.

Octopus, seen as a disgusting in many countries, is normal for us as well.

I have also eaten reindeer, horse and ostrich.

I think reindeer is the weirdest thing I've tried... in Finland it's normal though.


----------



## Bonjules

Heart (is it part of Haggis?) is quite good, just a big muscle.
Since it's pysiologically 'specialized' muscle, it tastes a little different from the other muscle of the animal. Need to boil it for a while!
Buen provecho.


----------



## Lavinia.dNP

The weirdest things I ate are tongue (I can eat it, but I'm not really crazy about it), snails of course, oysters (these 3 things are really common in France where I live), fried veal brain (very good), frog legs (but only once, because after I was told that they don't bother about killing the frog before chopping the legs off), jellyfish salad (in a chinese restaurant, but was it really jellyfish?), shark fin soup, seaweeds, ostrich steak, sea urchin (really delicious)

One thing that I don't think I could munch at is worms and insects.

A few days ago I saw the french equivalent of "survivor" on the TV, and one of the challenges was eating 10 huge living worms as fast as possible. The contestants were reqired to tear the head off before munching into the worm, because it was the only non-edible part.

Can you imagine, grabbing the living worm, which is bigger than your finger, tear its head off with your hands and then eat it?

Well, both of the contestants (2 women) ate the 10 worms! (well, one of them ate 9 and 1/2 because the other had swallowed her 10th worm before she could finish her 10th, and of course, she spat the rest)

well, after this : bon appétit!!


----------



## Poetic Device

Wow, I will never complain about military food again.


----------



## loladamore

The most unpleasant experience I have had was trying to eat an oyster. I have eaten all kinds of things, but eating creatures while they are still alive somehow seems extra disgusting to me. Mind you, these days, I don't like eating dead ones, either. I wonder if my vegetarianism has anything to do with the fact that while growing up, I ate:

snails, squid, eels (argh! my dad used to buy them alive), brains, liver, kidney, lamb "fries", and offal in general (you name it, I ate it at some point), haggis, black pudding, white pudding, frogs' legs, rabbit (traumatic - I spent all afternoon playing with the rabbits which were then presented on a plate), and I really don't want to ask my parents what else... 
Since then, I have tried some kind of ground-up insects (the influence of the mezcal persuaded me that a vegetarian could eat insects) in Mexico, as well as various cacti and funghi, some of which are pretty slimy, but fantastic, like huitlacoche. 

Obviously context is all important, as none of these things was considered 'unusual' in the circumstances in which it was eaten. 'Unusual' would be when I smothered Ukranian kasha with Mexican salsa Valentina. Yummy.


----------



## stephyjh

It's interesting that alligator and snake (I've had both) have such a different flavor from other game meats, such as venison and squirrel. I don't know if it's a reptilian thing, or if it's because they're carnivores, but they have quite a different taste. Also, living in the south, we eat livermush, which is all the different scraps of the pig that couldn't be used otherwise. (Up north they call it scrapple, I think.) Haggis, however, really has to be done right, or it's just inedible.


----------



## la reine victoria

Kräuter_Fee said:
			
		

> I think reindeer is the weirdest thing I've tried... *in Finland it's normal though.*


 


As is moose sausage!  Yummy.





LRV


----------



## Poetic Device

loladamore said:
			
		

> The most unpleasant experience I have had was trying to eat an oyster. I have eaten all kinds of things, but eating creatures while they are still alive somehow seems extra disgusting to me.


 
Not to mention what you eat when you eat oysters or clams or anything else like that......  It's worse than Haggis to an extent!


----------



## brian

Oysters of all kinds--most popularly raw--are hugely popular here in New Orleans.  Our famous dish is Oysters Rockefeller, named after the supremely rich (at one time the richest man in the world) John D. Rockefeller because the dish was so exclusive and prestigious that that was the only fitting name.

Here's a description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oysters_Rockefeller


----------



## Arenita

Hi foreros:
I have almost read most of the posts and I think they are very interesting. I have to confess that many of the things that are considered "weird" are not so here in Peru.

You can find different types of food according to the region.  

For example in the rain forest region, people eat ants, monkey, sajino (something similar to a pig) and worms (never ate those).
In highlands, you can eat guinea pigs (also in the Coast), lamb and other animals.
In the Coast you can eat the different existing birds (chickens, hens, ducks and even young pigeons) and rabbits.  There is a place where you can eat delicious cat stew and turtle.

However, we also eat the organs of the animals, and when we want that foreigners taste them, we simply do not tell the truth after they have eaten them.  We have "anticuchos" (cow's heart), "criadilla" (bull's testicles), "mondonguito" (cow's bowels), "caldo de cabeza" (a soup made of ram's head).  Other examples are: cow's tongue (with spaghetti), chicken's feet (in soup), pork's feet (in stew).

Not everybody in my country eats all this, but I have tried most of them and they taste really good!! =Þ


----------



## Arenita

Sorry, I forget!  We eat *everything *the sea can offer us.


----------



## la reine victoria

*Arenita*





> There is a place where you can eat delicious cat stew and turtle.


 
And cows' bowels!


    




LRV


----------



## Arenita

la reine victoria said:
			
		

> *Arenita*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And cows' bowels!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LRV


 
Yes, and they are very delicious


----------



## Chazzwozzer

Arenita said:
			
		

> Sorry, I forget!  We eat *everything *the sea can offer us.


"Denizden babam çıksa yerim!" _(__If my father came from the sea, I would be inclined to eat__ him) _is a very popular Turkish proverb. Turks and the Spanish agree on this matter, I believe. 

Does gado-gado count? I know it's traditional Indonesian, but this is the most unusual -at least for me- thing _I_ have ever eaten.


----------



## Arenita

Chazzwozzer said:
			
		

> "Denizden babam çıksa yerim!" _(__If my father came from the sea, I would be inclined to eat__ him) _is a very popular Turkish proverb. Turks and the Spanish agree on this matter, I believe.
> 
> Does gado-gado count? I know it's traditional Indonesian, but this is the most unusual -at least for me- thing _I_ have ever eaten.


 
I have never heard about gado gado, but it seems delicious.

http://images.google.com.pe/images?hl=es&q=%22gado%20gado%22&sa=N&tab=wi


----------



## Victoria32

Poetic Device said:
			
		

> What's that meal that (I think) Scottish people eat? It has intestine, heart, stomach and a few more gross things...... It begins with an "h". WHat the heck is it called????


 
Haggis! My mother was of Scots descent, my father English and he told us that haggis is stuffed with old tram tickets.


----------



## Chazzwozzer

Arenita said:
			
		

> I have never heard about gado gado, but it seems delicious.
> 
> http://images.google.com.pe/images?hl=es&q=%22gado%20gado%22&sa=N&tab=wi


To be quite honest, I didn't find it delicious. It was just OK.  Satay tastes much better than gado-gado. 


I also tried satay along with gado-gado, which is kind of similar to shis kebab. Here you can find the pictures I took. First one is gado-gado and the second is satay.


----------



## la reine victoria

Victoria32 said:
			
		

> Haggis! My mother was of Scots descent, my father English and he told us that haggis is stuffed with old tram tickets.


 
   




My mother was a thoroughbred Scot and I was weaned on haggis. It is one of my favourite foods - really, really tasty!  Served with mashed potatoes and mashed swedes.

The famouse poet, Robbie Burns, wrote an "Ode to a Haggis".


Fair fa' your honest, *sonsie* face, (*Cheerul)*
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
*Aboon* them a' ye tak your place, (*Above)*
*Painch, tripe,* or thairm: (*paunch/guts)*

"Burns' Night" (25th January) is widely celebrated in Scotland and by Scots scattered throughout the world. Grand dinners are given - the haggis is borne to the table on a large platter, accompanied by bagpipe music. The Ode is always recited by one of the diners.

Much whiskey is downed!  


LRV


----------



## Bonjules

Help!

This is too much to take!
I must have a Haggis before I die.
Is there a place that will ship one (deep frozen) to 
the Caribbean?
 I will recite and provide the music on my accordeon.
There must be a way!


----------



## panjabigator

Haggis sounds like a Fish.  I was picturing a bottom dweller until I wikipedia-ed it and realized what it really is.  I also wiki-ed Blood pudding.  Um, no!


----------



## Victoria32

la reine victoria said:
			
		

> My mother was a thoroughbred Scot and I was weaned on haggis. It is one of my favourite foods - really, really tasty!  Served with mashed potatoes and mashed swedes.
> 
> The famouse poet, Robbie Burns, wrote an "Ode to a Haggis".
> 
> 
> Fair fa' your honest, *sonsie* face, (*Cheerul)*
> Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
> *Aboon* them a' ye tak your place, (*Above)*
> *Painch, tripe,* or thairm: (*paunch/guts)*
> 
> "Burns' Night" (25th January) is widely celebrated in Scotland and by Scots scattered throughout the world. Grand dinners are given - the haggis is borne to the table on a large platter, accompanied by bagpipe music. The Ode is always recited by one of the diners.
> 
> Much whiskey is downed!
> 
> 
> LRV


 Och, I've heard of Burns night.. the funniest thing I've ever seen regarding that, was on the TV show _E.R.,_ when a heart surgeon, Morgenstern, had a heart attack. His Burns night friends came to the hospital and he "addressed the haggis" from his bed... 

Dr Carter: "But you're Jewish!"
Morgenstern "Och, but my mother's a Scot. Let me at it!" (The haggis.)


----------



## Poetic Device

I'm back....  I have another food to put onto the wierd and strange list:  hospital food.  God only knows what they put in that.


----------



## TimLA

Poetic Device said:
			
		

> I'm back.... I have another food to put onto the wierd and strange list: hospital food. God only knows what they put in that.


 
Fantastic!!!!
You have made my day!!!!
I'm still howling over this one!
Thank you so much...   

This will last the whole weekend!


----------



## sarduseo

Pork bollocks...quite tasty and usual in Sardinia( where I come from ) to be honest!!
Pork Blood  boiled and condensed with or without sugar...not joking!!(as usual as pork bollocks in Sardinia )
Jelly fish...not my cuppa tea.Offered by two vietnamese/australian flatmates.
...frogs..slugs...sushi ...I am sure there is somethingelse quite weird but I don't remeber at the moment...
see ya


----------



## GEmatt

la reine victoria said:


> What is the most unusual thing you have eaten?


Shark carpaccio, pig ears, and duck neck. Totally unremarkable.





> Did you know what it was before eating it? Or was it disguised as something else, and then you were told?


The shark was a starter in restaurant specializing in exotic dishes. I just ordered it because the notion of a "shark-eating man" turned me on. I didn't know about the pig ears and duck neck, however. I asked what they were beforehand, and was simply told "They're delicious."

The goat experience doesn't surprise me; curried goat is a national dish in parts of the Caribbean, and is occasionally prepared "fresh", that is, the goat is led, trotting merrily, into the kitchen, and is promptly dispatched and seasoned up.

Other adventures:

Antelope steak: Fantastic. Rich and amazingly tender.
Kangaroo steak: Equally fantastic, but with a large portion of guilt for dessert.


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## faranji

cherine said:


> Now, as for what's more unusual for _me_, we don't have that great variety of cuisines in Egypt


 
But you have _fissikh_!! I tried it in Dumyatt four or five years ago and I loved it. Would you mind explaining how it is actually made? All I can tell is that it's a certain kind of fish left to almost rot under the sun till it sort of blows, then stored in barrels full of a brine-like liquid. Or so I gathered from the owner of the dingy hole in the wall we bought it from.


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## francophone

cherine said:


> Now, as for what's more unusual for _me_, we don't have that great variety of cuisines in Egypt, and I haven't travelled in my life. But the first unusual food I ever tasted was the Chinese sweet and sour food. In Egypt, people are used to eat food that's either sweet or sour, never both in the same time/dish. But I did like it a lot, and it's getting some popularity, though not much.


 
Sweet & sour food is my favourite, but if you have a mom like mine, you'll get wierd varieties all the time. Also she adapted us to a low fat diet, so we don't eat many egyptian plates. 

Unusual, my brother hunted a couple of small birds and mom coocked them over dinner , also egyptian "kaware3" but that wasn't pleasant(my hostess was insistent).



> But you have _fissikh_!!


 
Indeed, it's unusual, but next to the norwegian trend of the rotten fish it's nothing.  

It tastes great, its smell is disgusting and that's why I didn't realize it was that good untill 3 years ago.

Travelling, I've got to taste different things, but what was shocking was what i tasted in a japanese restaurant, I don't recall the name, but it was a green dressing for sushies. And after tasting it with the tip of my tongue, I couldn't speak for a minute, i felt that my brain was paralized and that the clock has stopped 

There are many things that won't come to my memory right now.


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## GEmatt

francophone said:


> I don't recall the name, but it was a green dressing for sushies. And after tasting it with the tip of my tongue, I couldn't speak for a minute, i felt that my brain was paral*y*zed and that the clock has stopped


That would be _wasabi_. My first "experience" of it was unusual, too. Ouch.


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## la reine victoria

I had the opportunity to sample _chitterlings_ today. My nearest butcher was advertising them as "now available".

I have often read about _chitterlings _in literature, but didn't know what they were. I had a goodly sample and found them to be very tasty.

I looked up _chitterlings _when I got home. Ooh-er - boiled pigs' intestines.

Verdict - yummy!

LRV


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## xrayspex

_I looked up chitterlings when I got home. Ooh-er - boiled pigs' intestines.
_
Reminded ye of haggis, did it? 

I could never get past the smell. 

I hope you cleaned them thoroughly.


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## la reine victoria

xrayspex said:


> _I looked up chitterlings when I got home. Ooh-er - boiled pigs' intestines._
> 
> Reminded ye of haggis, did it?
> 
> I could never get past the smell.
> 
> I hope you cleaned them thoroughly.


 
Och! Nay comparison wi' the noble haggis, dearie.  

The chitterlings which I sampled were already cleaned and cooked by the butcher,

One of my sons phoned me earlier this evening.  He goes to the States every year to attend a Chili Festival.  He told me that "chitlins" were very popular in certain parts of the USA.  He mentioned Alabama in particular.  He said the smell of them during boiling was enough to make a person vomit!  

So far I have experienced no ill effects from my sampling.

Lang may your lum reek wi' ither folks' coal.  

LRV


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## Benjy

I'm sorry to spoil the culinary fun and frolicks going on in this thread, and I'm not sure how it got under the radar, but it's outside of the current scope of this forum for any number of reasons. For further details please consult the relevant stickies found at the top of this forum.

Thanks for your understanding,
Ben


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