The Strangest Food I've Ever Eaten Was ...

[Tbonecan]

First off, muchos gracias to Gene, Bryan, and the HT posters here for setting up a great environment to interact, and
share the weird and wonderful this world has to offer.

My name is Tim, and I've lived in Seoul Korea, mainly for 9 years now. In my journeys through Korea, and other parts of Asia, I've seen and tried many far out funky foods:

1. Paul Fruit trees mentioned the bbq chicken feet, and they are a local bar food here. Chewy, and once you get through the
cartilege, there's really not much else there.

2. In Korea they have many portable beer tents throughout the cites, serving various alcoholic and 'gourmet' delights.
One such food is called 'Seng Nackchi' which translates as 'Live squid'. They pull it from a tank, dice it up infront of you,
and then serve it on a platter with hot sauce or wasabi and soya. You'd better blieve it's live as the tentacles still writhe
on the plate, and also manage to squirm inside your mouth, like a scene out of ALIEN. You have to chew thoroughly, as
several unfortunate Koreans have died due to asphixiation, as some of the tentacles have stuck to the inside of their
throats, thus killing them. I've tried the live squid once, and it's not something I'd apt to do again.

3. One night on a drunken rout, my Korean associates too me to a local diner that served a famous soup. Turned out the
soup was made using Pig's blood as a base, and bits of the brain mixed with vegetables. Me being soused, and prone
to adventure dug in, and managed to finish my bowl. I then began to fear, anticipating the oncoming hangover, and
stomach wrenching bout of indigestion. Amazing enough, the next day I woke smelling like a rose.

4. In Korea, there has always been a controversey regarding the consumption of Boshintang, or 'Dog Soup'. It's been a
tradition in Korea for hundreds of years, and while many Korean condone this practice, it popular among men, who
that eating a bowl of dog soup will do wonders for your 'Third leg'. According to some locals, 100 years ago, Korean
farmers were so poor, they could not eat chickens as they laid eggs. Cows provided the milk as well, so all that was left
in terms of meat was either Pork, or Dog. While the conditions of the time could explain such actions, today it's a
different story. The Korean government actually banned the sale of dog meat to sedate foreign protest during the 1988
Summer Olympics, but at the same time, the restraunts could be found everywhere, so it was just lip serivce.
Being a dog owner myself, I could never consume a dog, but also cannot criticize those who do. While I see the need
to consume dog soup in the present as being irrelevant in comparison to the past, some people do feel the need to
continue to follow these 'traditions'.

5. On a trip to Singapore last February, I was able to try my first taste of the famous 'Durian'. While it may look spiky, green
and luscious on the outside, when you crack the fruit open, you get a different feeling entirely. The smell of an open
Durian is akin to the ripe aroma of a freshly soiled baby diaper, or the juice that pools in the bottom of a garbage pail.
Once you get over the initial rancid bouquet, the fruit itself is creamy, mild, quite tasty.
After suffering a bit of a stomach ailment (Not from the Durian), I wandered into an old Chinese medicine shop in the
Arab district of Singapore. The druggist reccomended that I eat some dried sour plums, and gave me a packet of powder
to mix in a glass of water. Turned out that the powder was actually mixed from several naturl ingredients, one of which
was dried powdered Starfish. My stomach came back on the mend, and I was thankful for the old Chinese medicine shop.

Sorry for the long tirade here folks, this is my first posting, and I promise they'll be shortr from here on in!

Thanks - TBone

[Lobo]

Tbonecan,
Thank you so much for that awesome post... Welcome to the forum.

[jeofvita]

This show is friggin fantastic.

Check it out if you guys can. Zimmern has balls of steel.

http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Bizarre_Foods

On one show, he travelled to Iceland and had PUTRIFIED SHARK. Seriously, hunks of shark meat were just left to rot (after some secret Icelandic treatment of some kind) but he took a slice of the meat that smelled strongly of ammonia and ate it up.

Other items he's had: sliced camel paw, freshly caught puffin, and random penis meats oh and he's also had Balut (original post) and he thought it tasted like a boiled egg but with crunchy bits.

[Valerie]

I was going to go to a restaurant in London where they apparently served Scorpion Ice Cream amongst other crazy dishes, but unfortunately when I got there, it was closed for restoration. Bummer!

I can however affirm that Peanut Butter and Jalapeno Pepper Cheese Whiz does not taste very nice.

Bon appétit

[finklogangt]

Can't say that I've been all over the place trying strange exotic foods. However, there was once a time where we had gone shopping and purchased some raisin bran cereal (any ideas where this is going?) One night figured on having a snack while watching a late night movie, and deciding on having some of the cereal. I opened THE BRAND NEW BOX and Knocked back a bowl..yum..yum..

Woke up very early morning, again hungary and ready for some breakfast. I turned on the light above the stove because it was not all that bright and my eyes were still sensative to bright light. As I was pouring myself a bowl of cereal I noticed some flakes were kind of sticking together and there was a web-like substance on them. Yeah, pretty grossed out, but not thinking very clearly, I closed the box and put it off to the side to investigate later. We found out later there were some creepy crawly bugs infested in the cereal... *gag* Last time I had purchased food from a Win-Dixi...ugh

Yeah, got my protein that night!!

[treehugger]

I've never eaten it but I saw somebody buying chicken and pig feet at Hiller's.

[Czaple]

Let's see, I'm having to think back to my childhood... Staying up late during a sleepover watching movies on my parent's black box, sneaking up stairs in the middle of the night and making the most craziest concoctions imaginable.

Tortilla shell+American Cheese+Doritos+peanut butter+Parmesan cheese+honey - Microwave for 1 minute.

Bowl of Raman noodles(dry/uncooked)+french dressing+melted cheese on top (pepper jack is really good)+plus worcester sauce The worcester sauce when mixed with the cheese would cause it to curdle and soak in the flavor, which was really good

Popcorn with various spices sprinkled onto it, including Cajun seasoning, seasoning salt, barbecue marinade, worcester sauce, and barbecue sauce

Melted ice cream mixed with Nestle Quick (chocolate or strawberry, depending on the ice cream) used as a dipping sauce for pizza rolls (usually with cheese melted on them)

[FeeFee1270]

Hi, I'm a new poster. I would probably post more if I would stop looking for weird stories that I can contribute, lol.

My mother and I use to have a snack we'd eat during Saturday Night Live. That was soft-serve Dairy Queen Vanilla Ice cream and Doritos. My son thought it was gross too until he tasted it. My husband chooses to be the odd-ball and make gagging noises while we eat it, lol.
Fee-Fee