One (of many) problems that I see with our modern diet is that it is not varied and the majority of the foods we consume contain similar (but boring) ingredients like processed grains, potatoes, sugars and vegetable oils.
Around the World…
Many cultures around the world have consumed a much more varied diet, including some very nourishing foods that many of us would find hard to stomach. For instance, have you ever tried:
- Baalut: A delicacy from the Philippines made by letting a fertilized chicken or duck egg incubate until it has developed feathers and then boiling the egg and eating. Also called “the treat with feet.”
- Escamoles: A treat from Mexico, Escamoles are giant ant eggs that are said to have a similar texture to cottage cheese.
- Hakarl: Fermented shark from Iceland.
- Drunken Shrimp: From China… the shrimp are shocked in a strong alcohol and eaten alive.
- Rocky Mountain Oysters: Popular in parts of the US, these are the testicles of young bulls and they are typically battered and fried before eating.
- Kopi Luwak: Perhaps the most expensive coffee in the world (often costing over $100/lb) it is made by coffee beans that have been ingested, digested and defecated by Civets (small animals native to Asia).
- Stink Bugs: Often consumed alive in Indonesia
- Casu Marzu: From Sardinia, this is a cheese made from sheep milk that contains live insect larvae.
- Tiet Kahn: A soup from Vietnam containing chicken gizzards and raw duck blood.
- Scorpion Soup: This soup from China contains scorpions – don’t worry, the cooking process is supposed to neutralize the venom.
- Mopane: From Africa, these caterpillars are dried and consumed.
- Tuna Eyeball: Often consumed in Japan- said to taste like Squid.
- Haggis: From Scotland- the stomach of a sheep is stuffed with oatmeal and steamed.
- A-ping: Fried tarantula from Cambodia
- Yak Penis: Eaten in China
Getting More Adventurous
While I don’t think I’m adventurous enough (yet) to try some of these foods, there are some foods that are considered unusual to many of us that are healthy and not that strange like organ meats, fermented foods and gelatin containing foods.
If you’re new to foods like organ meats, I’d suggest trying something like this Liver and Onion with Bacon Recipe and Sauerkraut is an easy fermented food to try.
Even if it takes baby steps, consider adding foods like organ meats and fermented foods in to your diet. Compared to the list above, they actually seem pretty normal 🙂
The Strangest Food I’ve Eaten
Why the strangest food you’ve ever had? Before I turned my kitchen in to a science lab and started adding probiotic foods and drinks to my diet, I thought fermented foods were strange and wouldn’t touch them. For me at that point, just trying them would have been an adventure.
Fast forward a few years, and I can’t imagine my life without sauerkraut, water kefir, and kombucha, but I certainly used to think it was strange. Knowing what I know now about the health benefits of fermented foods, I’m certainly glad I started eating these “strange” foods.
Now, the honor for strangest food I’ve ever eaten would go to fried mealworms, though I don’t recommend them nearly as much as delicious fermented foods (though they are a good source of protein). Runners up include cricket, pickled pigs feet (eww) and alpaca cheese (strange).
What’s the strangest food you ever consumed?
Grass fed Meat vs. Grain fed Meat
I haven’t eaten too many strange foods since my whole foods journey started a few months ago, but I think Kombucha is probably the weirdest. A SCOBY is just… strange. It was hard to drink at first, but after just a few days I started to love it!
…its funny, now that i started reading your blog, my perspective on what is ‘strange’ (and what is food for that matter) has shifted so dramatically that my strange radar really goes off for alot of things i used to eat as a “super healthy” vegetarian 😉 …things like cheetos, tofu, seitan, and and power bars – seriously … what is that stuff?? strange!!
Strangest food for me was probably frog legs. When I first started dating my future husband, he took me frog gigging on our second date. We then took the frogs to his grandparents house and fried ’em up! Other odd foods I have eaten is head cheese (made from the whole pigs head). You can even see bits of eyeball in it. Also pickled pigs feet. Never tried these but there is a beer store near us that sells pickled lamb’s tongues.
i didn’t eat it, but on Sardegna, (island west of Rome) they make a cheese that has maggots with it, the maggots eat the cheese, then regergetate and continue the process, and you actually eat the maggots and their byproducts, as part of the cheese.
The strangest foods I’ve ever eaten were grubs, big ones. Witchetty grubs are these huge white-ish larvae that are roughly the length of your pointer finger and about as big around as your thumb. When roasted, one kind tasted like creamed corn and another kind tasted like creamed bacon…but neither in a pleasant way for me! The pointy feet and crispy shell are creepy as heck! The other one I had looked like a large seed, just about a centimeter & a half across, that you break open and lick the goopy inside out of. It was sweet with a bitter tang and turned out to be WASP larvae…ick!! Yup, good times in the Australian outback!
Strangest food I’ve ever eaten? There have been a couple of things that deserve to be on that list, but my top pick is definitely cockscombs, a dish I tried at dim sum one Sunday. Very strange texture.
I had a hard time coming up with something that I’ve eaten that I felt was strange. Kombucha, sauerkraut, fermented salsas/mustard/ketchup/mayo, kefir… they all seem normal to me now. I do remember that I thought the texture of paneer was so very strange!
strangest food…gosh, i’m not sure. i tried kimchi this summer, which was delicious, and strange for me because i’ve ever so defiantly claimed to hate cabbage. i also started experimenting with making water kefir sodas — my family certainly thought they were strange. alligator, maybe? (which is pretty good. chewy, but good.)
The strangest food I ever ate was an extremely spicy curry with no beat–just bones with marrow and fat. I was a guest and did my best to enjoy it but it was hard for me to stomach. That was before I learned how good the marrow is for you.
Squid.Weird texture