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The nasty food you've eaten

6K views 65 replies 45 participants last post by  MikeK 
#1 ·
Everyone has a palate they've developed over the years. So one person's delicacy is another person's "how can you stomach that". My daughter is friends with some foreign exchange students, and while the food is similar, they complained at first it was either bland, salty, or sweet.

It got me thinking about some of the stuff I've eaten overseas that wouldn't be a choice to eat here. The Rabo de Toro (Bulls Tail Stew) wasn't bad but it included a hefty portion of Morcilla con Arroz (blood sausage with rice) which didn't agree with me at all. The fried baby squid would pop in your mouth. I like the Cecina (cured meat) but I don't think you can get it here because of how it's made.

The food wasn't that bad overall, but after a week of trying new things, I had to find an "American" chain restaurant and get a plain piece of chicken.

My wife had a similar experience in Japan, where if it moves, they'll eat it. Cooking it is optional.

When people talk about starving to death and food, I sometimes think back to these experiences and wonder how many people will starve not knowing there is food all around them, they just wouldn't think of eating it. Yet it would be normal elsewhere. Bugs, worms, mice, etc come to mind. Growing up, we butchered our own cattle so we ate things not available in a lot of stores, cow tongue, brain, etc. Though mad cow stopped the brain eating.

What sort of oddity have you eaten that most people wouldn't think of eating?
 
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#4 ·
I grew up eating: head cheese, blood sausage, tripe, chitlins, mountain oysters, heart and have more recently enjoyed fish cheeks. I even tried worm cookies back in the '70s.
Hagis. Hands down the nastiest stuff ever. I tried it sober, I tried it drunk. Drunk was better, it didn't go down any better but came up easier.
 
#5 ·
Thus the origin of Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJi4bln-hHQ

I refuse to consider the oddities they eat in some places. I do not watch Anthony Bordain's show on Travel Channel where he eats anything people hand him. That's not to say I don't eat a well rounded choice of foods. I adore Indian curry and Chinese egg foo yung is a staple for me. But don't show me any Viet Namese balloots!
 
#7 ·
Most of the stuff he eats isn't too bad. But the show is boring and he gets drunk a lot. He always goes to a restaurant or out with people who know what they're doing.

You have to be very careful at a roadside food stand in Thailand. Especially if it serves fish and it's anywhere near the one of the rivers running through Bangkok.
 
#10 ·
When I was in Asia, I made it a point to eat the local street foods, at food stalls and restaurants.

I tried all kinds of different foods, some very good, some were not so good and some were confusing.

The one that really threw me off was in Korea, a food offering called "chapssal".

We had been port hopping a few months and everyone was craving anything that seemed familiar from home. We were walking in the market and one of the guys spotted what he thought were donuts at a venders stall.

Well the bunch of us just abut bought everyone he had and we kept on down the street. When we started eating them (size of a golf ball) we popped them in our mouths and found out the filling was a sweetened bean paste.

We ended up donating our many sacks of "donuts" to the street kids who thought they hit the lottery.
 
#35 ·
I Googled Chapssal, and came up with this site that offers a recipe for them, and they don't sound bad at all. FWIW, she also has a 'Fusion' version that substituted Nutella for the red bean paste.

I think what may have happened to you is that thought it was going to be a 'doughnut' like you'd get in the US, but it wasn't, and you took it out of context.

That being said, some asian stuff has a decent tast, but the find the texture revolting. Case in point, a smll chinese tart that I got that was about the size of a silver dollar. It had a filling of sweet yellow bean paste that had a really nice gooey consistancy and a sugary vanilla like flavor. The outer layers, ( it was kind of like an oreo cookie) was this nasty leathery white layers about 1mm or so thick that had a gritty, almost sandy texture when you took a bite,
 
#11 ·
Been offered a lot of strange food in my life. Asia, Africa, South America, Caribbean, Europe, and Middle East.

Eaten some and passed on some. One loose rule I have is not to eat anything that still has the head attached.

The hardest time I had was when I had a Thai girlfriend. Nothing weird to eat but that gal ate absolutely everything blistering spicy hot. Simple cold noodles for breakfast would top the Scoville charts. It got to the point where I needed I needed days apart simply to eat bland mashed potatoes so my gut could recover. She was as hot blooded as her food and kept suspecting my days off were to go see other women. So then I had fiery arguments to top off fiery meals when we were together. The physical side of our relationship was Olympic grade fun, but when I started realizing I needed Mylanta by the case lot I knew the relationship was going to end.

So any food that can break up a relationship is the worst food you can eat.
 
#12 ·
Nothing exotic but when I was 19 me and some buds went deep into the Canadian wilderness for a week of fishing. Our moms made us some food to take and two homemade cherry pies, we ate one the first night in camp and decided to save the second for our last night.

We let that pie sit all week covered in foil and on our last night we took it down off the shelf removed the foil and low and behold the pie was covered in mold, two guys bowed out but me and another scrapped the mold off and ate the whole pie ourselves. Lucky I increased my beer quota earlier in the day so I survived.
 
#14 ·
Yeah IamZeke, some of that food was pretty brutal in the spice department. When I was in Laos, I liked the sticky rice (very filling) balls, because you could dip them in different spicees/sauces.

The cuisine in Laos tends to be less sweet than other Asian country's, but really good. I came across a street vendor that had an atomic fire dipping sauce that was borderline WMD.

We used to go to his stall after having a few beers and (stupidly) bet who could eat the most. That was the only spicy food in my life (then & now) that's actually made me sweat like I took a shower and made my stomach churn like a cement mixer.

Oh god did I dread hitting the can the next day. The stupid things you do as a young guy.
 
#18 ·
Yep. If you know how to cook and are willing to experiment there's few things out there that you can't prepare in such away that you can not only eat things most wouldn't even consider to be edible, but enjoy it.

The ability to cook I think is one of those skills allot of folks overlook as a needed skill for survival.
 
#17 ·
I had cheese in Italy that's hands down the worst for me, which is saying allot since I've eaten live octopus, maggots, pickled eyeballs.......I can't remember the name of it but part of the process involves leaving the cheese out until flies lay their eggs in it and hatch. Once they do they munch away and this kick starts some kind of fermenting process or something.

I ate it, winning the bet. I kept it down just long enough to win a a hundred bucks. Well earned party and drinking money.

I've eaten things that would make a hog vomit but nothing, absolutely nothing even comes close to that cheese.

Maggots actually are pretty good if prepared properly and you can get over the mental part that screams " NO " when offered a plate of these guys. Sauteed in a butter garlic sauce and cooked just until they start to plump up, then add a little of your favorite beer, bit of lemon, cover and simmer for five minutes......goes really well over rice or noodles.

It's kind of funny that a few boyhood dares would actually teach me a valuable lesson and lead to being a person that can find something to eat ANYWHERE. Long before I considered myself a prepper or survivalist I was experimenting with food sources that are largely overlooked or thought to be disgusting here in the states.

None of the weird, gross, and downright disgusting things I've eaten over the years has ever made me sick.
 
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#20 ·
Funny, I was trying to think of other things and got a memory of my dad rolling a steer head over and whacking it with an axe to get the brains out. The back side was softer then the front. Then Grandma making head cheese on the big wood stove in the milk house. Rendered the lard there too.
 
#21 ·
Shot and tried to cook a jack rabbit once. It was pretty horrible. No, it was horrifically horrible.

Also tried to eat roasted armadillo. I couldn't even get it near my lips due to the odor.

I had some kind of Italian cheese called 'feet of the angels' or something similar. Yeah, it smelled like feet alright, and tasted worse. I couldn't chew it up, had to spit it out.
 
#22 ·
Also tried to eat roasted armadillo. I couldn't even get it near my lips due to the odor.
Totally with you there.

I want nothing to do with those rabies laden creatures that aspire to be nothing more than road pizza on the interstate.

Like some mad science experiment to cross a a big rat with a cockroach.

By the time I've accepted them as a meal I'm likely one rung up from considering cannibalism.
 
#24 ·
Scrapple is pretty disgusting but the taste is actually not bad. It is a pork product that looks like a grey mush. It is made of *******s, eyeballs, hair... everything but the squeal and that might be in there too. I think it is a North East thing particularly in PA but I have seen it here in FL too. Some people love it as long as they don't know what is in it. It is made of the
"things that butchers do not sell... the scraps"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple
 
#36 ·
I would have hit thanks for this post but you haven't thanked anybody in six years. I've eaten Balut in PI and it is generally disgusting. A pitcher or two of Mojo helps it go down much better. The nastiest food I've ever consumed though was during my Chief's initiation. This was before the initiation became neutered. If you were initiated say pre-1990, you know what I'm talking about. Those later or non-Chiefs can't be told due to the sensitive nature of the event.
 
#28 ·
I eat a lot of things that some people cringe at, but were once considered just normal food. Tripe, heart, tongue, pigs feet, head cheese, etc. Only in recent decades have people become so picky and spoilt as to only eat "high on the hog" as the saying goes.

I'm pretty squeamish when it comes to bugs though. I've eaten fried agave worms in Mexico and enjoyed them. But I just can't bring myself to eat the other bugs I've had the chance to try.

Another one I don't like is durian fruit. I can deal with the smell, but the flavor is off putting. Sort of like a custard made of rotten onions and candied smoked oysters.

Oddly enough, some of the stinkiest things are really good. I've always loved really stinky cheese. When I was 16 my dad bought some limburger to tease me with. Sure enough, I couldn't get it past my nose. But I have no trouble eating it now, and it's surprisingly mild and delicious.

I'm not as picky about critters. I've eaten sparrows, blackbirds, pigeons, jackrabbits, jellyfish, sea slugs, rattlesnakes and all sorts of odd stuff. Some things like balut, I'd have a hard time with. Others like hakarl or surstromming are things I'd like to try.
 
#31 ·
Squid is probably one of the most bland foods in the world.

Maybe you didn't like the appearance or the firm texture, but the taste itself nothing of note.

If you took the meat of an old chicken hen and boiled it then it would be close. Tasteless and too chewy. About like eating a rubber band.
 
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#33 ·
Haggis is pretty intense, but I ate it.

I grew up on Mexican food and Tex-Mex, but I just can't get into Mole Sauce.

It wasn't particularly nasty, but in Hawaii, I tried Poi and asked what in the hell is this?

I ate a chocolate-covered cricket at a party because I wanted the badge that said I Ate a Bug Club.
 
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