Strangest food you've eaten?

[jashermd]

Hello,

Interestingly, one question I often get when arriving at a safari camp (when you arrive at a new camp you have a briefing with the manager about what to expect during your stay, which includes discussing any dietary preferences) is whether I'll eat game. There are quite a few people who would rather not see an animal in the morning and meet it on their plate in the evening. Personally I love venison (including impala, springbok, etc though I don't much care for kudu -- too tough) so I'm fine with it. I'd really like to try warthog as I've heard it's much more flavourful than pork -- look out, Pumba!

From an environmental standpoint, clearing land for cattle to graze has been responsible for the destruction of large amounts of wilderness in Africa, and I'd much rather eat a farm-raised antelope which can thrive in a natural environment than support the African beef industry which is constantly pressing governments to open up wilderness areas to grazing.

Cheers,
Julian

[travel2fun]

claassenam wrote:
One of the great adventures of travel is the unusual food we come across. I am by no means a picky eater, consider myself a bit of a foodie and am always up for a new food. That said, I've definitely come across some meals that left me a bit queasy! I found the food in Japan to be overwhelmingly wonderful (I love sushi, noodles, yakitori, and most of the other traditional dishes) - but at one of the formal kaiseki meals we were served what appeared to be a tiny brain and lung in a delicate broth. Other kaiseki meals provided similarly undefined but suspicious morsels. That was a little difficult to stomach, but we ate it. I ate Guinea Pig in Peru, which actually does taste just like chicken, and assorted skewers of scorpions and various entrails in China. We ate lots of yak in Tibet, llama in Peru, both of which are very tasty. I'd love to hear others' adventures, as my own are probably quite mild in comparison.


claassenam, the strangest food? I think the food offered by USfast food companies and thoseproduced for consumption by the large agribusiness corporations, with growth hormones and shelve life extending additives, would probably qualify as the strangest. I am a resident of the US and I find it more and more difficult to acquire unaltered or semi healthy food. Eating food, even unusual food in remote and/or third worldcounties, some how seems not so strange!

[claassenam]

Hi t2f, I agree that here in the US they have concocted some bizarre faux food products! That chicken mcnugget from McDonald's probably has more man-made products in it and the barbecued crickets in Asia or fried chicken brains in Africa which are probably a lot better for us! However, I've found it easier and easier to find wholesome, organic and/or natural food. Maybe since I live in California. But even on trips around the country it seems the organic/produce sections are growing and growing in the supermarkets and national chains like Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, not to mention local farmer's markets and food co-ops have made such foods incredibly accessible. It's a lot easier nowadays to avoid the processed foods, frozen foods, etc. nowadays certainly than it was 20 and even 40 years ago when people seemed to live on processed foods.

[marolyn]

While hiking in the Southwest US, we agreed to eat only what we could find for a couple of days. Our most exotic find was an Armadillo that was scurrying along the path. It tasted, we told ourselves, like chicken. It's most dramatic characteristic was its turquoise gall bladder, which we did not eat. Bon appetite...Cheers...Marolyn

[mary-j]

I'm sorry, Marolyn, but just the thought of it makes me feel sick!!!! Maybe if you told me it was something else, not quite as exotic as armadillo, then MAYBE I would have tried it.

[claassenam]

Wow - what a story! What I'd like to know is, how did you catch it? How on earth did you know how to cook it?

[marolyn]

The armadillo was during our "young and foolish" days. The person who caught the critter (easy to do because they cannot "run")and added it to our campfire to barbecue the small amount of meat he recovered, is now a professor of law.
Armadillo are indigenous to the Southwest and are neither smart nor fast creatures. We have had visitors be amazed by an armadillo ambling across the road, demand we stop, and keep our distance. Although I have never heard of an agressive armadillo, we humored our guest.
Cheers...Marolyn

[jashermd]

Hello Marolyn,

That's quite a story -- I've eaten plenty of exotic things but have never attempted to catch or cook them on my own. Given how awful my cooking is, this is probably a good thing.

I mentioned this thread to my sister and she reminded me of something that happened to her in Laos, which might be best described as 'the strangest food I've never eaten.'

A popular snack available at many roadside stands is 'barbecued rat-on-a-stick' which is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. My sister is quite adventurous and wanted to try it as many of the local people she had met said it was quite good. So one day she stopped at one of the stands and asked to buy one. The vendor said that he couldn't sell one to her. Thinking that he thought she didn't have enough money (she was a backpacker at the time) she showed him that she did in fact have enough money. He shook his head and said that he was sorry, but he still couldn't sell one to her, as they were a special delicacy which could not be properly appreciated by tourists. She tried a couple of other places during her trip and got the same response. Apparently the vendors (or perhaps the local tourist authorities) were afraid that if tourists were able to buy rat-on-a-stick they would go around telling everyone at home that they ate rat in Laos and it would scare other tourists away.

The strategy seems to have backfired a bit -- instead of going around telling everyone at home that she ate rat in Laos, my sister went around telling everyone how she wasn't allowed to eat rat in Laos!

Cheers,
Julian

[obrienkf]

live termites fresh from a termite mound, kindly offered to me as a gesture of good will by a Masai chief. I did not decline. No further comment required.

[obrienkf]

okay, a further comment. it was washed down with the fresh blood of a cow (incredibly important in the masai community), that was drained from a clean jugular cut, in a masai moran ceremony (warrior ceremony), and was served in a communal kalabash (a hard gourd vessel that had never been washed). There wasnot one thing hygenic about the whole episode, and a full alphabet of hepatitis was a possible outcome, but it was a marvelous honor, kindly bestowed by a wonderful masai community with whom i was privileged to be associated. I did exercise a level of discretion when I passed on a number of other refreshments and a range of appetizers, and I did not, as a result, offend my hosts as theyrecognized that my comfort level was crumbling, and I was viewed as a pretty good sport about the entire thing.



Chicken Foot soup, in Jamaica, was something that caused me less comfort ... in part because the little feet, soaked in the soup, reminded me of 'kermit the frog'. It was a delicacy, i agree, and again, it was the generous offering of my hosts which convinced me that I should not say 'no thanks'. Using some limited residual decorum, I graciously declined the 'second helping'.



i have declined other things, that i would not dare share in this forum--- given thatequine and armadillo cause others some degree of difficulty. (I admit that I am, nonetheless,still partial tofast food french fries.)