Strangest Foods Willingly Eaten?

[Shadsie]

I hope there's a not already a thread like this. To be honest, I was too lazy to click through pages.

So, I'm a fan of certain culinary-weirdness shows on the Travel Channel (American basic cable), but this thread was inspired by my dinner tonight. My fiance' and I frequent a very nice Chinese-and-other buffet. We used to go there weekly, but we aren't going so much anymore. Anyway, this place is inexpensive and offers quite a variety of dishes to load one's plate up with. I was joking tonight about how much of the animal kingdom I was eating through. I was all "Mammal, bird, fish, crustacean...cephlapod." They didn't have amphibian tonight (sometimes the place has frog legs, tonight they didn't). I had some pepper beef, roast duck, crab legs, shrimp, and some imiation crab (made of fish) and very small octopi as part of a seafood medly dish.... and that was just what I had for tonights' dinner...

I then decided to figure out just what the weirdest thing I've ever eaten is... It might be the teeny little octopi... it might be frog legs... it might even be the common bluegill/sunfish I sometimes catch while fishing becuase not all fishermen consider those to be edible. (I do. They're good, they're just really bony).

I think the weirdest thing I may have eaten might have been self-caught wild crawdads/crayfish. I only had them once, several years ago, when I was camping at a lake with my family in Arizona (one of the cool-climate mountainous regions of the state). They're an invasive speices there - the Game and Fish department encourages killing them because they're destructive to native wildlife. They are edible - you boil them and eat them, but I haven't had them since because I just wasn't impressed. The ones I ate were kind of muddy-tasting.

So, anybody eat anything weird?

[mailduck]

I think the weirdest thing I may have eaten might have been self-caught wild crawdads/crayfish.

Do they taste similar to lobsters? The weirdest thing I've eaten was probably pickled caviar. Either that or duck a l'orange, which made me feel real guilty afterward, considering how delicious it was...

It's not very weird, more like disgusting, but I just found out the other day that one of the worst drinks you can consume is a large Baskin-Robins oreo shake, reaching nearly 3,000 calories and 135 grams of fat.

[Shadsie]

Do they taste similar to lobsters?

At the time I ate them, I hadn't had lobster. I've had it since, though. And, in my recollection, no. I seem to recall them tasting almost like shrimp, but with great deal of a "mud" flavor - they tasted like what they lived in.

I'm not a huge fan of lobster, but I do find it enjoyable on the rare occasion that I get to eat it (I'm anything but rich). Crab... I will stampede you to the ground if you are in my way to get at good crab, I love crab... the freshwater crayfish weren't like either.

[mailduck]

At the time I ate them, I hadn't had lobster. I've had it since, though. And, in my recollection, no. I seem to recall them tasting almost like shrimp, but with great deal of a "mud" flavor - they tasted like what they lived in.

I'm not a huge fan of lobster, but I do find it enjoyable on the rare occasion that I get to eat it (I'm anything but rich). Crab... I will stampede you to the ground if you are in my way to get at good crab, I love crab... the freshwater crayfish weren't like either.

That sounds.. Interesting. (:
I can never eat lobster ever again. Every time I see lobsters in the glass cases at Red Lobster, it makes me so sympathetic towards them. They're so sad and defenseless. -.-

[Zeruda]

I dunno... I mean, I've taken foreign cooking classes, so I've tasted a lot of "strange" foods. Crawdad doesn't seem strange to me- I used to eat it a lot. We used to catch them in little streams and such. I've also eaten frog legs, but again, those don't seem strange to me. Bluegill is actually pretty good, but not very meaty. Again, not something I consider strange as it's a common meal for me.

Birds Nest Soup was something "strange" I've tried a couple times. The nest is made from a bird's saliva, and then usually simmered in broth. It's kinda rubbery, but not too bad. I've also eaten rattlesnake which tastes very similar to chicken. I've also had cactus fruit, armadillo, squirrel, and even turtle soup.

[Shadsie]

Cactus frut... I love prickly pear jelly. I haven't had it in a long time. My mother *made* some of that one year.

[Smitie]

I can't think of some super strange food I ate. The only weird thing I can think of is raw meat. I tried it once and I have to say that raw beef tastes very nice, but it is very difficult to chew. When I had dissection classes I always got hungry when I saw the dissected animal (the rat lungs looked so tasty), but I didn't eat anything :P. I also eat some horse meat, but that is processed in my favourite snack (yay for frikandellen :D)

There are also some 'weird' foods I want to try. I really want to try fried insects someday. I heard they are very tasty. I still didn't find a place where they sell it :(. I also want to try kangaroo and osterich meat.

[Keats]

Probably snails. Unsurprisingly, they were terrible.

[Bob Majinki]

I eat lamb hearts willingly.
They taste a lot better than you'd think.

[Shadsie]

I just remembered... I tasted bear once. Black bear, after my two uncles went on a hunting trip and got themselves a bear each. I only had a little taste, though, and I felt really weird eatinng it at the time, but it wasn't bad.

I miss living near them because I miss getting elk meat from them from their yearly hunting trips. Elk meat is very good, like a lean beef.

[MrMosley]

It depends a lot about where you come from. Around here, people hunt a lot of things that is very good when eaten. As you were talking about your uncles hunting, Shadsie, that is a big thing here where I'm from. I've eaten squirrel gravy (which is basically pieces of squirrel meat in some gravy), deer meat (which is freakin awesome when fixed right with good spices put on it), and rabbit.

Other than those normal things for me, I've eaten calamari. Deep-fried calamari is the best, which is basically small squid that are deep-fried, then eaten with some marinara sauce. There's an Italian restaurant called Caraba's in Lexington (Kentucky) where I always get some calamari when I go. I've also has some swordfish before, which I don't know how "weird" that would be considering I was on the coast of Florida at the time. When I ate the swordfish, I didn't like it too well. Not that it was bad or anything, but it practically had no taste at all to it. I had to douse it in lemon juice to get a little bit of flavor out of the thing.

[Claire]

I've had my fair share of edible delights which some consider strange.

I've eaten sashimi and makizushi. Personally, I do not find these foods particularly strange, but where I live there are plenty of people who won't even dare eat Americanized Chinese food. I've eaten dried squid and dried teriyaki nori - neither of which were too charming. I find that soups are one of the easiest and most common ways to serve strange meals. I've eaten snapping turtle soup, octopus soup, and squirrel potpie.

Concerning snacks, I've had a wide variety. I've eaten Lychee, which was far from my favorite fruit from the first bite. I've also consumed wild boar, kangaroo, alligator, emu, venison, antelope, elk, and buffalo jerky. One food that I highly recommend tasting sometime, would be haggis - it is fantastic.

[Y2K3]

I've had Squid before. I don't remember much about it, but I did like it.
I think I also had Octopus before. That wasn't good to eat, but again, I can't remember much about it.
I've also had escargot - not a huge fan.

But other than that, I wouldn't really consider anything else I've eaten to be 'strange'. But then again, 'strange' is different to everyone.

[xandar]

Oh, boy is this the topic for me. Speaking of the Travel channel's strangest food shows, I once saw them do my personal favorite food, the national food of Scotland, good ol' haggis! It's made by boiling the internal organs of a sheep with wheat, barley, and oats. The original recipe used thousands of years ago by the Scots was to use the stomach of the sheep. This was mostly because they didn't invent plastic boiling bags yet, but I've tried it that way (Though I had to go to Scotland to do it due to US health regulations), and it really is better.

I also used to work in a restaurant where my boss would let me beer-batter about whatever I wanted as long as it wasn't something that could easily contaminate the oil, and so I managed to beer batter many crazy things including burritos, Big Macs, McRibs, hot dogs, Macaroni and Cheese, and probably my favorite thing was a Snickers bar. It was all crunchy and beer-battery on the outside and gooey and completely melted on the inside. It was friggin' great.

[Jedizora]

i once ate this pepper from... a contry that is not america. the next day the only thing i ate/drink was ice cold water and ice cubes. at least my parents gave me a hundred bucks for it!

[athenian200]

That's difficult to answer, because "strange" is relative to your idea of "normal." Are we using an American definition of normal? A Japanese definition? A European one? An African one?

I guess I'll assume we're using the American definition. By that definition, I would say Sushi (raw fish) and Calamari (squid) are the strangest things I've eaten.

But a Japanese person wouldn't think it was strange to eat Sushi, and an Italian person wouldn't find Calamari a strange thing to eat.

[K4KING]

Oh yeah... Strange foods are my type!

Since were Weirdness, I'll use America's Normal Definition of Weird or Peculiar. The strangest thing i've eaten was Swift-let Bird Nest Soup. It was kinda weird and kinda interesting but it sure was Tasty. I have eaten other things as well, some of them.... uh... you WILL find disgusting:

Lechon (whole roasted pig)
Longganisa (Philippine sausage, Usally made from Pigs, Cows, Carabaos,Chickens and Ducks)
Tapa (cured beef)
Torta(omelette)
Balut (fertilized chicken or Duck egg)
Isdang Paksiw (Fish cooked in Vinegar)
Adobo (chicken and/or pork braised in Garlic, Soy Sauce, and Vinegar or cooked until dry)
Kaldereta (goat mixed in tomato stew)
Mechado (beef or pork cooked in tomato sauce)
Pochero (beef in bananas and tomato sauce)
Afritada (pork or beef simmered in a tomato sauce with vegetables)
Kare-Kare (Oxtail and vegetables cooked in Peanut Butter or Peanut Sauce)
Crispy Pata (deep-fried pig's leg)
Hamonado (pork sweetened in pineapple sauce)
Sinigang(pork, fish, or shrimp in Tamarind stew)
Pancit (stir-fried noodles, It's Like Yakisoba in Japan)
Inihaw na Palaka (Basically a frog caught, tied up and roasted on open Fire, Usually eaten when camping)

Some of them are considered Taboo in your place(meaning It is very very very weird to be seen eating it) Some are just Peculiar, And these foods are the Philippine Cuisine. So basically They are weird, How? It is weird on how the way you cook them.

Western Foreigners usually come here to taste the Cuisine and explore the Philippines, but I see them avoiding some foods because they look "Icky" or "Disgusting" or "Too exotic", and they just go for the sites, i say Taste the food you will love it! Except balut, This is the only thing i have yet to see being eaten by a foreigner, since it's a Dish of a fertilized Duck or Chicken Egg. :P

[TreeHuggerPanda]

Hmmm... probably pork shoulder. But my mom told me she ate a fried frog's leg once.

[February Eve]

Strangest relative to my experience - sea urchin.

I taught English in Japan for a couple years and it was served at a dinner. It looked like a small spiked ball that had an open, fleshy center. I was just thinking, "Hmm, interesting presentation" when one of the Japanese teachers leaned over at me mischievously and said, "It's alive."

At which point I stared at it and sure enough, the spikes were moving. My face was like this: O.o

I did try to eat it but ended up having to pass it on to one of the other teachers who actually liked it, heh.

[Nociti]

I've eaten chicken hearts before. Barbecued. Yummmm.

[NES]

Hmm, where to start. I'm not really sure what to classify as weird. I've had pickled cactus before. It's pretty disgusting. It's basically the insides of a cactus deep fried and pickled. Pretty gross. I've also had rattlesnake and squirrel meat, which was alright. Also, when my aunt moved back from Japan, she brought me this octopus tentacle candy... thing.

[Raven]

lol i've ate some pretty crazy stuff in my day.. EGGS AND SYRUP, yukk! actually i thought it was a pancake and the syrup was right there... i couldn't tell the difference until after it was all gone and someone told me.Then I was all like DANG!

[Pocket Asian]

Well, the foods I eat aren't weird to me, but do seem so to other people. Kimchi, is often seen as weird. Its cabbage that's fermented, not to mention you can also have others, like radish and cucumber. I just don't see why this people think this is weird, though. A cucumber is fermented to get a pickle, and a lot of the people that I know who thought kimchi is weird enjoy pickles.

Another thing is that I learned that my mom has tried dog before. She said she didn't like it, and I'm glad she doesn't. I've never tried any, and I never will.

[CZG]

Cheese, man! Cheese!
What's up with that? It's horrible!

It's about the strangest thing I have ever eaten in my life, stranger than soap...
We all know that soap actually shouldn't be eaten. Still, they recommand cheese pretty much everywhere.