I really never thought I'd be the one to make a thread like this, being a fairly conservative eater (I don't even eat sushi!), but I just played an awful awful prank on myself, so here I am.
Before I get to my story, the thread is fairly self-explanatory. What's the weirdest, most bizarre, most gross thing you've ever eaten? I'm sure plenty of you have been to strange places in Africa and Asia where the boundary between food and
ohmygodwhatthefuck is blurred.
-What did it taste like?
-What did it look like?
-Why did you try it?
-Did you like it?
-Would you have it again?
I thought my story was bad, but below you'll see
Elki's spoiler'ed photos... what the fuck.
Altalicious also gets props for his horrific fish story, though not quite as many props as Elki since Elki actually got
annoyed with his food because it fought for its life.
Anyway, now for my (less gruesome) story...
I was in the Chinese supermarket today, and thought I'd do a fun experiment with my friends. I'd buy 4 cans of Chinese drinks that looked weird, and then have my friends and I taste-test them before I let them know what they were. I'm practically setting the stage for disaster, I know.
So I poured the drinks into little cups for me,
Soco_and_Lime, and
Mau. The first three beverages were fairly drinkable, and we all generally survived it. It was Grass Jelly Drink, "Sarsaparilla" Soda, and Artichoke Drink. I only mention it to further emphasize just how conservative of an eater I am, that I thought these drinks were so daring to try. Onto the final drink...
Now I thought I knew what the drink was, and I thought it was really weird, yet still drinkable (if I try only a little bit). It's called "Hashima with Bird's Nest" drink. I have no idea what Hashima is, but bird's nest sure sounds weird, right? Drinking a part of a tree is about as daring as I was willing to go.
So I pour the drink, if pour is the correct word. It kind of oozed out in a viscous way into the little cups. Rather than describe it, I took a photo:
So me, Soco_and_Lime, and Mau each take our little cups and take a sip. This is promptly followed by gagging, coughing, and a variety of impolite words getting expressed. So once I explain to them that it's some drink called "Hashima with Bird's Nest", we try to figure out what the hell that actually means.
-Bird's Nest: A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup.
Wikipedia. So instead of drinking a twig, I'm actually consuming bird saliva.
-Hashima: Ugh... I'm getting nauseous just having to write about it.
Wikipedia'ing Hashima came up with a meteorite, an abandoned island, a district of Japan, and a Japanese city. Apparently, Wikipedia doesn't think Hashima is edible -- neither do I. I had to take my search to Google, where I discovered Hashima is also known as "Snow Frog Jelly".
Wikipedia says:
"made from the dried fallopian tubes of the Asiatic Grass Frog".
I don't know whether to gag, cry, or curl up into a ball and whimper. Why would anyone think bird spit and frog reproductive organs are good ingredients for a soda?!
So, what's the weirdest, most bizarre, most gross thing you've ever eaten? I'm not sure I'll have the stomach to read your replies, but post anyway!
Posts
How does a dish like that get created? I mean, dried fallopian tubes are pretty damn specific. Some bloke must have had them specifically on his mind when he tried drying them and eating them.
I would describe it as decent
It was okay.
Needed salt.
--
As for that soda, I expect its origin is as folk medicine.
http://shoppingmumsparadise.blogspot.com/2008/01/snow-frog-jelly-hashima.html
Growing up in an Chinese household, I've had my share of "what the hell is this thing/is in this thing" moments, but I'd like to think I've got an open mind for trying the stranger things in herbal medicine/international cuisine. One thing that sticks out to me as just plain terrible though, was when my friend gave me one of these to try: http://www.brandsworld.com.my/cms.www/main.aspx?sid=196
Now, being a little skeptical of anything being called "essence of chicken with cordyceps(!)" and having watched one particular episode of Planet Earth, I did a brief search on this "cordyceps." And then I remembered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOQ0VU24xw
Oh, right. Oh right, mind-control fungus. Oh, ew.
But supposedly it has a lot of health benefits, and the drink, though slightly bitter, wasn't terrible. Tasted like a herbal chicken broth... which was exactly what it was, I guess. I drank it even after I knew what it was, then had another the next day. After finding out what exactly cordyceps was, though, my friend couldn't touch it again. (But it's good for you!) :P
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Myself? Bull testicles.
They weren't bad.
Apparently the Chinese love it.
Not bad. Weird texture. Sort of like meaty noodles.
I can't. But on the other hand, I can eat half a banana slug and lots and lots of slime.
My teeth were shiny for weeks.
I'm not sure I'm familiar with that particular recipe, but thousand year old eggs in congee? Mmmmm.
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And each of the individual ingredients weren't bad, but altogether it was pretty bad. I finished mine but had to wash the last bite down with plenty of soda.
That drink sounds vile. Perhaps even more importantly, it looks vile. That is the wrong viscosity and color for something I'm supposed to put in my mouth.
It has about the same consistency of rubber cement. And while the taste of the gunk is entirely foul, it still pales in comparison to the overall stench of the dish. You know, most terrible foods I can chalk up to a drunken wager, but this takes almost two week to prepare. How the hell do you come up with this?
Do try congee sometime! It's a very light meal and makes you feel toasty-warm. If the person who prepared the dish was just a friend, they might just be a bad cook... though I've noticed that thousand year old eggs sometimes have a bad aftertaste (I have no idea why).
And yes, that drink did have an extremely strange viscosity to it. Sort of oily, a little too smooth.
On an unrelated note, it's really strange eating food you think is normal with people who are unused to it. I took my friends to dim sum (it blew my mind a little that this was a new thing for them... come on, they all lived in huge populous cities with a huge asian population) and the first thing the cart ladies brought over was chicken's feet
-- no big deal, right? I didn't realize why they were staring at me funny until one of them remarked "Oh god, what is that?" I wasn't trying to psyche them out or anything.
(The second dish was tripe and they got a kick out of looking at that, too.)
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Raw liver & lung (never refrigerated, right after slaughter) with onion and homemade sauce:
Bonus (me preparing the lungs):
Head (NSFW or humanity):
Soooo good.
Also, depending on your taste, you might find a lot of things in this to be disgusting or gross.
Or just plain old delicious.
It was excellent
Do you not heat it or what? I mean.. bacteria or.. something.
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Duck's blood soup is fucking delicious. So good.
I remember when I was really little in Poland buying a duck at the market. One of the best parts is playing with the duck on the way home. One of the worst is watching your father slit its throat over top a bowl. The absolute worst part? Your parents telling you that the duck was Donald Duck.
This is the most unsettling picture I have seen in a while Elki.
I tried a little taste of gyro sauce and decided I hated it. Never went on to try the whole thing.
But yea, some people are ridiculous. My father has refused to ever try chinese food, or any sort of stir fry. I have to be pretty careful what I cook for my parents when we visit, because he's such a picky guy.
This thread makes me think of him a lot, but an episode of Bizarre Foods had a duck breast meal in Paris served in a sauce made of crushed duck carcass and blood. It looked delicious.
-Fermented whale blubber.
-Scorpion.
-Jellyfish.
-Lutefisk.
-Balut.
-Live octopus.
-Durian.
-This strange, half rotted Sardinian cheese I forget how to spell so can't Google for the name.
-Bull testicles (in a soup with bull asshole)
-All of the typical pig/cow/monkey brain/tongue stuff you could imagine.
-Many different types of insects, the nastiest I recall being stir fried bees.
-Heart, still beating, from a snake.
...I think that covers most of the stuff I can remember from the top of my head. What's funny is nowadays I'm 21 and my palette is pretty sensitive. I find olives, coconut, and sashimi gross enough to arouse my gag reflex. Funny how it works, I guess.
That's the grossest thing I've ever eaten.
Why the hell did I make this thread? This is just way too unsettling.
Oh, also have had intestines (pork, I think) here. Not bad, but I can't eat much otherwise I get nauseous.
Think about it.
You squeeze things on a cow or goat, take the liquid that leaks out, let it rot, then eat the solid block that remains.
Oh god.
One of my exes swears by these.
I had Durian Ice Cream once.
BLAAARGH
1170% of your recommended daily cholesterol intake.
k'jdfo[igjddoi[uh93w8re[whj
Also, it smells horrible, even when fresh from the skull.
you guys have out-weirded me by far, what with the bird saliva and frog reproductive organ drinks, raw lamb lungs, and still-beating snake hearts
the best I've got (that comes to mind, anyways) is fried fish eyeballs, alligator, and grilled octopus, all of which I enjoyed.
Oh, I used to eat ants when I was really young, too.
So, nothing weird at all, really.