Travelling around the world you're likely to encounter many strange foods and dishes along the way. Some will may make your mouth water, others you may taste-test with caution and hesitancy, while several of the food types may make your stomach turn. Below is a brief but varied list of some unique dishes that range from well known and popular to obscure and controversial.
Baby Mice Wine
Made by preserving still-suckling baby mice in rice wine, this product is available in China and Korea where it's considered a health-tonic with the ability to rejuvenate bodily organs and even cure illnesses such as asthma and liver disease.
Balut
Balut is the Filipino term for fertilized duck eggs (sometimes chicken eggs) that contain a nearly developed embryo (see Image 2). Balut eggs range from 14-21 days old and usually come from Mallard ducks though it's been suggested that Muscovy ducks produce the best balut eggs.
It's often eaten as a snack with a pinch of salt, lemon juice and sometimes ground pepper. Many people in the Phillipines consider it a super-food as it is believed to be an aphrodisiac and an energizer that contains a number of vitamins and nutrients include retinol, B-carotene, riboflavin, niacin and ascorbic acid.
Balut is most popular in the Phillipines but it's also eaten throughout Southeast Asia and parts of China. It's prepared much like hard boiled eggs and eaten by making a hole in one end of the eggshell and sucking the liquid out of the egg. The shell can then be broken away to reveal the yolk, egg white and embryo which can all be consumed.
Balut is said to carry an egg flavor with a concentrated duck or duck-liver taste.
Cannabis Soda
Though a few cannabis drinks exist (such as the illegal 'Green Dragon'), the most recent and well known commercial cannabis beverage is Canna-Cola, a medical marijuana soda created by commercial artist Clay Butler. The drink contains up to 65 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana and comes in 5 flavors including sour lemon-lime, grape and orange.
Casu Marzu
Preparing this Sardinian delicacy involves leaving pecorino cheese to ferment in the sun which attract Piophila casei cheese flies which then infest the pecorino with maggots. Some producers will drill holes into the cheese and deposit oil into the centres to attract the cheese fly, which then lay hundreds or thousands of eggs within the cheese.
When the maggot larvae hatch they digest the ageing pecorino and release an enzyme which results in a fermentation process in the cheese that causes the cheese's fat to putrefy. The end product is a soft gooey substance filled with maggots (see Image 1).
If the maggots die in the cheese before consumption, cazu marzu is considered toxic. Some people remove the live maggots before eating the cheese, while others eat the percorino with the maggots. Its taste is said to be similar to Gorgonzola. While consuming cazu marzu consumers have to beware of the maggots who are able to launch themselves 6 inches in the air.
Cazu Marzu is considered by some Sardinians as an aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic. It's been banned in Sardinia due to health concerns including allergic reactions, burning of oesophagus and stomach and intestinal larvae infection (enteric myaisis). It can still be bought on the black market for two to three times the price of normal pecorino cheese.
Chicha de Jora
A native beverage from regions of Latin America, chicha is often made with maize (though there are variants using different ingredients including yuca, peanuts, grapes, chonta palm, pineapple, cloves and pink peppercorns). Traditionally maize chicha (or chicha de jora) is fermented by women chewing and spitting out the ingredients as the natural ptyalin enzymes in human saliva convert the starches in the maize into maltose, a type of sugar. Alternatively the maize may be germinated through the malting process instead of the mastication method (chewing and spitting).
Fresh chicha contains around 1-3 percent alcohol and is said to taste mild and yogurt-like while one taster describes maize chicha as tasting similar to apple cider, with a sour after-taste. As time passes the beverage becomes more alcoholic, as bacteria in the human saliva turns the carbohydrates into simple sugars.
Durian
An exotic fruit found in Indonesia (see Image 4), which is believed to have a unique and complex flavor comparable to almonds and vanilla with a creamy texture, like custard. However the down side to eating durian is its pungent scent that is said to be similar to sweaty socks due to its sulphur compounds. Because of its potent and unpleasant aroma, it is apparently illegal in some Southeast Asian countries to bring Durian on to public transport or into hotel rooms.
Frrrozen Haute Chocolate:
Created from blending 28 cocoas from across the world with 23-karat gold, the strangeness of this hot chocolate dessert comes largely from its incredible price of $25,000, making it the most expensive desert in the world. Frrrozen Haute Chocolate is sold at Serendipty 3 in New York City and is served with whipped cream and shavings from La Madeline au Truffles (which sell for $2,600 a pound) in a crystal goblet laced with edible 23-karat gold. The desert also comes with a souvenir jewel encrusted gold spoon and a souvenir 18-karat gold bracelet with white diamonds.
Hufu
In 2005 business student Mark Nuckols created the website eathufu.com (defunct as of 2006) which advertised a revolutionary new food product – human-flavoured tofu. Nuckols claimed that while hufu didn't include animal or human ingredients the product would “simulate the texture and flavor of human flesh” and “would satisfy the tastes of even the most demanding cannibal”.
The site also offered amazing recipes including Serano Nanito which were dumplings filled with sago, yams and artificial human flesh; and Aztec Human Stew, which was inspired by Aztec festivals which involved eating slaves and captives in stew flavored with peppers, tomatoes, and squash blossoms.
Nuckols first considered the hufu concept when he read Marvin Harris' book Good To Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture while eating a tofurkey sandwich. Hufu was originally created for “students of anthropology hungry for the experience of cannibalism but deterred by the legal and logistical obstacles”. Nuckols later realized that a greater market existed for his product, including vegans, vegetarians and of course cannibals who wanted to quit eating human flesh and instead enjoy a legal and healthy substitute.
Nuckols admitted that he had never tasted human flesh but had done “quite a bit of research into the history and anthropology and read enough accounts to have come up with a fairly good approximation”. Contrary to popular beliefs and many jokes that human flesh tastes like chicken or pork, Nuckols claimed that human meat and hufu in fact have “the taste and texture of beef, except a little sweeter in taste and a little softer in texture”.
Kopi Luwak
First discovered in Indonesia during the 1700s this beverage is also known as 'Cervit Coffee' because before the coffee beans are ground they are first eaten and semi-digested by a palm cervit (see Image 5). Harvesters then pick the coffee beans out of the animal's fesces (see Image 6). Some describe this original coffee as having a “syrupy caramel taste, a heavy body and incomparable richness”. It's also the world's most expensive coffee, selling in parts of Indonesia for around $100 to $600 per pound.
Milt
Also known as soft roe (hard roe being fish eggs used in a number if food types including caviar), milt is essentially sacks of fish sperm that are eaten in many countries and can be cooked, fried, pickled, poached, smoked whole and chopped into little pieces to be served on toast, canapes, salads and in soups.
Morarji Cola
Named after Morarji Desai, the former Indian Prime Minister, who was a big supporter of urine therapy (also known as Shivambu) – the idea that urine, rather than being a harmful waste product, is instead beneficial to the body. Desai,who lived up to 99 years old, announced to the international media that he drank a glass of his own urine daily, and the practice has many proponents including doctor and author John W. Armstrong who claimed to use urine in curing 40,000 people from ailments ranging from cancer to tuberculosis. Adherents drink only their midstream urine, sipping it like tea 1-4 times a day, often upon awakening and after meals.
Pidan
This five century old Chinese dish is also known as the hundred-year egg or thousand-year egg, and involves soaking duck or chicken eggs in a heavy salt solution with lime, lye and tea leaves for around three months. The egg is then coated in a paste of clay, lime, ashes and salt and buried underground for another two to three months. The color of the preserved egg changes significantly over time, with the egg shell turning black, the egg white resembling a semi-transparent brown jelly and the yolk's color turning jade green (see Image 6).
Westerners description of pidan differ with some describing it as “earthy”, “salty”, “strongly alkaline with accents of sulfur and ammonia”, “delicious, reminiscent of overripe Camembert” and even a “cross between an overripe avocado and old fish”.
Placenta
Japanese company, Nihon Sofuken, are currently selling Qbyte Placenta, a jelly type drink that contains 10,000 milligrams of pig placenta. They also offer a number of other drinks, some of which have apple, peach and kiwi flavouring, and one of which appears to have up to 500,000 milligrams of placenta. According to the company's website, the beverages contain amino acids, peptides, vitamins, minerals, saccharide and enzymes which help undergo metabolic change and self healing.
In San Francisco, USA some people have taken it to the next level, eating human placentas as well as using it in medication. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2011 that chef Daniel Patterson cooked his wife's afterbirth into a bolognese sauce with pork and poached eggs. The San Francisco Food Adventure Club have also cooked Placenta Rumaki with the full recipe on their website.
One woman who boiled her own afterbirth with jalapeño and lemon, described its texture as “spongy” and the taste similar to “chicken or seitan”. Many of those in favor of consuming placenta believe that it is a miracle food, chock full of protein, vitamins and minerals.
Sannakji
Animated, writhing octopus tentacles served with dipping sauce in Seoul, Korea (see Image 8). A chef prepares this dish by taking a live baby octopus, cleaving off its tentacles and slicing them into small pieces. The octopus pieces are still moving when they're served to customers and eaten. The disembodied tentacles writhe around aggressively and there have allegedly been incidents where consumers have choked on this dish due the tentacles' suction cups sticking to the person's mouth and throat.
Turducken
Originating from Louisiana, USA, this dish involves stuffing a de-boned chicken into a de-boned duck which is then stuffed into a partially de-boned turkey (see Image 9). Two men are credited for the creation of this dish – an unknown farmer and Paul Prudhomme, a famed cajun chef. Turducken can take up to nine hours to bake in the oven and is eaten by some Americans on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Sources:
- Antol, M.N Confessions of a Coffee Bean: The Complete Guide to Coffee Cuisine. USA; Square One Publishers. 2002.
- Boese, A. Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other BS. USA; Harcourt Inc. 2006.
- Deutch J & Natalya Murakhaver., They Eat That? A Cultural Encyclopedia of Weird and Exotic Food From Around the World. USA 2012.
- Lin, Eddie. Extreme Cuisine: Exotic Taste from Around the World. Lonely Planet 2009.
- Hopkins, J., Extreme Cuisine: The Weird & Wonderful Foods People Eat. Singapore; Periplus Editions 2004.
Paul Campobasso - I live in Melbourne, Australia and recently graduated from university completing a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Politics and a ...
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