Photo by RyanMcGuire/ Pixabay
Food that isn’t for the faint-hearted
All over the world, people eat bizarre foods. The very weirdest of them tend to be local delicacies rather than everyday foodstuff. To the uninitiated however they can be enough to churn the stomach. So let’s take a look at some of the gross stuff people put in their mouths.
Horse-meat
It’s surprising to most westerners, but there are actually a lot of places in the world that have no problem eating horse. Westerners and Australians are generally more used to riding or racing them, or placing bets on races via sites like Oddschecker. That being said, Australia, home of the famed Melbourne Cup, actually has quite a large export industry for horse-meat, shipping a lot of it to Japan, parts of Europe and Russia – despite not eating it themselves. I tried it in magnetic Kyrgyzstan in 2016.
Friday’s Featured Food: Beshbarmak (Horse Meat Noodles) and Bozo in Jalalabad Restaurant, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Tuna Eyeballs
Photo by HmanJp/ CC0 1.0
Common enough that you can find them in local supermarkets in Japan.
Nothing goes to waste in certain parts of the world. In Japan, you can actually buy fish eyeballs in supermarkets which can be taken home, cooked, fried or steamed, and seasoned with garlic and soy sauce. Strangely this is not a traditional dish or ancient delicacy, only gaining popularity in the 90s when they were found to have a high amount of Omega 3 fatty acids.
Kai Khao/ Balut (Boiled duck foetal-egg)
Popular in the Philippines and parts of Thailand, this one is particularly gross. Kai Khao is basically a fertilized duck egg. That’s right, fertilized, as in there is a duck foetus inside the egg. Generally boiled, and eaten with noodles or soup; try this and you’ll be chomping your way through meat, egg white, bones and feathers.
Tarantula
Photo by Jaiprakashsingh/ CC BY-SA 3.0
Caption: Deep fried tarantula served in a Cambodian restaurant
Photo by Jaiprakashsingh/ CC BY-SA 3.0
Found in Cambodia, this one will send arachnophobes running for the hills. Served deep fried and crispy, these were first eaten under the harsh Khmer Rouge regime, when the Cambodian people were starving. They have since become quite popular, however the delicacy is fast disappearing due to deforestation and over-harvesting.
Jellied Moose Nose
Favoured (supposedly) in the great white north of Canada and Alaska. The hair is removed and the nose is covered in broth which turns into a jelly when cooled. It looks pretty yucky however those who have tried it compare the taste to corned beef. It can also be hard to find in restaurants; your best bet is at a public potlatch, which is a traditional feast hosted by local indigenous communities.
So that’s just some of the weirdest food I have encountered. Most of these are local foods only, you won’t exactly find them in your local supermarket so to try them (if you actually want to) you will probably have to visit the region they come from. Happy eating, if you are brave enough.