1: lamb head;
it's cut length wise and boiled; when done, the skin/fat layer is peeled off and the meat is very fine tasting and a delicacy.
- sheep don't smile or frown, so the head muscles never move much, so they're very delicate and tender and fine tasting.
Overall, i think it tastes much better than chicken.

2: shark meat;
the shark is sawed in pieces and buried in the ground.
it can be eaten after 1 to 3 months after being cut in 1 inch cubes.

when eaten after a 1 month's cure, it's very crunchy and has a little ammonia taste, but there is also a fine "shark" taste to it.
After a 3 months' cure, the meat is very tender, but the ammonia smell is strong enough that one has better pinch his nose before putting it in his mouth; even then there is still a fine shark taste to it.
For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hákarl

3: Skyr, an Icelandic dish consisting of curdled milk;
one has to get used to it a little, but it's very good nourishment and tastes quite good.
for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr

I never intend to swallow anything weirder than my pride.

i have the weirdest feeling that this thread will not last lots of pages...
people very often tend to be quite conservative about what they eat.

Ohhh. Anyone got a barf bag?

When I was in Hong Kong, I ate pigeon. It was a dish at one of the restaurants in the Hyatt Regency: minced pigeon in butter lettuce.

1- First thing that comes to mind is head cheese. I use to eat it all the time when I was a kid, but now I think it's disgusting.

2- Octopus.

Great thread topic!

You asked "what is the weirdest", not "have you ever eaten anything that the majority of Americans would consider weird?" So the thread could go on for a long time with answers like, "I once had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

But yeah, I've not really stepped outside of what's considered "normal" food. But I enjoy some odd combinations.

A BLT made with peanut butter instead of mayo.

There's an Italian (at least I was told) treat called an Easter salad, it is a stack of (from the bottom up):

Provolone cheese
Genoa Salami
A circular slice of orange
A slice of hard boiled egg
A black olive
Drizzle with olive oil

You eat it by sliding the stack from the orange up, to one side, and folding it in half so each bite gets a bit of each component.

The coolest thing I have seen was on a cooking/food show. The waiter brought to the table a live cobra. He then gutted the heart in front of him, then served the beating, bloody heart to the customer.

Bottoms up!

I haven't delved into anything too crazy but would gross a lot of people out - tripe, kidneys (veal), liver (duck,chicken), veal tongue. I have no problem eating certain fresh meat and fish/seafood raw.

My favorite food that many people would not consider utilizing in the animal and eating is the marrow found in beef bones. Absolutely divine!

In Korea I used to eat dried baby squids.

Wasn't "Dried Baby Squids" the first track on Negative Orange's industrial music album?

Eating dried baby squid.

No, no. Let's make eating live squid a family affair.

Sharks use urea in their blood for osmotic balance, living in the sea water and all. I've had dogfish before and it does taste like pee.

Aside from that, my oddest culinary venture was raw sea urchin gonads.
I was served them on the coastal shore by a Japanese marine biology professor who took an urchin out of the water, grabbed a spoon, pulled out the urchin central body and scooped around the internal edges revealing a pinkish gooey tomato seed like substance.
It really did taste like sweet tomato seeds and slightly salty.

I'll leave it at that.



[cue the peanut gallery]

I don't know, but I bet CV has the ink stained toilet paper to prove it?

In Japan, I ate eel, squid, sashimi (raw fish), beef sashimi (raw steak), fried cow tongue, and these raw itty-bitty silver fish you're supposed to sprinkle on your rice or something. I only put about 5 of them on my plate. HAHA!

As for the raw beef, it was cut into thin slices, presented similar to this. It didn't look nasty, nor did it taste bad. It tasted like...well...rare steak! I actually prefer my steak red in the middle, but I just couldn't eat more than a slice of the completely raw beef. The THOUGHT of it got to me more than the taste. I'd say the same thing for the cow tongue...couldn't eat more than a slice.

Oh, by the end of the trip, we were served intestine soup. THAT, I refused. I was so sick of trying weird foods at that point, and it looked pretty nasty anyway.

I like to try different foods. Here is some of what I tried, most of it I wouldn't consider weird but definitely not typical in North America:
Piglet
Octopus
Chicken hearts, gizzards,
Pig Feet, nose, ears, tripe
Cow tongue
Escargot
Frog legs
Lamprey eel
Horse steak (softer and more tasty than beef. Be ready to have a boost of energy after that!)
Ostrich steak (not as tasty as beef but even softer than horse)
Steak tartare (raw grounded horse meet mixed with eggs and all kind of spices)
and the best for last:
Chicken with blood rice: while killing a chicken, the blood is saved and used to cook the chicken with rice.
Coagulated pig blood: in small villages in Europe, they still have traditional festivities where they kill a pig the traditional way. They bring it out, hold it on the floor, tie it and stab it in the heart. The blood is then saved in a container, some spices are added. Some blood is then dumped in a big pot of boiling water with vinegar. The blood starts then to coagulate and forms a spongy texture piece.

Bon appetit.

lots of appetizing dishes so far; many of them i've eaten, some only a few time, others very often.

keep them coming, very interesting.

I'm thinking Anthony Bourdain ate this on one of his shows from Iceland(?) ... if I remember correctly he wasn't too terribly thrilled with it.

Not at all.

My turn!

Ostrich...very good, like tender beef.

Barbecued shredded Jelly Fish...mehhh.

...and...cue the banjo music and call me Cleetus....Rattlesnake...kinda greasy if I recall.

they talk about Bourdain on the link i put on the first post.
if i remember right, he said it was the worst thing he ever ate and it was disgusting.

to each his taste; i ate it 3 times, maybe once every year i was in Iceland! lol.

one thing i never ate while in Iceland is boiled cod eyes; i was told that nowadays in Iceland (that was in the 70's) that it's mostly the old folks who eat them.

i never accepted the offers to eat some, i wonder why...

Growing up in rural Georgia, I did enjoy wild rabbit as well as turtle soup.

Elk
Deer
Frog Legs
Lion Ribs
Buffalo
Squab
Giraffe
Rattle Snake
Alligator
Squid
Octopus
Mussels
Squirrel
Rabbit (tame and wild)
Pheasant
Goose (tame and wild)
Duck (tame and wild)
Ostrich
Pigs Feet
Pig Knuckles
Duck Eggs
Snails
Beef Tendon
Beef Tongue
Chitterlings
Beef Kidneys
Tripe
Snapping Turtle
Giraffe


That's all I can think of as of now.

You listed Giraffe twice. Likely an effort to show off!

It was just that good

Chopped liver.

got it down with pimento on rye bread, sour pickle, Dr. Brown's Black Cherry Soda.

OK, I liked it.

because he ate some twice.

Pigeon is eaten in many parts of the world. In some parts, such as the Middle East, it's a delicacy. They're raised like quail, game hens, or chickens, so there's no cause to be squeamish.

Riiight. In New York, we call pigeons "flying rats."

In the Sepik River Basin, New Guinnea, they eat giant worms, though they swear they've given up human flesh. "Yum," they say.

Like I said, the pigeons are raised in cages -- which would imply they're not the same ones you'd see flying around in New York.

Did you know that pigeons are actually the feral descendants of birds domesticated as a food source thousands of years ago? Their poop was also used as a fertilizer. I, for one, would not mind seeing them back on more menus. Although I've never had pigeon, I hear it's tasty. Much closer to duck than chicken.

Also, the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction because it was a very popular food.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/does-pigeon-mea/

Similarly, the best kind of escargot are the kind that infest lawns in California. Go fig, eh?

Ken, had I known that back when I unwittingly hit a cluster of the little buggers with a weedwacker (that had no guard on it) would NOT have made me spit and retch with any less force.

That morning I figured out that it's almost reflex to stick your tongue out when something lands on your lips.

Yeah, last time I had that kinda reflexive action.

Oh bluargh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Mmmm. Do-do bird musta been tasty.

In Taiwan I ate:

Sea Cucumber (awful - tastes like liver)
Bird's Nest Soup (really good, even though you know it's bird vomit)
Shark Fin Soup (EXCELLENT)

I've tried a bunch of the stuff mentioned already (alligator, ostrich, frog's legs, etc.). Usually, if it's not an organ, or doesn't taste like liver, it's okay by me.

You people are weird.

As stated in the other thread, I don't even eat the odder flavors of Pop Tarts.

I'm agreeing with MarkSJohnson. As to the rest of it, GAAAAK.

I agree. Pigeons are just a nuisance and their droppings are associated with some nasty and life threatening fungal diseases.

I've tried cuttlefish before, pretty much like squid/calamari or octopus...kind of tasteless, with a BF Goodrich kind of consistency.

Go to your local Indian restaurant, order some Goolab Jaman, and enjoy a pair of candied Yak testicles.

Yum.

Alligator and Kopi Luwak is the weirdest for me but I am not that adventurous with food.

no one yet has talked about how good fried ants or grasshoppers are!

Oh, got a box of dried crickets at a gas station once. They were bacon and cheese flavored--dipped in a flavor powder.

Not too bad. They had a wheaty texture to em.

Gave the box to my nephew. He ate a couple!

Les Stroud on the television show survivorman eats some gnarly stuff. He will eat any insect, animal (even the raw scraps of the kill left by another animal) and wild edibles as long as its not poisonous. Termite hills are packed full of protein!

OK, so gulab jaman isn't really candied yak testicles.

I would say horse. The most dangerous one I would say putterfish.

Anyone watch Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern? That guy had eaten tons of weird and nasty foods, but interestingly enough, the one food that he hasn't been able to stomach was durian fruit. It sort of looks like a melon, and he describes the smell and taste like rotten onions and dirty socks. Anyone here ever tried it?

My wife watches that show. I can't. Dude is freakin' nuts.

Makes you wonder what to consider food, huh? The fact that you can ingest something does not automatically qualify it as food, eh? Gross.

zimmermann is a geek

I love that show.

Mary, I remember watching that episode. I think it was the texture, more than anything, that turned him off. Not saying that the rotten onion/dirty sock thing wouldn't be enough. . .

Dude likes eating testicles. I can't imagine any flavor turning him off.

Geek Noun: a carnival performer often billed as a feral wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.