Crazy Things You Wouldn't Believe Were Eaten as Foods
#15 Hákarl
This delicacy is form Greenland. It's no vegetarian dish since it's fermented basking shark. The shark carcass is traditionally buried in a shallowly dug hole and left for 2-4months for compression. The basking shark then is dug up and hung for 5 months to cure. During this time it acquires an ammonia flavor along with its already fishy taste.
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15:
Hákarl
This delicacy is form Greenland. It's no vegetarian dish since it's fermented basking shark. The shark carcass is traditionally buried in a shallowly dug hole and left for 2-4months for compression. The basking shark then is dug up and hung for 5 months to cure. During this time it acquires an ammonia flavor along with its already fishy taste.
14:
Balut
What is this you ask?...Fermented duck egg. The Filipinos take a fermented duck egg and boil it at the right moment: fetus stage. The bones are just soft enough to crunch and there is even development of feathers, a beak, and other extremities.
13:
Pancha
In Arab countries this delicacy is made with the entirety of the sheep head, stomach, and hooves. The stomach is cut open and filled with rice and stitched.
12:
Lutefisk
This is a Nordic dish. What is it you might ask before consuming...aged stockfish prepared with lye. The preparation is a 5 day process to soak the fish in lye, a corrosive alkaline with a pH of 11. Another 6 days of soaking in clean water and the gelatinous flesh of the fish peel off its corroded bones.
11:
Baby Mice Wine
No, I didn't spell rice wrong. There are baby mice in this cruel concoction. This health drink comes from the Chinese. The beverage is prepared by catching baby mice and drowning them in rice wine. This disaster is left for a year of fermenting. This is a health drink considered to be a remedy for many ailments. Healthy or not, there's no doubt that it's gross.
10:
Casu Marzu
This is rotten sheep milk cheese found only in Sardinia, Italy. This is cheese infested with the baby children of the cheese fly. The fermented cheese becomes soft and even oozes liquid. The living larvae writhe and jump trying to escape. The cheese is eaten WITH or without the larvae removed. The larvae may even survive the human digestion process or may take host. The food is so unhygenic that the EU has banned it for sale and consumption. But the the tradition lives on and is exempt from normal hygienic regulations.
9:
Escamoles
This Mexican treat is served with tacos. Who hasn't had a good taco? Well not after you know what escamoles are. These are the ant larvae of the giant black Liometopum ant. These ant eggs are textured similarly to cottage cheese. To prevent the waste of these insect caviar, they are mixed with guacamole.
8:
Rocky Mountain oysters (cattle testicle)
Bull, sheep, and or pig! These deep-fried genitals are served as appetizers with "cock"-tail sauce. This is eaten surprisingly in America as a novelty in ranching areas. But in Spain they're called "bull eggs". They're deceptively named "cowboy caviar", "dusted nuts", "bull fries", "Montana tendergroins" or "swinging beef". While castration is mainly a veterinarian and animal husbandry practice, why let the good part go to waste?
7:
Pizzle
What possibly could pizzle be? Well after having eaten a part of the genitals, there's still the other part. This is the penis. The penis is dried up like jerky and eaten like jerky as dog treats and are even fit for human consumption. Pizzle can be served in soup or eaten with beer or alcohol. Best of all it is considered to be an aphrodisiac.
6:
Bat Soup
It's gross enough Ozzy bit off the head of a live bat but this? What better way to serve bats than with the food that these bats eat. This soup cooked with bats, dates, ginseng, ginger, and any other herbs that you can muster to cover the flavor of the stingy bat meat. This is eaten in Southern Asia
5:
Boodog
This is goat that has been cooked in it's skin to preserve the flavor. The head is decapitated and stones are inserted into the goat's abdominal structure. These heated stones are sealed in and flames on the outside are used to burn off the fur.
4:
Duck's Tongue
Ducks fine, but the tongue is a Chinese meat snack. These can be served in dim sum restaurants and they are marinated with vinegar and soy sauce.
3:
Pig blood jelly
This is exactly what it sounds like. Pig's blood in a gelatinous form. This is an Asian food served with soup, noodles, tofu, and rice porridge. The texture is similar to tofu but
2:
Haggis
Sheep's heart, liver and lungs mashed and placed into a sausage casing. This food is of Scottish origin. Served with Scotch whiskey.
1:
Cuy
Peruvian, Colombian, and Ecuadorian Andean people all feast on this meat of the guinea pig. For their festivals they dress up these guinea pigs for a parade, cook and eat them on a stick
