Weirdest Thing You've Ever Put in Your Mouth

So what is the strangest thing you've ever eaten?

Lots of possibilities out there many from exotic climes. Rattlesnakes, alligators, insects?

What may seem outrée to us in the West may be routine dinner for those elsewhere. Horse, dog, thousand year eggs, grubs.....

I recently heard in another group that in one of the old churches of Cuzco there is a painting of the last supper, and depicted clearly on the table is roasted guinea pig!

What's your furthest out taste of food and what did you think of it?

I think I've mentioned it here before, but it was a boiled sheep's eyeball. Had to chase it around my plate with chopsticks. Finally held it firmly and stabbed it with one. The host offered more, and I respectfully declined.

I can't think of too many things I've had that are all that weird, at least by adventurous foodie standards. I've had alligator and chocolate covered ants. I suppose fish livers - monkfish in a sushi bar, whitefish in Wisconsin - are a bit weird. No frog's lips or monkey hips, though...

Raw Oysters!

Nothing, I prefer not to eat foods that seem weird or unknown to me. However, now I do recall years ago when on a date to a very nice Italian restaurant on the coast near Arcata, CA I had a piece of tongue...tasted like bologna. I was not pleased when the waitress informed me what it was.

Raw Oysters!

My father loved them. He used to get them from one of his poker pals who worked on a dredge, which is where they came from. He was a doctor with, at that time, an office in the house; so he could get calls at any time. One night while he was eating them, the phone rang. He popped one in his mouth and ran to the phone. It was rotten! One of those stories you never forget! I don't eat them, but do like cheerstone clams on the halfshell.

Nothing, I prefer not to eat foods that seem weird or unknown to me. However, now I do recall years ago when on a date to a very nice Italian restaurant on the coast near Arcata, CA I had a piece of tongue...tasted like bologna. I was not pleased when the waitress informed me what it was.

I guess there are always two components to tasting something different - the actual texture and taste sensation, and then the taster's preconceptions about what they like or won't like.

I once served a dish of sweetbreads to some friends and hadn't thought about the significant other of one of them, who was a decidedly picky eater. My menu was in French and when she saw 'ris de veau', she said - 'Oh, I like veal'. My sin was one more of omission than commission, when I just nodded and said nothing. I knew if I'd told her what it really was, there was no way she'd have touched it, but as it was, she ate it and enjoyed it. What would you guys have done - hastened to say what it was and had her push it aside?

What would you guys have done - hastened to say what it was and had her push it aside?

I would have sent a follow-up note telling everyone how meaningful it was to have my friends gathered to share a significant event with me and in it I would include an English translation of the menu with recipes.

Jo Ann, Hi....

Our first public argument but rejecting raw oysters is a sin.

In the 1800's the Duc de Lyons was asked if he was a gentleman. He responded affirmatively. When asked to support his definition he said "I never eat more than 60 raw oysters at a single sitting". I may not go for 60 but a dozen or eighteen is one of the greatest pleasures of life. Sprinkled over with nothing more than a wee bit of lemon juice, popped into the mouth followed by the liquids in the shell......God's gift to humanity.

'Tis okay though.... I forgive you.

Best
Rogov

[Jenise]

Sperm sac of Fugu (the poisonous Japanese pufferfish).

Jo Ann, Hi....

Our first public argument but rejecting raw oysters is a sin.

In the 1800's the Duc de Lyons was asked if he was a gentleman. He responded affirmatively. When asked to support his definition he said "I never eat more than 60 raw oysters at a single sitting". I may not go for 60 but a dozen or eighteen is one of the greatest pleasures of life. Sprinkled over with nothing more than a wee bit of lemon juice, popped into the mouth followed by the liquids in the shell......God's gift to humanity.

'Tis okay though.... I forgive you.

Best
Rogov

On your recommendation, and because I want to stay the #1 alternative in your harem, I will try them again - nose pinched and eyes closed!

No fear, Jo Ann...... If the raw ones don't do it for you we'll make sure you get oysters Rockefeller. And if not that, I promise lobster Thermidor.

Best
Rogov

Sperm sac of Fugu (the poisonous Japanese pufferfish).

That has to sound a hell of a lot better in Japanese. Or any other language I don't understand.

I had to think about how to answer this, because as a thorough "foodie" I have eaten quite a broad range of stuff. As a kid -- my grandmother had grown up on a farm in Virginia and served me scrapple for breakfast many times. The flavor is pretty good but it's a turn off to realize that what you are picking out of your teeth afterwards is the sclera -- the white of the eye of a pig. The very first time I went to a serious French restaurant in NYC with a date, I had brains on toast, which was in fact delicious. Oysters have long been a favorite and I've converted most of my friends to eating them raw (in season). Snails, sweetbreads, horse-meat, tongue, octopus, jellyfish, been there, done that. I never really liked tripe until I had it prepared Sichuan style (Old Couple Sliced Lung is the odd name of the dish, which is served cold).

Anyway the one thing I can think of which I probably would not voluntarily repeat -- at my favorite Sichuan place which makes everything taste wonderful, I ordered a pigs ear. I kind of imagined that it would be cooked until tender and the high-cartilage parts would be removed. Uh uh. The chinese are into "interesting" textures, and a lot of the bites were a bit "crunchy." I didn't finish it, but I ate a lot of it... Oh, and you couldn't really pick and choose because they served it sliced very fine, so it looked like a pile of fleshy noodles.

[Jenise]

Sperm sac of Fugu (the poisonous Japanese pufferfish).

That has to sound a hell of a lot better in Japanese. Or any other language I don't understand.

They definitely didn't tell me what i'd eaten until AFTER!

Sperm sac of Fugu (the poisonous Japanese pufferfish).

Gulp! How was it? You are so much more adventurous than I want to be.

[Jenise]

Sperm sac of Fugu (the poisonous Japanese pufferfish).

Gulp! How was it? You are so much more adventurous than I want to be.

I was at the Beverly Hills restaurant of the most acclaimed Japanese chef in this country, Masa, where dinner was set at $400 per person, and he only took (he's now moved to New York) like nine diners period on any evening. You simply ate what he served you. Occasionally, he just served one thing to one person because, as I realized later, a fish would only have one of that. Like the sperm sac, which got served to me later in the evening and by which time Masa had gained my trust. It was a small gray ball maybe 3/4" in diameter, hollow but somehow inflated, floating in a small cup of broth. It did not look gross or anything like what it actually was, and it was very good. I'm sure glad I didn't know until afterward, though!

[Robin Garr]

I'm fairly adventurous and don't have too many taboos, but do find some foods troubling and avoid them if I can. I'm not eager to dine on bunny rabbit, for example - it seems way too close to cat - but I have indulged in some foodie circumstances including forum offlines in Europe.

Probably the strangest items in recent memory both came during wine travel, both in Portugal, now that I think about it: Barnacles, which are actually just tiny tubes from which you suck out a small bit of sweet shellfish and a few drops of salty liquid. Not much to be grossed out about, but you need to learn how to eat them so you don't get that salty squirt all over your clothes. The other dish was apparently kind of a rite of passage for tourists, blood sausage at a wine bar in Sintra. It was black and soft, with a flavor that distinctly reminded me of a black iron skillet. I went the macho route, smiled and said how good it was, which delighted my Portuguese friends. I couldn't buy myself a drink of wine for the rest of the afternoon.

Sweetbreads don't even strike me as challenging. A bunch of places around here, including an Argentine eatery and an upscale French spot, do great renditions that I'll order without a qualm any time.

Fresh, free range scorpion sans stinger. Not tasty., nor recommended. Sobriety does have some advantages.

At a Peruvian cafe on Market Street in San Francisco, guinea pig or hamster, mixed with beef or pork in the taco meat.

Probably the strangest items in recent memory both came during wine travel, both in Portugal, now that I think about it: Barnacles, which are actually just tiny tubes from which you suck out a small bit of sweet shellfish and a few drops of salty liquid. Not much to be grossed out about, but you need to learn how to eat them so you don't get that salty squirt all over your clothes. The other dish was apparently kind of a rite of passage for tourists, blood sausage at a wine bar in Sintra. It was black and soft, with a flavor that distinctly reminded me of a black iron skillet.

I thought those barnacles ("Percebes") were delicious and we ordered them several times in Barcelona. But expensive!

The blood sausage is in every tapas bar in Spain, very common, and I ate it without thinking about it. I believe that's something else I had at my grandmother's breakfast table.

I think I am done preparing rabbit for the reason you stated Robin, but I'll eat it if someone else prepares it.

Sobriety does have some advantages.

Bite your tongue!

Sperm sac of Fugu (the poisonous Japanese pufferfish).

Come again?

And I'm surprised that people have stated opposition to eating bunnies. Bunnies are tasty. Whether an animal is ugly or cute really doesn't factor into it for me, just whether or not they taste good.

I suppose if I raised something as a pet that might factor into how I saw them, but I really think not. I've seen documentaries on areas where people eat dogs. They still have a family dog and they have dogs they eat, and one is a pet, the other livestock, and they don't seem to have any problem with mixing them up.

Cats don't seem to be eaten as much - check Wiki and you'll find a couple of places in China, South America, and surprisingly (to me, anyway) Switzerland, so there isn't enough data to see if people that have cats as pets (although I often think that the cats are the masters and the people the slaves/pets) also eat cats.

I like rabbit but true love won't let a dead one in the house, for all the wrong reasons. May have had cat when in a summer session in France fifty years ago. We did have rabbit quite frequently, but sometimes we got very stingy ones. Some students said they saw cat carcasses in the kitchen, but a skinned rabbit looks a lot like a cat. Who knows, it is possible.