Most Weird Thing You Ever Ate
 

Recently I was in Philippines, my friend told to taste balut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_%28egg%29

At first I almost vomit because of the taste, but when I learned how to conquer it(eat it). I don't problems dealing with it.

The most unappetizing food I have ever eaten is the Durian. It will not, however, become a food that I will have ever eaten twice.

I had some swamp rat stew in Belize. And some miniature deer, at the same restaurant. I've eaten some weird things in China and other parts of Asia too.

+10000000 for Durian! Don't believe people who tell you it's sweet they are horrible mean people who want you to suffer like them!

I had a fresh sea urchin (still wriggling) in the Cook Islands prepared by cutting off the top of the shell and dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice. It was a gift as compensation for a diverted taxi ride and I haven't seen it on a menu since. It was really quite nice!

At the top of my list as well. Very difficult to get past the sight; best not to look at it (opened). I've had it a couple times from a Vietnamese co-worker. The crunch of the little bones is delightful! Certainly fits into the realm of "sport food" :p

Grilled dog meat in Morocco, washed down with orange Crush. It was very tasty, so I had seconds.

Fried scorpion in rural Laos. It did not taste like chicken.

Cuy was a bit strange, but pretty tasty.

I can imagine, probably kind of similar to the whole baby grilled chickens street food we had while in Thailand.

you are a smarter man than me, I've tried the fruit 3 times, each time it gets a bit better. I'm up to only a slight gag now.:D That said, I've had durian pastry & ice cream that were both very good.

I think one of the strangest thing I've eaten is live octopus in Korea, some other FT'ers and I went to Seoul and on our first night while drinking mighty amounts of soju, the place were we were drinking served it to us. The restaurant takes the live octopus, stretches it out and then hacks the legs into 1-3" wriggling pieces that will use their sucker to attach to your mouth if you don't chew enough. Truly good stuff.^

balut is hard core IMO but I would try it if given the chance.

Uni
 

Grussellt, Sea urchin is commonly eaten in Japan, and is called uni. It is considered a gourmet food.

I'd have to say that I didn't enjoy my experience with balut. I didn't really like biting the head off the embryo.

Fortunately, I did give a second chance to durian. The first one I had the sulforous part was a little overpowering which made it hard to enjoy. But the second time, I liked it. It has a very rich, lightly sweet taste, if you get a good one.

There's a restaurant in Johannesburg that serves exotic game animals. The two times I was there I had ostrich and gemsbok. From the meat texture you could tell that they were active animals. The texture was similar to Argentinian beef.

I was in the northeast part of Thailand during the dry season, and a young boy taught me how to catch grasshoppers by dumping water down their hole and catching them running out of their other holes. They fried them for us.

In northern Thailand, I was invited over to a family's house for dinner. They served the local specialty of red ant eggs, which was made into a kind of salad. It had kind of a bitter taste. When asked for my reaction, I said that it was something interesting that I hadn't ever experienced before. The daughter burst in to laughter and said "yeah, we don't like it either!".

Blowfish sperm

Race horse carpaccio

Sake with rotting blowfish fin in it (you have to light it on fire before eating it to burn away some of the smell)

Very recently deceased aji (sardine I think) with the gills still moving

Crocodile

Emu

Kangaroo (although not uncommon for those in Oz)

Slugs.........to be honest I didn't actually swallow them.

I was camping out and had left a opened carton of milk outside the tent all night. Woke up took a slug of it and got a mouthful of the slimey creatures. :D

I think there are two main obstacles that balut poses to westerners: the cuteness factor of baby whatevers, and the strong yolky aspect.

I don't pretend to know anything about the cuteness factor.

I do know that I hate hard-boiled egg yolk. This makes balut 80% disgusting, since it has a very large and concentrated yolk. The "tea" part (fishy-tasting liquid in the airspace of the egg) is okay. And the actual embryo tastes good with plenty of salt.

"Something" grilled at a roadside stand in Mexico. I didn't even try the translation. My host ate it first so I knew it wouldn't kill me.

Second that, our Cuy in Arequipa was deliciously crispy with moist dark meat that gave it the taste of very juicy fried-chicken. The presentation was a bit creepy though, it was served whole, drawn-and-quartered, with the head on and the teeth snarling. Definitely lost all of its cuteness as compared to the uncooked version :eek:, which was probably a good thing.

Elephant. I was on a hunting safari with my Father in Botswana and he shot an elephant. We had elephant jerky, it was quite salty.

I have to go w/ durian also. Actually, I didn't eat it because my colleague first tried it and blapped all over the table. I thought it better to refrain.

Second would be Brunost, a Norwegian brown cheese made from goats milk. Not completely revolting, but I wouldn't do it again.

Probably the most different were a variety of fried bugs, crickets, etc. from a street vendor in Thailand. All tasted fine, some better than others. I have managed to stay away from the durian and am very happy about that!

I love durian but I don't like its smell.

I tried eating Dinuguan with white sticky rice and mango.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinuguan

Human bile.

Duck feet, which you can get at any decent dim sum place. Very tasty, very rich, PITA to deal with the million little bones.

A bowl of braised duck tongues.

snake blood

fresh sea urchins, eaten right from the shell with a spoon.

dogs

live octopus

McGriddles

live shrimp

cats

fish eyes

etc etc

Balut
Guisado of puppy dog (unidentified before eating) in Southern Mexico 50+ years ago.
Monkey - It's the paws that give one hesitation
Live goldfish (What extemes men will go to to win bets and impress girls)
Various crispy fried insects (not chocolate-covered)
The gusano from the bottom of the mescal bottle

Durian doesn't even come close, better the third time around, especially with a head cold.

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fried scorpion, locusts and some insect's pupa in China.

Half a raw cockroach (by mistake)

Fried grasshopper, cricket, worms.
Frog soup- but not just the legs. The frog was merely quartered and cooked in the broth. Pain eating around all the bones. The liver, about the size ofa marble was good.

Goat in all forms and fashions in China. Definitely had my fill of goat in China. Duck tongue- not bad at all.

Also some truly disgusting fish in Thailand- snake fish, I believe. Very oily and 'gamey'. The rest of the dish was great though.

A (very strong) liquor made from fermented ants. Interesting, but I prefer my Remy XO cognac.

i had dog served about 6 different ways, but im pretty sure it was beef.


the most disgusting thing, was these little bird eggs, you eat them raw, but when you crack the shell, theres a ...........................................featous .

Cheese.
Seriously. Growing up in Asia, eating molded milk is kinda weird until I get used to it. But you can give me uni any day. :)

And cow testicles. Just don't see the point to eating this. It's not good.

That must have been a very light dish, because cows don't have testicles. Bulls do, though.

Groundhog, cooked whole in a big roaster with sweet potatoes and carrots.

Barbecued raccoon

Sheep fries

Mountain oysters

Chitterlings, Also know as chitlins

Souse

I had forgotten Armadillo (less likely to be eaten now after the revelation that it's the only known host for Hansen's AKA leprosy). The only meat with its own dish! "Porkish" when barbecued.

Possum, served w/sweet potatoes, in the Depression known as "Hoover Hog", greasy. A nasty scavenger, but easy to catch.

Nutria, available occasionally in Louisiana, served with "piquant" (Sp?) sauce.

Mountain oysters, lamb fries and turkey fries are a long way from unusual around here.

Chitlins? There's A restaurant a couple of miles away where they have a regular place on the menu.

Tripe's hardly unusual and between the accomplishment of the Spanish and the Normans, awfully good food.

The Mexican standard version, "Menudo", stewed with hominy, is an every day offering in dozens of small local "family-style" Mexican resturants, and a grand cure for hangovers, "para la cruda". The original Mexican "barbacoa" is not barbecue, but a slow roasted cow's head. pulled apart like pulled pork, with the eyes in demand among purists.

Souse/Head Cheese is right up there with tongue for sandwich making.

Having served in Viet Nam and Korea, and a business trip to Turkey I know I've eaten somethings that would not have been on a utensil let alone in my digestive track if I had known before hand.

alligator, rattlesnake, raccoon, sea urchins, goat, scrapple, various animal hearts, pickled cow tongue ...

Grub and snake raw. We had patrolled past our supplies, living off the land. The VC were hunting us so we couldn't cook. Put enough wasabi on it, you can eat anything.

It helps to be hungry.

I'm not a fussy eater. I like cuy, although it took some serious intervention to be rid of the intestinal hitch-hikers they favored me with.

Uni is another matter. It tastes great, but the texture is of cold snot. Once that thought occurred to me, I couldn't finish.

Same with Blutwurst. It is delicious, but the thought entered my head I was eating scabs. Oh well.

Grasshoppers from street vendors in Bangkok are delicious. But then I found out they harvest them after they spray the fields.

Two foods that immediately came to mind when viewing this topic title
1- Snake

2- Ostrich

Pancakes and Chinese clam sauce by mistake.

not sure why but this made me laugh

Barbecued raccoon still tops my list of my weird food.