What strange things have you eaten?

[DiracPool]

 

[DiracPool]

Recently I had been forced to get an American zip code.

Lol. I scanned your post quickly and, subconsciously associating it with the title of this thread, thought you said, "Recently I had been forced to eat an American zip code." I said to myself, it's going to be hard to top that one..

 

[StevieTNZ]

I had baby octopus years and years back. I found it tastier by eating it little bit by bit. That's the strangest thing I've ever eaten. I'm sure when I travel more overseas I will encounter something more stranger.

 

[einswine]

Very many years ago I cooked a bobcat at the request of a friend who had shot it while it was taking one of his kids. Like most (all?) wild carnivores it had to be cooked well done (trichinosis). I don't remember what it tasted like but a mouth full was all I could stomach.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I once was served "vegetarian meatloaf". Still don't know what was in that - or how it was even a concept.

 

[DiracPool]

I'm a big fan of Vietnamese Pho, and there are a lot of mom and pop shops up in the Seattle area. I try to visit as many different ones that I can. In fact, there was this guy that made an entire documentary on how he traveled to Vietnam for the sole purpose of visiting every mom and pop operation there he could find because he was such a pho fan.

I want to do that. I want to be a pho expeditionary. In any case, in the old days I used to get the "works" with my pho, which included tendon and tripe, which I think are cow intestines. I stopped ordering the tripe in the early 2000's because of the Bovine Spongiosum outbreak. I read that the intestinal lining of the cow had enough nerve tissue that it was only about 97% safe, not safe enough for me. The tendon checked out OK, so I still get the tendon

 

[fresh_42]

I once was served "vegetarian meatloaf". Still don't know what was in that - or how it was even a concept.

I once had meatballs with a strong vegetarian and essential part. Does this count?

 

[Mark44]

A delicacy in Hawaii is Tako Poke (tako is Japanese for octopus). Tako poke consists of raw octopus that is pickled, plus green onions, some kind of seaweed, sesame oil, and vinegar, and possibly a few other odds and ends. Most of the people I know don't like it, but I pick some up at the local stores whenever I'm there.

One of the weirder things I've eaten lately was listed on a menu in Brittany as "Oigneaux d'agneau avec champignons," (spelling might not be exactly right). I figured it was lamb something, but the "something" turned out to be kidneys. I ate them, but it wasn't my favorite meal in Brittany.

Probably the most unusual thing I ate on that Brittany trip, hands down, was wasabe ice cream, served on a small block of salmon tartare. Delicious!

 

[DiracPool]

Btw, not to poison the well or taint the pond, but here's an interesting food story. I woke up around 6:30 this morning and was putting on my socks and shoes to make a drive out to my local cybercafe for my morning Joe. Typically, when I do this, I flip on a cheesy "antenna TV" channel just as background chatter. Sure enough, the local news was on they were talking abut a Listeria outbreak in packaged salad mixes. They listed the brands, and sure enough, "Fresh Selections" was listed. I had just bought a package of Fresh Selections the day before and came within a heartbeat of eating it with the 50% discounted ribeye steaks I bought at the same time. I got meat and potatoes head, though, after a few cocktails and said screw the salad. Lucky for me, a lot of people got sick and one person has died from the outbreak. It was just serendipity that saved me. Because if I didn't see that news report this morning, I probably would have had the salad for lunch.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...led-after-listeria-kills-1-sickens-12-n502311

So, you don't want one of the strangest things you have eaten to be Listeria. That's all I'm saying

 

[meBigGuy]

Raw horsemeat
Whale -- Kind of like fishy steak.
BBQ chicken cartilage (triangular tips from chicken breast)
The usual selection of insects and fish eggs and other fishy weirdnesses
What the english call toast (bread soaked in fat)
Alligator po'boy (New Orleans)
Various Meaty Organs (unavoidable in Rome)

One of the worst tasting things I've ever had was Natto (fermented soybean) which is a favorite Japanese breakfast food. Not for American palates.
Also Uni (sea urchin, tastes like essence of estuary)

 

[Hornbein]

I have eaten moose lips, which were very rubbery. Also deep fried caterpillars, which were a lot like Cheetos but natural. Very good.

I once found myself gnawing on the head of a chicken, but I didn't swallow.

Fermented sweet potato and fermented rice can be delicious, really good.

Sea cucumber -- at least that is what I think it was -- is awful. It's like eating congealed snot. I don't care for Vegemite either. Fried shrimp paste smells like an unmentionable bodily secretion, but tastes pretty good. Just don't be around when its being cooked. I friend of mine was evicted for that.

Durians are wonderful, but you either love them or hate them. Mangosteens are incredibly exotic. Snakeskin fruit must be the only tetrahedral fruit. Custard apple is good, but you have to get it at exactly the right time. Dragon hearts -- yes, there really is such a thing -- are flavorless. Tamerinds are great, but take a long time to eat.

I will eat almost anything, but drew the line at large beetles. The long antenaea and legs look too raspy.

 

[Dotini]

In 1978 I found myself and my climbing party stranded on a glacier in Alaska. We were without food for 6 days before descending to the coast where we spotted some lupine. I ate it.

 

[wolram]

All i can say is there are there that are far more adventurous than me.

 

[Hornbein]

Oh I forgot the raw whale blubber eating contest I got involved in. Whale blubber tastes good but is extremely chewy. To win you have to just swallow it.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

A banana with a lot of seeds inside . Any of you tried it before ?
There used to be several banana trees in my house. They gave birth to tasty seedful bananas.

 

[wolram]

A banana with a lot of seeds inside . Any of you tried it before ?
There used to be several banana trees in my house. They gave birth to tasty seedful bananas.

Banana trees IN your house i have a peanut tree in my house

 

[DrGreg]

I once was served "vegetarian Meat Loaf".

I'll do anything, but I won't do that!

 

[Hornbein]

I'll do anything, but I won't do that! [Vegetarian meat loaf.]

You might be surprised. Sometimes I can't tell the difference. Sometimes the veggie version has more flavor.

 

[Hornbein]

A banana with a lot of seeds inside . Any of you tried it before ?
There used to be several banana trees in my house. They gave birth to tasty seedful bananas.

Real bananas are one of the fruits I don't like. I like the big low-flavor Cavendish we get in the West.

 

[wirenut]

We had a "texas" type place in upstate ny back in the '90s which served rattlesnake and crayfish.
I've eaten both, as well as alligator.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Real bananas are one of the fruits I don't like. I like the big low-flavor Cavendish we get in the West.

I can see that! It's up to you.

Banana trees IN your house i have a peanut tree in my house

I was messed up, sorry!

 

[DrDu]

Stinky tofu in Taiwan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinky_tofu

 

[DrDu]

Witch's eggs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_impudicus

 

[dipole]

I've eaten large intestine of some animal (possibly beef). Very fatty and chewy.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

hmmm black fungus dish in China was pretty gross

 

[Hornbein]

I've eaten large intestine of some animal (possibly beef). Very fatty and chewy.

I've eaten chitlins, which are the large intestines of pigs. They smell like what they used to contain. Not too strong, though.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

... They smell like what they used to contain. Not too strong, though.

There are special ways to wash them such that after cooked, they won't smell bad at all anymore.
From time to time I eat those stuffed with pork mixed with different sorts of ingredients e.g mushrooms, black fungus, black peppers, chilly etc. They can be made like big sausages.

 

[Borek]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripe_soups anyone?

 

[wolram]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripe_soups anyone?

You made me almost gag with that

 

[meBigGuy]

A lot of people don't know about this east coast USA delicacy. Scrapple. Makes Spam look like steak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple

 

[alw34]

Bison in Kansas City is about as adventurous as I have gotten.

But a meal I remember best: We were anchored in an an isolated part of Hurricane Sound, Maine, near Vinalhaven Island, off a nearby channel and back past huge rock obstructions. Must have been nuts going back there with my boat. Anyway, we could see seals swimming by now and then and when exploring in a small outboard noticed huge clusters of mussels [clams] on old granite walls. We pulled off some clumps, no mud because they were near the surface, scrubbed them and steamed with some garlic and wine as the sun went down. Doesn't get any better.

 

[Hornbein]

Alfred Wallace of Darwin-Wallace fame on the durian.

"When brought into a house the smell is often so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case when I first tried it in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian eater," he writes. Having declared the taste almost impossible to describe, he offers "a rich butter-like custard, highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities".

I found that each durian has a unique taste. The ideal fruit for those who are easily bored. There is nothing else like it.

I loved the smell right from the beginning. I even kept one in my room as an air freshener. Others find it so intolerably nauseating that durians are banned on public transport and in hotels. The human race splits about 50/50 on this. Genetics don't matter. It's a mystery.

On the other hand I never liked jackfruit, which is also covered with thorns and is about as large as a small beer keg. I recently saw a jackfruit in a local supermarket in the US, which was a big surprise.

 

[DrDu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripe_soups anyone?

Of course. Cook it myself every now and then. Prefer it to be made from mutton. Have some secret catalan recipe. You also have to cook a cow's foot with it to get the right consistency.

 

[boneh3ad]

I once ate jellyfish. It's just as bad as it sounds. Imagine a slightly dry-rotted rubber band such that it is stretchy and hard to chew but has just a little bit of crunch. That's how I'd describe jellyfish.

I also once made a conscious decision to just try everything they offered at a churrascaria in Rio de Janeiro. I am not sure what all of the items were, but at least one of them was a surprisingly tasty, I know organ meat based on its density and texture.

I also was once tricked into eating fried Rocky Mountain oysters. Those were surprisingly tasty as well, though I gags when I found out what they were and definitely did not have seconds.

 

[DrDu]

I once got a nice cookbook (spanish):
http://www.amazon.es/dp/8408081098/