What are the strangest things you ever ate? [General]

2006 Nov 29
Some of the weirder things I've eaten:

- Rattlesnake (that's for Umamiman in the other topic.. it was quite good)
- Jellyfish (available vacuum-packed in Asian groceries.. great texture and yummy with sesame oil)
- Horse (the Dutch, smoked kind)
- Fish Maw (quite common in soup at Chinese restaurants.. the swim bladder of a fish and it's all about texture)
- Alligator (not much flavour but nice velvety texture)
- Musk Ox (not really good.. like strong venison)
- Szechuan Peppercorn (it does a very strange numbing thing to your tongue)
- Kefir (fermented "milk beer" from the Caucasus mountains)
- Durian candy (not the actual fruit but it was enough to get a taste!)

And of course the inevitable smartass list:
- A fly on a bicycle (no, no.. *I* was on the bicycle, but you know what I mean)
- Crow. Frequently. :-)
- My words. (See Crow.)
- My hat. Okay, that's enough!

2006 Nov 30
Chicken's feet and I love them.

Alpaca, way too salty. Probably to hide that it was stored in a mountain-side cafe for who knows how long.

Alligator but was bland and chewy, probably in the preparation.

Tripe, not rare but love it!

Real haggis, mmm!

Doogh, salty yogurt drink, not for me.

Moose, so tender when slow cooked.

Deer sausage, always a treat!

I hear the Sweetgrass restaurant has a wide variety of interesting/different meat. caribou, elk, etc.

Was in a room when a Durian was cut open, couldn't bring myself to eat any.

Interesting question....I'm going to keep thinking about it.

2006 Nov 30
When I was 4 I ate some blackboard chalk and my mom washed my mouth with soap.

I also ate an entire rootbeer lipstick when I was 8, but no one knew about it.

My friend wasn't allowed snacks between school and dinner so she ate alot of kleenex...she says it's really filling!

OK..enough. heheh

2006 Dec 1
Well, we did a seminar on organ meats at school last term during which I had the pleasure of sampling lamb brains. They are actually quite tasty - nice and airy.

I think some things that used to be considered "weird" are actually considered normal now. I know that any game meats used to be a lot more scarce in the regular markets and restaurants, but now they seem to be popping up on menus all over the place. Various game meats I have eaten, either commun or uncommon:

Wild Boar sausage
Deer sausage
Caribou burger
Bison
Ostrich
Rabbit
Hare (I would stick with rabbit; GAMEY and TOUGH in my opinion
Venison
Pheasant


2006 Dec 1
although i wouldn't categorize them as "strange" (for the same reason Food is hot just mentioned), i have had some of those meats also..

Ostrich
Deer
Caribou
Bison
Wild boar

and a few more i can't remember now, but i love game. :) Deer is my favorite so far.

Other than that, i don't remember having anything "strange", though i am open to trying pretty much anything!

2006 Dec 1
Yak's cheese pizza in a wee shed high in the Himalaya. It might have been the serious climb through howling wind to get there, but I thought it was one of the best-tasting pizzas I'd ever had. (Might also be that Yak's milk has a high fat content!)

Here's an interesting related site:

www.weird-food.com/index.html

2006 Dec 8
Forgot that I also ate brian. Or blocked it from my memory. I think it was goat. My boyfriend's Persian mother tricked me by not telling what kind of soup it was, just that it was "okay, good, good, you like" No! I hated the brain. It was the texture I didn't like Food is Hot, it was very mushy, yew!

2006 Dec 9
OK I have something (slightly intelligent) to add to this thread finally.

I was picking off some meat from leftover roast chicken and accidently dropped a piece into my glass of red wine....fished it out and ate it.

Not bad at all!!!

I'm going to invent an appetizer with chicken breast, and red wine dip.


2006 Dec 9
Hmmmm...pocpcorn twists dipped in chocolate are surprisingly good. Anyone else have any surprisingly good food combos?

2006 Dec 9
M&M mixed into your popcorn at the movies...good times all around (unless you were watching Glitter, Anaconda, Wild Wild West or Waterwold :)

2006 Dec 10
Popcorn twists...

This?

greencan.hp.infoseek.co.jp

Never had them. I love strange crunchy snacks.

2006 Dec 10
Sorry - Winnipeg thing. They are also known as "Puffcorn", "Corn puffs", or "Popcorn curls". Imagine a puffed cheesie with no cheese flavouring on it, that is made with corn and has popcorn flavouring added. Old Dutch's have an unusual shape that makes them look "twisty".

Also,, if you like snacks, check out www.taquitos.net

2006 Dec 10
Old Dutch popcorn twists were one of the optimal snack foods during my elementary school years. They offered the greatest volume of junk food for my limited spending money.

I remember snickering at the fact that the first sniff from a freshly opened bag evokes a strong impression of flatus. This was 25-odd years ago... I wouldn't find that fact even remotely amusing now of course. ;-)

2006 Dec 11
Hmmm...I've eaten some mighty strange things.

The weirdest would probably have to be flying ants (big winged termites, actually). I grew up in Zambia, where they were considered a special delicacy--they only appeared once a year, and everyone went nuts catching and roasting them. You caught them when their wings droppped off and they were crawling around on the ground, and then you put them live onto a hot dry frying pan for a few minutes. They were crunchy and nutty tasting, a little oily, actually really good with a dash of salt. My mom hated the smell of them and banned me from cooking them in the house.

What else....I've had horsemeat, live lobster sushi, brains. I eat tongue on a regular basis. And I really used to like Old Dutch Dill Pickle chips when I lived in Winnipeg :)

By the way, Telly, your typo made my day. Poor Brian. How did he taste?

2006 Dec 11
Damn non-typer! I even spell my full name wrong most of the time. And considering my best friend from uni was named Brian, it is a very unfortunate typo!

PS. Old Dutch Chips are the best thing! No other chip compares. Whenever I get a visitor from home (SK) I request either Dill Pickle or Ketchup. The Au Gratin were so good too......

2006 Dec 11
Agree on the Old Dutch thing Telly. BEST CHIPS AND SNACKS EVER. I crave Crunchys (y'know, those zesty cheesies?)for breakfast all the time. I think it's a throwback to having sleepovers as a child and waking up and pigging out on the leftover snack bowls from the night before.

2006 Dec 11
Do you guys remember Hostess flavoured chips - they had grape...and other weird flavours. Yuck!

Also flavoured popcorn in the metallic bag...a big hit in yeeeeesshh 1980 or so? Salt and vinegar was my fav. They had dill and other things too...

2006 Dec 11
the oddest thing ever eaten eh? i would have to say that smoked pigeon was truly someting. Labatt Blue Braised Groundhog was good too. Ah the beauties of having a red neck uncle with a cottage in the woods.

2006 Dec 11
As a former Winnipegger, I too enjoy the Old Dutch chips. Do they still have they ones that come in boxes? Two bags per box, I believe. Fantastic.

Strangest things eaten:
-goat (tough and fibrous)
-fried plantain and pig tail
-barbecued moose

2006 Dec 11
It wasn't _that_ many years ago that you could get the boxes of Old Dutch at Boushey's on Elgin.

Gone now, but. They obviously had some sort of distribution here. Has _anybody_ seen them? I lived in BC for a year back when, and thoroughly enjoyed them, especially the eye-wateringly acidic salt and vinegar.

Re. boxes: yes, apparently!

olddutchfoods.ca

Re. strangest things -- not much. I've never eaten meat, and I notice that gets rid of the majority of potentially weird stuff.

But. A grandfather, who I mentioned here before as a foodie, once claimed to've sampled cheese made from breast milk.

Two things:

The urban legend about the medical students gluing a quarter between the fingers of the cadaver's arm, and pitching the arm in the toll booth basket? He told me that one as a true story, with himself as one of the students.

He travelled incessantly, and to some very odd places. When I questioned my mother on the veracity of it at the time, she offered something about it being a part of the world 'where cows were uncommon,' or something. If he was pulling his granddaughter's leg, he was also pulling his daughter's. It was, for him, not an unlikely thing to run across, or eat.

There're some references to the possibility of breast milk cheese on-line, but nothing very convincing either way about its existence.

2007 Apr 1
Old Dutch available here!

Seen in yesterday's Globe and Mail's "Person Place Thing" column:

Any one who has ever driven out west through Ontario knows the reward for all those hours of boring boreal forest lies in Thunder Bay. For that is the most eastern point of purchase for Old Dutch potato chips, the boxed cult favourites. Well, was the most eastern point. The 53-year-old brand is now available in Ontario, Quebec, and Eastern Canada. Alas, the trademark boxes are not making the journey, just bags. But it's what's inside that counts, right?
--Domini Clark.

2007 Apr 2
For me, the strangest thing I've eaten (and the final push to going vegetarian) was a Vietnamese delicacy that my friend prepared for me: hard boiled fertilized chicken eggs with the chick still inside.

That friend was also responsible for my only consumption of tripe.

Of course, I'm sure that I've eaten a ton of bugs caught up in various vegetables.

All in all, glad to be vegan now.

2007 Apr 2
A 1/2 a slug when I was two... I thought it was chocolate. My Mom panicked and called the doctor, the doctor asked, "Did she like it?", Mom, "What?", Dr. "If she liked it give her the other half". I think my Mom just about passed out!

As an adult:
Rattlesnake
Alligator
Moose - LOVE moose roast
Not as different, but delicious
Venison
Caribou
Bison


2007 Apr 3
I find it odd that game meat ends up on the weird food list, but that's probably due to my upbringing. I don't find moose meat weird at all (moose tongue being a family recipe), or rabbit, hare, partridge, goose, deer, elk, etc. Eaten it all! Had to pick gunshot out of some of those animals, but well worth it.

I had a moth once... mmm... not going to repeat that. I'm not a fan of chicken feet either... I was served some weird aspic/meat/headcheese dish with some anonymous game meat in it as a child, I won't repeat that again either. Cuttlefish is in there, though not rare, they are weird looking. Conch meat is in there as well, which is fairly common where freshly available. Gator meat was pretty bland, as previously noted. Ostrich was nice... all in all, I'll eat just about anything for the experience.

2007 Apr 3
Guinea pig - Tasty, but a little tough and not much meat on the bones. These are a delicacy of the Andes (called cuy).

Raw chicken - I was young, I got a little confused at a buffet...luckily my biggest complaint was that it was a little chewy.

2007 Apr 4
I belong to the "I ate a bug club".

Chocolate covered crickets are quite tasty but their little legs get caught in your teeth.

;}

2007 Apr 11
Haven't had anything weirder than wild boar or elk (yummy...why don't more restaurants serve ELK!!) which is not that weird any longer unless you grew up with a hunter, and then it probably wasn't weird at all.

Slightly odd combination that I've found but really good is cheese curds dipped in hummus with lots of garlic. Who needs pita??? Also great with a nice glass of merlot.

2007 Apr 11
Actually FC that sounds good. Cheese curds and anything is good...well almost.

2007 Apr 12
I have recently discovered game meats and have tried:

elk
venison
ostrich

and and awesome goat curry at Nagina restaurant on Rideau.

Now if I can find somewhere that serves sweetbreads that will be next on my list.

2007 Apr 12
Sweetbreads can be found at the following restaurants, from time to time (call to ensure availability): Le Saint-O, Le Baccara, Signatures, Beckta.

2007 Apr 15
We were eating at a top-quality sushi joint in NYC a few years ago, allowing the chef to serve whatever he felt was freshest. He spoke only Japanese, which my wife understands. At one point, as he offered me a giant orange clam, he said something that made her turn pale. When I inquired, she told me, "He said you should use your fingers, not chopsticks, because it's trying to crawl off the rice."
In my distant, carniverous past, I've also had dried horse meat, available here in Ottawa, black bear (greasy, and sad) and fresh snapping turtle (strong, and also sad).

2007 Apr 22
Maybe these aren't "strange"...but they were to me at the time that I ate them! Cod tongues (didn't like 'em...too mushy) and frog's legs (quite tasty, very delicately textured and moist). Scrunchions might be added too...basically, it's bits of fried fat. Yech. They were served with an otherwise delightful fish dish in St. John's, NL, but seemed like they'd have gone better with something heartier, like beef or pork.

2007 Apr 25
Patti, your post made me smile! I am from Newfoundland and so miss a lot of my native eats. Scrunchions are basically fat back pork cubes used to (traditionally) fry pan-fried cod with. Also cod tongues are not technically tongues but really just the piece of meat next to the gill.

chocolate covered cricket (I only ate half of it, to be truthful)
live sea urchin


I can't think of anything else! I have eaten moose/caribou in probably every possible preperation though: stew, burger, sausage, steak, pie etc.

2007 Jun 16
Will you dare eat this? I think some of them are silkworm, grasshoppers, scorpions.

My friend forwarded me these two photos taken by her nephew during their trip to Beijing, China.


2007 Jun 16
I can handle Sea Urchin (my husband like it). But Starfish? Never tried it before. Any one tries it?

2007 Jun 18

Ashley
Those look a lot like some pictures someone posted in my Food on A Stick party thread on eGullet awhile back.....and no, those aren't the foods we ate!

2007 Jun 27
Jules, those would be the cod cheeks.....tongues are, in fact, tongues.
Then there's the britches....the pair of long "row sacks" in the females that sort of resemble the shape of a pair of pants (or "britches")....removed and usually pan fried "whole".

2007 Jun 29
OHHHH... Cod Tongues, Cheeks, Britchs... you forgot Cods heads!! Can't wait to go home for a good feed of it all soon. Although I am not a big Britches fan.

Moose Meat from the bottle, Tur, Seal Flippers... Yum!

2007 Jun 29
A little further up in this thread people were looking for Old Dutch chips - apparently they are now available at Your Independant Grocer as advertised in next week's flyer... They're not in boxes though they're in bags but I may get some - my curiosity has been piqued!

2007 Jun 29
Yup! They just started selling them in Ontario about a month ago.Highly recommended!

My personal must-try fave:


2007 Jun 29
And for chips, jalapeño and cheddar YUM!

2007 Jun 30
OK, speaking of chips and eating strange things, who else remembers the Grape and Orange flavoured potato chips? What other odd flavours were there? I don't recall.

2007 Jun 30
I saw lamb and mint flavour at Sugar Mountain a few weeks ago...

2007 Jul 1
The lamb and mint crisps are absolutely *bitchin'*. Well, I think they are.

2007 Sep 13
Well, I'm about to "break the code"

I was just at Aljazeera ordering my halal chicken for my weekend BBQ, when I saw something strange looking unlabeled so I asked what it was. I'm pretty sure if the butcher were not from the Indian sub-continent I'd have seen him blush. He (young - maybe 19 to 23) got all giddy and bashful, then started laughing and blurted out "goat balls!"

So I'm going to toss them on the smoker on Saturday and maybe by the end of the day I'll actually have enough beer in me to try them :-)

2007 Sep 13
Update : wifey suggests deep frying instead, so it will be deep-fried goat balls.

2007 Sep 13
You've heard of Timbits... you can promote these as Billy's Bits! ;-)

I'm a little squeamish about eating testicles but I recognize that it should be no more off-putting than any other kind of meat...

2007 Sep 14
I'm a lot squeamish about it - as I alluded to above, it 'breaks the code'. That's the male code where it doesn't matter what species, you just don't eat another dude's bits :-)

I'll be sure to report back as to whether or not I managed to do it, and how many beers I'd had by then.

2007 Sep 14
Anyways, you'll have a ball!

And if you're in a bad mood that day you can tell your wife, "Sorry, but I'm feeling a little teste."

And... okay I'll stop. ;-)

Yes, do let us know how it works out!

2007 Sep 14
In the west beef testes are known as prairie oysters and there is a restaurant in Calgary that specializes in them.

2007 Sep 14
Got a good recipe for me Bruce?

2007 Sep 14
according to a gentleman I ordered them for when I worked at the LOEB on Beechwood simple is best. He dredged them in seasoned flour and pan fried them until crisp on the outside. (probably 8-10 minutes moving them around around to cook evenly) I have been using a lot of chickpea flour for frying lately as it gives a good crust and nice flavour and I think smoked paprika in the flour would not go amiss. Like with other offal I would be inclined to soak them in buttermilk for 30 minutes before cooking.

best of luck let me know how things go

2007 Sep 14
I found this recipe for you by googling "Rocky Mountain Oyster" - both reviews give it 5 stars and it specifies that using "sheep" testicles will be fine - I figure that's close enought to goat. I believe these cooked testicles are known as "prairie oysters" in the prairies, "rocky mountain oysters" further over in the rocky mountain range, and "Montana tendergroins" by certain circles as well.

www.recipezaar.com/28386

2007 Sep 15
Zimne Nogi (jellied pigs feet) - When I was in high school my best friend was Polish. His parents would frequently cook traditional polish dishes. Zimne Nogi was one of them.

It is made by boiling raw pigs feet in water. Once the meat has cooked and separated from the bone you fish the bones out, season with salt and pepper, and put it in the fridge. The fat solidifies and then you eat it (fat and pig feet meat) ice cold. It was pretty terrible, but not vomit inducing.

It looks a lot like cretons but the fat is more jelly-ish. Like big spoonfuls of solidified pig fat. mmmmm

Also while living in Chicago I would frequent a hot dog joint called "Hot Doug's"

Doug had the usual suspects in terms of sausage, but there was always a "Game of the Week" that was intriguing. Thanks to Doug I have eaten rattlesnake, ostrich, boar, and kangaroo.

edit: i just noticed i am the first on this thread to say kangaroo

edit 2: i just remembered that I've also tried fried meal worms, which is no big deal because when you salt them it's like you're eating potato chip crumbs.

2007 Sep 16
Hmmmm....I have a recipe for "Pig's Trotters in Aspic" if anyone is interested - it looks like a molded Jell-O salad with cubes of meat in it - yummo! Thanks Foods of the World cookbook!

2007 Sep 16
Has anyone ever tried Balut?

It's a Vietnamese dish - fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut

2007 Sep 18
tried it? -- warning, it ain't for the squeamish --

when I was growing up in the philippines we had it at least once a week. It's a popular road side snack. granted it was always fed to me and I happily digested. You can get them here, at least the family can when I'm back home in TO with the cornicopia of asian markets there.

21 days old, then steamed and cracked open. drink the juice and down the hatch.

In Asia, it's much more honest (imho) the way they treat their animals. People know their chicken, steaks and pork chops weren't born in styrofoam and vaccuum sealed.

I've eaten lots of other *odd* foods but probably only by North American standards. ;)

2007 Sep 18
sweet_li16 is there anywhere in ottawa that serves them? or any asian grocery stores in the city that have them?

someone told me they're a popular snack when drinking, almost akin to nachos or wings here haha

2007 Sep 20
haven't gone looking for it myself, we have it the occassional time when I go back home to Mississauga, but since moving here for school, I haven't found an excuse to go searching for Balut as a solo snack. ;)

I'll keep my eyes peeled and let you know if I come across it, or something similar. :)

2007 Sep 24
In northern Thailand, 20 yrs ago, had a dish with locals called "Kung Disco". Kung translates as Shrimp and Disco referred to the fact that they were still moving in the dish (chili & soy-sauce concoction). T'was drinking food, perhaps for good reason. But also tasty as i recall.

In Japan, 15 yrs ago, had sashimi of similar freshness as described by Kombu above. Forget the name of the dish (well-known in Japan): comprises a whole fish on a plate with the recently filleted flesh laid in a neat pile; next to the flesh sits the full skeleton flanked by an intact tail and head. Somewhat unsettling were the still moving gills. Fresh, very fresh.

I'm vegetarian now, but those were (weird from a N. American perspective) stand-outs from my omnivorous past.

2009 Mar 18
weird by who's standard?
i've eaten lots considered by North American standards
never had choco covered bugs or such
but snake spleen in potent chinese wine yes
silkworm poached black chicken
abalone (YUM!)
sea cucumber (VERY CRUNCHY)
raw live shrimp (well recently done in)
tempura shrimp heads (DOUBLE YUM)
dried jellyfish and squid
Thai fermented lamb
Thai ham
Thai sauaages
Thai bamboo shoot salad
Thai fish salad
Thai fish belly curry
(notice a trend there?)
every possibly known seaweed
a seriously disturbing soup from Jamaica known as Mannish water
(esp when the goat head stares back at you)

Itchy, I've had a similar dish GOONG (aka KUNG) TEN which is live shrimp in chili, lime, raw garlic and fish sauce with tons of herbs while I enjoyed it and the burn I did not like that it was done with fresh water shrimp (not a fan of fresh water anything...they tend to taste muddy to me)...have made it at home using wild caught cali shrimp and I marinate them til the shrimp turn pink ala ceviche

speaking of ceviche, I've made ceviche of almost all known ocean fish
my fave being Cobia

2009 Mar 18
Not including the paste I apparently liked to eat in Nursery school, my list would include:

Andoulette- sausage stuffed with intestines (kind of ironic , non?)(disgusting by the way)
Aligator
snake
venison sausage
elk sausage
cold jelly fish
dried squid
conch
rabbit
sea urchin
BBQ eel on pizza
Oysters on pizza
freshly killed prawn
tempura fried shrimp shells (yum)

2009 Mar 18
Game meat doesn't really qualify as weird for me, having tried most mentioned so far. Some good, some not so good, depending on the chef. That being said, I will try anything... twice.

Strangest thing for me by-far was cod sperm, in a Japanese restaurant in Vancouver... a "gift" from the chef.

2009 Mar 18
I love inners, especially sweet breads and battered brains. But do not feel this is that 'strange'. So it got me thinking about what I could eat that was strange that I have not tried. Bugs, snakes, baby chicks still in the egg, cats, dogs just can't do & I don't care who or how it is prepared. Think I need to head down to china town this weekend & find something fun.

After reading 'mmmfood's' write up it reminded me of some 'strange' things I did as a child. Other than eating the kindergarten paste, mmm can still taste it:)

One summer almost everyday my friends and I would hide in my basement with the hot chocolate powder with the little crunchy marshmallows. We would put some in a cup and add different kinds of pop and eat the chocolate powder with a spoon off the top of the liquid. Soooo good! Because it was cold it wouldn't completely dissolve forming these lumps of wet and dry powder. Delightful.

Also, reminds me of something more recent. My daughter has decided to start eating her toys. A few weeks ago she told me she ate sleeping beauty's crown. It was only about a 1/2cm big so I didn't really worry but...??? Little worry some to say the least. Makes me wonder what she is not telling me she is eating?

2009 Mar 19
For me it was definitely sauteed ant eggs in southern Mexico, and they were actually pretty good! Pig's Brain Tortillas in Mexico, Tripe sandwiches in Florence and deep fried haggis in Edinburgh probably round out the list...I have to admit I liked it all.

England definitely has some weird supermarket items that are not for me:
Fish paste in a tube?
Treacle (a syrupy kind of cake) in a can?
I am sure there are more I am too horrified to remember...

2009 Mar 19
My weird childhood thing was definitely playdough. I put a big white lump of the stuff into a casserole once, and told my mom it was sour cream. But I loved the stuff.

Like a lot of you, I'll try anything twice, and if it's ethnic, I don't consider it to be weird. The one thing that did kind of shock me in terms of taste was horse meat. It was very stringy and salty...

2009 Mar 19
OK I confess, I used to eat play doh too. But the homemade kind that was made with a ton of salt and cream of tartar.

The commericial kind stinks!

2009 Mar 19
chocolate covered ants (in the UK -- pretty good, like chocolate raisins)

monitor lizard (in north Thailand -- not very nice, too bony)

cobra (in Java -- very nice, in peanut sauce)

fermented fish intestines (in Japan, quite disgusting -- not recommended)

Raw "male" cod "eggs" (again in Japan -- suprisingly delicious!)


2009 Mar 24
The only weird thing I've ever eaten is bear meat. Very, very strong and game-y tasting.

2009 Mar 24
Scorpion
Silkworm
Baby turtle
Dog
Cat
Snake

2009 Mar 27
Roast Guinea pig, while working in Ecuador. Very popular. Almost considered banquet food, for those special occasions. The smaller ones come with a grape stuffed in it's mouth, as an apple won't fit.

It was a little salty, but I think that was due to the way it was prepared. Had trouble finding the dark meat, so if you prefer dark meat you may want to opt for something else. The home made beer was great though.

2009 Mar 28
Probably the strangest thing I ever ate was rattlesnake. It tasted a bit like chicken (go figure), only a bit more succulent.

The strange part was that we learned how to catch, kill and prepare the snake. It was all part of desert survival training. Essential when you are a cub scout in Arizona.

2009 Aug 30
Lots of street vendors were selling scorpions during the Beijing Olympics. I didn't have the courage to try it though.

Hey I've heard you can cook slugs and there are a ton of these pests in my garden (I don't use pesticides, I just pick them off and throw them into the woods). I hear that you put them in vinegar which kills them and cleans them then you boil them or saute them in butter. Apparently like clams in clam chowder.


2009 Aug 30
i would have to say....pig eyes and brain....actually wasnt bad with a bit of salt and hot sauce...

2009 Aug 30
Prairie oysters - in Denver CO - I had a few too many beers and my friends from Denver convinced me it was great- even came with seafood sauce. Well it was not what I expected !!! Lots of laughs and yes more beers !! (also called Rocky Mountain Oysters)

2009 Aug 30
salmiakki...(Salty liquorice) that contains a relatively large amount of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) I was devastated. It was life/death experience in my mouth

Iranian soup...My Iranian friend made this soup...it was some kind of yogurt or milk base soup with some kind of spices...
I can't discribe the taste...it was...one of the strangest taste I have ever had in my life.

2009 Aug 30
Oh, I've eaten pomegranate and dragon fruit. Both are unusual foods but readily available in Ottawa, and lots of people eat them.

2009 Aug 31
RE: salmiakki. The Finns seem to really like their salty/amonium flavours.

Strangest thing I ate...horse meat?

Strangest thing I drank: A concoction of fisherman's friend and vodka. It tasted like cough syrup and bleach (see above comment about Finns.)

2009 Aug 31
Camel meat kebab in Morocco.
Lung soup in Austria.

I'll try (almost) anything once (blame my Dad!).

2009 Aug 31
My uncle is of Icelandic heritage and last Christmas he served me shark meat that had been buried in the beach for a while to ferment. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hákarl

2009 Sep 1
Fermented fish! fermented fish w/rice (it is type of sushi, called narezushi) in Japan too.

I had whale meat when I was a kid. It was school lunch menu.
Whale meat was very fatty and the texure was like pork belly.

2010 Mar 29
I can now add beef tongue to the list. The meat is very tender and no sinew. It was prepared for me so I am now working on overcoming my squeamishness about handling tongue so I can prepare it myself.

2010 Mar 29
Probably Seal...

2010 Mar 30
Dog... yeah I had too.

I also ate what I call mistery meat in vietnam... I still don't know what it was.

Snake - including uncooked heart and bile sack. Oh and I drank the fertility snake wine (i'll let you guess what was marinating in the wine).
Kangaroo
Aligator
Beaver tail (the real thing)
Veal brains
Boudin
Marinated pig tongue

Many more things.


2010 Mar 30
Elephant trunk soup in Kunming, Peoples Republic of China, November 1985.

2010 Apr 15
Might have posted this previously--pickled pigs lips in Louisianna, some years ago. Calamari at its worst is not this rubbery!

2010 Apr 18
Duck foot in a green chili sauce in Beijing. In cooking, the foot rolled into something (misleadingly) appearing to resemble penne pasta in shape. The sauce was excellent, but the foot was leathery, unpleasantly chewy and largely tasteless. :op

2010 Apr 18
While living in the far north I tried Muktuk - whale blubber and whale skin. Don't remember what it tasted like but remember not enjoying it. Another popular snack was dried meat made from caribou or moose - sort of like jerky but without all the salt, and of course dried smoked white fish Yum!

2010 Apr 22
1989 went on a trip to Dominican Republic with a girl friend. While there we took a horse back riding trip up into a hilly area, ate in a village for the "rustic value" and we were told after we sampled some meat slices that we had just eaten penis of a bull (bleh if true) although tbh it didn't taste that bad.

Still wonder years later if this was true or just something the locals said to have a good laugh on us.

2010 Apr 22
... "we had just eaten penis of a bull (bleh if true)" ...

It's just another organ ... like liver or heart.

2010 Jul 27
I can now add roasted pig head to the list. (I went to Murray Street KWC with Omnivore's Ottawa supper club last night where the pig head was served - it was soooo good!)

2010 Jul 28
Gelatinous caribou hoofs, rotted walrus (igunak) and raw freshly-killed ptarmigan heart in the Arctic and whale sushi and yak butter tea in Norway. I eat a lot of Inuit foods, however, those first three really stand out for me.

2010 Jul 28
If strange means not very good, then a mexican tripe soup with tequila shots for breakfast in L.A. and of course poi in hawaii.


2010 Jul 28
A chocolate-mint jellybean.

2010 Jul 28
"A chocolate-mint jellybean."

You are so brave..... I will have nightmares tonight :)

2010 Jul 29
I thought it was pear when I bit into it. Clearly, I was mistaken.

2010 Jul 29
that is one very big jelly bean, wow!

2011 Oct 4
The eye of a goat in goat head soup
Dried grub
Sea cucumber
Prairie mountain oysters
Mahi Mahi stomach
Chicken feet
Durian fruit
Snake soup
Fried jelly fish
Chitlins

2011 Oct 5
I think you can still get old dutch here, I will check at a small store I go to tommorow.

Something I did not try, but when the Chinese restaurant Empreor dining lounge was around they had BBQ pidgeon on the menu.
Now I walked by and it is a buffet place- doubt they have pidgeon or beef and pork heart on the menu??
That was on the Northern Chinese section of the menu.

I can't eat deer because a few years ago I was in a car on King Edward and the truck in front of me had a whole dead deer in it and that was just sad looking to me :(

2011 Oct 5
have had rattlesnake and gator down south, groundhog and all kinds of strange seafood, but ate something in tokyo once described in english as "salted fish guts". Had to try it just because of the name. It was not one of my favorites.

2011 Oct 6
re-read this thread and laughed till my beer spurted out my nose (odd tasting)

i grew up having fish maw and goat meat (not together and not recommended together)
not interested in the fermented shark as i find shark already smells like ammonia and brings back memories of my mom taking a snapper and salting it heavily then wrapping it in newspaper and hanging it by a cord in the tree outside my window... while i enjoyed the taste, i will forgo the smell, thank you... rather stick my head in a kimchee vat
i did not care for the cod tongues even after i smoked them... just not a fan of cod
eaten almost every SEA fish available including my beloved orange roughy (endangered, opah (not the former tele hostess), pompano, cobia, yellowtail, most fish available in hawaii, North West (oregon, washinton, BC), geoduck (raw and cooked), conch, every form of oysters i can find other than canned, love canned sardines and mackerel, deepfried anchovies (the SE Asian kind that kinda sweet) hmm Chinese dried cuttlefish, spicy please

eaten possibly every fruit and veggue known to man including mulberries, saskatoon beeries, durian, jackfruit, breadfruit, ackee

can't report eating anything odd lately (well not odd to me LOL)

anyone try geoduck? even when removed from the body, it still moves days after... my first time was at my fave sushi place back in seattle, i sat down and Shiro slaps what looks like an elephant trunk and it undulated.. odd, tasty but odd

2011 Oct 7
Chef Obi, I have seen geoduck at T & T, and it looks intriguing, but have never seen it on a menu and have no idea how to prepare it. What is your suggestion for preparation?

2011 Oct 7
Talking about Geoduck, the francophones here might enjoy this clip from Des Kiwis et des Hommes...

2011 Nov 3
On a trip through the jungles of Thailand on the back of an elephant (for part of the trip), we stopped over in Burma and I had a tiger for dinner. For reals! They had just killed one and scared a few others away from the village we were staying in and that was what they had to eat.

Now, I get to tell people, "That's pretty good. Tastes a lot like tiger."

Don't ask me what tiger tastes like. I can't really remember.

2013 Apr 8
Found this thread just doing some random searches. Well, some of the strange stuff i love is Goat spleen (marinated in spices and roasted on a charcoal fire), goat brain curry and goat testicles and kidney curry. As you may have guessed I am from India. Unfortunately, I have not seen any Indian restaurants serve any of this in Canada. So the first thing I do when I go on holidays to India is to enjoy these delicacies.

Zym, how did your experiment with goat testicles turn out?

2013 Apr 9
Jeepers. Reminds me of that guy in the news years ago, who was eating a VW bus or something like that. Wonder what happened to that guy? :-)

2013 Apr 9
He caught a Bug and died of Fahrvergnügen.

2013 Apr 11
Monsieur Mangetout?

en.wikipedia.org

2013 Aug 20
Spotted at a south end African goods market...

Haven't eaten them, but i admit i'm intrigued....