Let's be honest - we all love delicious food. But the very definition of "delicious," as it turns out, varies greatly among different cultures around the globe. Some may consider their national dishes the height of culinary perfection, while others may very well regard these same foods as true culinary crime.
Today, we present a collection of stories that once again prove how diverse and incredible our world actually is. A collection of tales in which people from all over the world share the national foods that even they themselves consider weird. So, bon appettit, and let's go reading!
More info: Reddit
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Casu Marzu.
It's cheese... with insect larva in it.
Cervelli Fritti. Fried brains.
Try Milbenkäse. The spider mites give it a nutty flavor. Delicious.
Load More Replies...The insect larvae are live and can sometimes survive stomach acids to wreak havoc on your intestines. Be careful especially if you're on antacids
A lot of food for sale at state fairs and ballparks should be considered international war crimes. I present the cotton candy hotdog.
Maniçoba, a dish local to the Amazon region. Basically a stew made with manioc leaves, but because the leaves a poisonous, you have to keep boiling it 24/7 for a week until the poison disintegrates .
wonder about how they found out 7 days was the magic number. "OK, we boiled that last batch for 5 days and poor old Sam did the taste test and didn't make it. Moment of silence for Sam please. Now this batch we've boiled for 6 days, - John, I believe you drew the short straw today?"
I had to google - it’s a rubber tree. So I’m guessing famine or drought was why the is even became a thing
It's most definitly not a rubber tree, your information is so wrong. Maniçoba comes from the leaves of the bitter cassava (maniva), a tuber, like a potato or sweet potato. Cassava is a very important food for all Brazilian tribes. The recipe is from our original people (indigenous). I don't know where you got your information, but I'm Brazilian and I decided to give you the correct information.
Load More Replies...What is this? Shut up, just poke your feet under the table and eat it.
Load More Replies...We have poke sallet in the US. Edible, but you have to boil it 3 times.
It all started, as often happens in such cases, in the AskReddit community, where the user u/imadgalaxyx once asked the netizens: "What's the most bizarre dish from your country?" The original poster is American, so they offered their own take on the dish for the US: the Rocky Mountain Oysters.
In fact, “these aren't oysters, but rather deep-fried bull testicles,” the thread starter noted, along with a photo of the dish itself, which actually looks quite appetizing. Well, it seems the author has opened a true Pandora's box, because the thread currently has over 2.4K upvotes and around 2.6K various comments featuring the most insane foods from all over the world, as well as the debate about these meals.
Fried courgette (zucchini) flowers. So good! 🇮🇹🇮🇹.
Yup the chefs make this all of the time on cooking shows
Load More Replies...Have actually eaten these, somewhere on a Greek Island, yes, quite nice. (Crete, I think).
I've not had them fried but I have eaten them in quesadillas in Mexico. Yum!
They are delicious, though I hate deep frying things myself. I was so proud when I had my first lot of zucchini in blossom so I could make them.
So … we have this rather famous ”rotten” fish in a tin thing.
There are a TON of youtube videos of idiots eating an entire fish straight from the tin. Don’t do that, that’s a self-setup for misery and regret.
Mett. Minced, almost paste-like raw pork with salt, black pepper, and slices of onions...
It sounds like a crime against anything culinary, but it tastes amazing when you smear it on bread (especially on bread rolls).
"Mettbrötchen" in Germany. They are delicious, but have to be very fresh, of course. Personally never heard of someone who got sick from them.
I think you can stock (freeze) it, but it has to be very very fresh - like same day fresh. But there are also non-perishable products in stores that you can use for a few days - you can find them in the refrigerated section instead of at the butcher section. And fresh onions are a MUST.
Load More Replies...The idea doesn't repulse me, but there are dangers associated with raw pork that would mean I wouldn't try it.
10000 Trichinosis cases worldwide annually, mostly from undercooked game like bears or boars. Crossing the street sounds more dangerous than eating raw pork.
The selection we've put together for you includes both tried-and-true "veterans" of similar lists, like surströmming, pemmican, and fried insects, and something completely unexpected, like deep-fried pizza from Scotland. Well, if you're Italian and consider pineapple on pizza absolutely barbaric, how about this?
In fact, globalization in recent decades has accomplished at least one great, unobvious thing. It has blended the cultural traditions of many countries, taken culinary recipes seemingly hopelessly lost in history, and brought them to the surface. Along the way, it has transformed them in ways that even the natives wouldn't recognize.
A sandwich with chocolate sprinkles. To others it’s a warcrime, to the Dutch it’s a delicacy. Runner up: raw herring with chopped raw onion.
Australians call it fairy bread! White buttered bread with sprinkles! I made it and it is yummy!
I guess it's because I'm Dutch, but I can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with this?
We have fairy bread in Australia, and I much prefer it with sprinkles (chocolate or otherwise) than 100s & 1000s.
In Belgium these chocolate sprinkles are called 'mouse droppings'. And everyone likes them, including myself.
I remember being introduced to these at breakfast on a school trip to Amsterdam. Not as nice as 10 year old me expected. What 10 year old me didn’t expect was the evening walk led by our headteacher that went through the red light district. My education was definitely broadened on that trip!
In Germany this is also done, but here "Esszett-Schnitten" are better known, which are simply very thin slices of chocolate for bread or rolls.
Or chocolate kisses (with marshmallow in them) in breadrolls. Fed generations of school kids in Germany.
Load More Replies...Alt combo: a slice with peanut butter topped of wit chocolade sprinkels. It's like angels peeing on your tongue
Oi, leave our fairy bread alone! Nothing wrong with that. It's the mainstay of little kids' birthday parties. We call the sprinkles "hundreds and thousands"
I've seen people say surströmming but that's actually not it. Our weirdest dish is called "Flygande jakob"
It's bacon, whipped cream, chili sauce, peanuts and chicken seasoned with italian seasoning. This is supposed to be served with rice
Personally I call this dish "white man went to Asia and tried to recreate their food". It's kind of like a weird chicken curry
Honorable mention to our Hawaii pizza with pineapples, bananas, curry and ham. Sometimes served with garlic sauce.
What is cool whip? If it , as I suspect, is canned whipped cream I can assure you that no sane person would use that for a sauce. The only canned whipped cream I know of has vanille and sugar in it.
Load More Replies...I would try it. Most of the Asian food I had when I was younger could pretty much be described the same way :)
Deep fried pizza. Surprisingly good and probably worth the 5 years of your life you take off.
Check out my "hack" I make my own dough, so. I use the thin corelle bowls that are oven safe. Oil it good and put your toppings on the bottom, then cheese, then sauce, then cover the bowl with a disk of crust, like a pie. A cook it at hot, until it's done lol. Use a thermometer I guess. Anyway, individual upside down pizzas, just pop them over on your plate. :) This is in response to 3 children who can't agree on toppings. Edit: If you like your cheese on top of everything, too bad. If you put the cheese in first it will stay there till you scrub it out.
Totally... Reminds me of the time my great aunt made pizza for us kids, but the power went out before she managed to get it in the oven. So, naturally, she cut the pizza up, folded the pieces (into a calzone so to say) and fried them in a pan (gas stove). It was awesome
If anyone ever made a gluten free version, I'd try it, but probably only once. I liked the deep fried mars bar I had once, though I couldn't eat it all in one sitting.
On the other hand, our selection largely consists of dishes from nations for whom it was originally more of a kind of survival food. For example, surströmming or pemmican were once a way for people of the Far North to preserve food for the future. After all, catching, say, a walrus was a rare luck for them, so preserving meat in such an exotic way became a matter of survival for the entire tribe.
Over time, the digestive system and the entire body of people in these tribes and nations adapted to the regular consumption of toxins, making them less poisonous. At the same time, many Arctic explorers wrote in their memoirs about how even a small morsel of these northern "delicacies" could prove tragically for reckless Europeans or Americans.
And today, what was once a matter of human survival has become, in many ways, simply a bizarre gastronomic whim. We marvel at strange recipes, sometimes forgetting that these "weird foods" actually saved thousands of lives during cold, snowy winters...
From my region there is a rare dish which is literally called the pig snout mushrooms, it's served as a salad, very refreshing and delicious, but after a white your lips will swollen up since the mushroom is slightly toxic, that's where the mushroom get its name, your swollen mouth reminds people of the pig's snout
Edit: couldn't find a picture of it :((.
Kina. Sea urchin eaten raw. Oh, and Huhu grubs, also eaten raw and alive. They say they taste a bit like peanut butter.
When he visited my uncle used to go down to the (Hutt) river to harvest huhu grubs from rotting timber. Definitely not for me. As for kina, no way. It's the texture.
Live octopus probably.
It's pretty mainstream for a dish of its level of weirdness.
Yeah this was in many of the big markets I went to in Korea. Not cool.
I watched a tv show where a woman in Korea was eating live Octopus and one of the legs got stuck in her throat. She couldn't remove it because the legs have suckers on them and attach themselves to objects. She died in the Restaurant!
I ate tiny live shrimp in N.E. Thailand. Its called koong dten (dancing shrimp)
In general, the very concept of "strange food," according to many researchers, emerged only in the 19th century, when cultures across the globe began to actively interpenetrate. And, of course, the role of literature in this process should not be underestimated.
While previously, a traveler visiting, say, France, wouldn't have been particularly surprised to find snails or frogs' legs being eaten there, the widespread availability of cookbooks and travelogues in the 19th century popularized an ironic appreciation of what the authors considered "strange."
For example, one only needs to read Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress" to begin to realize why we perceive other people's oddities with such irony. After all, the great American writer was simply describing a journey through Europe, while far greater cultural and culinary discoveries and surprises would've awaited him in Asia or Africa!
I have to go with snails. Still the sauce is incredibly good.
Nothing crazy about eating snails. Not really any different than eating mussels, oysters, clams, etc.
Unless the snail was a Michelin Man in a former life. No amount of garlic butter can mask the texture.
Load More Replies...One could just eat the sauce without the pieces of rubber.
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Aspic /meat jelly/ I hate it but my grandma swears it’s delicious
Historically, all gelatin was from animals, and was savory. It wasnt until the protein flavor could be reduced and fruit gelatin was developed that sweet jello came out. So, its a matter of the mind, not the actual flavor.
You can bury my comments, but the truth has a way of digging itself back up. And it remembers who held the shovel.
Or you can strip my premium from me. Whatever dudes. dgaf. Now stop my invisible no space hyphen that remains invisible unless it is needed to break the word at the end of a line. Very useful. Superscript. alt+0173 in the middle of a word and the filter sees it but you can't and it's ignored. Then, like me, you can write a simple script, add whatever words you want it to apply to, then type naturally and it inserts when needed. or you can just type the command in every word you wish to obscure. Like fuck, shit, cum guzzling gutter whore. all that. Edit: If you're gonna try to beat me, you have to buy me dinner first.
Load More Replies...I love 'meat jelly' - the collagen from a good stew. Aspic is a mimic, but not half as good.
Stargazy pie. Basically, a fish pie with the heads looking up
If you think that's bad, wait until you see the vole-au-vent with their tiny singed whiskers smoldering in the air.
This is not something that is commonly eaten throughout the UK. It's only really a thing in parts of Cornwall. I've never eaten it, and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people in the UK have never eaten it either.
Nope never eaten it. Never even seen it on a menu but I have heard of it.
Load More Replies...Be that as it may, every nation has its own dish that sooner or later even its natives ask, "What is that, and why should we eat it?" So, if you, too, have a similar dish in your memory and are willing to share your own story of facing it or even eating it, please welcome to the comments!
Well, and if you just came here to enjoy reading or find a unique recipe for the evening, then we sincerely hope you'll achieve your goal too. After all, if you, our dear readers, skim through this list with attention and pleasure, what more could we wish for?
Indigenous people in the north eat raw seal heart. I remember seeing a video of Canada’s Governor General eating it when she travelled there. That’s pretty hardcore.
Kissel. Fruit juice (or puree) thickened with cornstarch or potato starch. It be thickened either to a fully jello-like consistency, or can be still drinkable; the drinkable one is probably more common in Ukraine. Another variation, less common in Ukraine, and usually found in Poland and... Finland, is made with milk and starch, with added sugar and vanilla, sometimes cocoa powder.
They had Poland wrong. Milk one is budyń and fruit one is kisiel. Totally different things. Kisiel made of milk doesn't exist in Poland. And honestly nothing repulsive in any of them. I saw plenty of foreigners eating them without any issue.
we in Estonia call the milk one milk kissell
Load More Replies...You can get it in the same containers as milk in Finland. The blueberry version (mustikkakiisseli) is the most common and people like to use it with porridge and as a stomach flu cure
In Poland we have kisiel, which is fruit juice/puree thickened with potato starch, served usually hot. And budyń, which is milk with spices, like vaniila, thickened with potato starch, sweetened, sometimes served with some friut sauce/sirup.
The Finnish version sounds like a runny(?) pudding made from scratch. I think I might eat it, but for some reason drinking it sounds unappetising - but then I'm not a fan of smoothies either. I prefer my drinks on the liquid side.
Tripe soup, made from cow belly, sounds bad but it's delicious. You need to try it thrice to like it, best things in life don't come easy. Idk how to put my flag at username.
The smell of it cooking is awful. Used to be a diet food for people with stomach ulcers before they discovered helicobacter pylorii and appropriate antibiotics.
I absolutely HATE tripe, the smell, the taste and the texture. As a kid i could sit with my plate of tripe until bedtime and i still refused to eat it, would rather have no food at all and go to bed on a empty stomach.
If you want to try a decent tripe soup, go to a Mexican restaurant on a Sunday morning and order menudo. I like it, but if you absolutely can't tolerate the smell or flavor of tripe don't bother. (It's a Sunday morning dish because it's supposed to cure hangovers.)
I've never tried tripe (would be willing to once, if I knew someone who knew how to cook it well) but my mum had it a lot growing up. Apparently my uncle hated it (and still does!) and would have to sit at the table for ages because he wasn't allowed to leave until he ate it. He said the white sauce that it was in made it worse, so maybe in soup it would be better.
Witchetty Grubs have been a staple for Aboriginal Australians for a long time. They can be fried or eaten raw.
I've always wondered why I keep "sea insects" like shrimp, prawns or lobster a delicacy but would still struggle with grubs and stuff.
Water creatures are large, and the meat is cooked and removed from the shells. Insects are small and you are supposed to eat the shell. I hate eating shells and exoskeletons... thats the mental block most people have.
Load More Replies...I have always wanted to try them, at least once. When I went to central Australia with school, we didn't get the chance, which was disappointing. I would also like to try honey ants. Many Aboriginal traditional foods are delicious and pretty good for you. I used to eat kangaroo steak a lot, until the weekly bbqs my mum and stepdad insisted on led to me turning off all bbq meat (prawns, eggplant & zucchini are my go-to now). It's a more earthy flavour than beef and is higher in iron. Also, wattleseed (has to be from a specific wattle) damper with honey is amazing.
Chicken breast with cheese and pickled peach.
So similar to apricot chicken? I wouldn't eat it, but only because stone fruits don't agree with me.
I mean, preserved peaches and a soft or cottage cheese is a nice dessert...I can imagine cooking chicken with it wouldn't be bad.
Deep fried ants...
I've eaten a few types of insect before, including live termites. All unobjectionable. This isn't so bad
Never heard of them being deep fried, but I would prefer that than live ones.
Kalleh pacheh, basically a boiled sheep.
Kool Aid Pickles are pretty weird.
I like sweet & spicy pickles best, but this seems like it would be all sweet and not appetising. Does it get a jelly consistency?
Deep fried butter.
Sounds awful. I have deep fried Twinkies before and they were awesome. Hear me out. Freeze them, then roll them in cornstarch, then dip it in a pancake like batter but a little sweeter. When you fry it like that, the grease/cream on the inside melts into the cake. Sprinkle some powdered sugar on and drizzle a little chocolate syrup. Tastes just like an eclair. Changes the whole molecular structure of the Twinkie lol.
You can do the exact same thing with Oreos and Snickers as well. They're money.
Load More Replies...I am so curious what it's like, I can't really imagine what it would be like.
Not the most bizzare out of them all (other poles would say czernina which is a blood soup, however no one actually eats that), but when you think about it it's weird and you won't find it anywhere else. pickle soup.
I've actually tried this! At a Polish restaurant in Chicago. I loved it. My partner wants to learn how to make it, he brought me to that restaurant specifically to try the pickle soup, and cabbage rolls. His maternal grandmother left Poland after being imprisoned in a work camp in WW2 and settled in Chicago. When his family all met up in Chicago each year they all went to this restaurant
Polish pickle soup? What do you mean, cucumber soup? Well, those cucumber technically aren't pickles (we do have vinegary cucumber pickles, but eat them raw), but they are fermented with salt & garlic, it's lactic acid fermentation.
Souse gets my vote.
Google reveals: " a popular Caribbean dish of pickled meat (often pig's feet, head, or cow's foot) served cold in a seasoned broth with lime, peppers, and cucumbers, sometimes resembling a soup or ceviche, enjoyed with breadfruit or Johnny cakes". So now I have to look up ceviche and Johnny cakes.
As a deli worker, I concur. Although it is consistently one of my best sellers, I can not bring myself to try it. Customers tell me I am missing out. They say it tastes similar to cold breakfast sausage. 🤷♀️
Wild rat soup
Fresnillo Zac. Mexico
in Belgium some restaurants used to serve muskrat (not anymore to my knowledge). I ate some back in the day and the meat is best compared to that of rabbit (hence the nickname "water rabbit" or "waterkonijn" in flemish)
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Jellied eels.
UK. These were an East London thing. They became popular during the Victorian times when food was scarce but the River Thames was right there with an abundance of eels. They're an expensive delicacy only really eaten by poshos and tourists these days.
I wouldn't eat anything caught in the Thames in London. Just think how much sewage gets discharged into that river on its way from the Cotswolds.
Load More Replies...I love fatty / rubbery food like squid/octopus/tripe. Was expecting the same when i tried these, but nope. like eating hard jelly sea water, and never knew eels were so bony
Nope. Problem is the bones. Pure eel 'meat' would be OK, but no no with the bones. Meat with bones ok, but you can't do a good chomp without hitting a bone.
I don't mind the eels, it's the thought of the cold jelly that puts me off.
Sourtoe Cocktail
I read about this when preparing to travel to Canada, and if I had been offered it, I would not have drunk it, though I wouldn't put it past my sister!
Americans think our ketchup chips are pretty weird.
I'm guessing from the two languages that this is in Canada, but they've been around in the UK (where they're branded as Walkers, but it's the same company) for 30+ years. Really good.
My sisters fave in aus ‘atomic tomato’ is what samboy chips calls them
Load More Replies...Ketchup Chips have been in the US since the 80s, and I see it all the time here, grew up with them. Only in the US South is it considered a weird flavor, but the North East, Midwest, West, and Pacific North West, its a common enough flavor
I don't think I've seen them...? But I would eat them.
Load More Replies...I think I tried these when I was in Canada (if they were gluten free). Not that different to burger rings in Australia, except not with the onion powder, iirc.
Pearl barley mixed with pig blood and stuffed in pig's intestines, also known as kraujiniai vėdarai.
Verivorst (blood sausage)! Traditional Yule fare here! And yummy!
"stuffed in pigs' intestines" is a bit of a yuck bait. Every traditional sausage is stuffed into intestines.
Add a bit of marjoram, and you get the traditional Hungarian véres hurka. Unstead of barley, you can add rice too, both are common. Change blood to liver, and you get májas hurka. Our ancestors did not waste anything that is edible, and I like the results.
Mämmi. Looks like chocolate or poo, not sweet, served with cream and sugar. People eat it only during Easter.
Thanks for the info. I hope I'll get to try it sometime, it sounds very interesting!
Load More Replies...German Wikipedia tells an interesting WW2 anecdote on this one. Apparently US president Truman sent a delegation to see how the Finnish were doing in the aftermath of the war. Taking their survey around Easter time they were horrified to see the Finnish eating what they took for excrements, triggering a pretty much immediate response in humanitarian aid.
In a similar vein Germany allegedly experienced a bewildering influx of corn for sowing after an inquiry on what people needed most after WW2. They said they needed "Korn", which means "grain" in German. Expecting wheat and rye for flour to make bread the farmers were reportedly somewhat lost on what to do with all the corn they received. AFAIK they of course did sow, reap and eat it (people were hungry, and anything is better than nothing), but it never was and never became a standard stable.
Load More Replies...I usually like Finnish food but not mämmi, no dear neighbors, you can keep that one
* Cheese with mould in.
* Inside out sheep (haggis)
* StarryGazy pie
* Blood pudding (Black, White, Mealy).
"Cheese with mould in" includes Gorgonzola and Roquefort. The aroma is an aquired taste, but not that uncommon.
Majority of fair food
Rocky Mountain oyster are definitely up there in weird I agree with your choice.
sweet breads are the thymus, rocky mountain oysters are the testicles
Load More Replies... Pemmican
Though it's technically a survival food and ingredient
basically fat and dried meat.
Kind of like beef jerky energy bar. Dried meat and berries, held together with fat.
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Black pudding is the one that springs to my mind. It is delicious but just don’t think about what it is in it.
We have similar dishes in Germany. "Blutwurst" both for sandwiches (cold cut) and pan fried, served with mashed potatoes and apple sauce, is one. Where I live it's "Punkebrot" or "Wurstebrot", pan fried in slices from a "loaf" and served with potatoes and apple sauce.
errr... pigsblood, bread, spices and and possibly some added bacon fat. Then cooked and chilled before you bake it. What is wrong with this? LOVELY with lumpy apple sauce !
I'm quite happy thinking about what's in it. I'm not sure why people get so funny about it.
Dublin coddle Delicious.
Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not :) The only way I will eat sausages is boiled, as curried sausages.
Load More Replies...It would have been nice if more of these included the region. I'd like to know where to avoid traveling. :)
Not that I have tried them, so not the most informed opinion, but I wouldn't eat Vegemite Tim Tams, even if they brought out a gluten free version!
I've never tried Vegemite, but if it's anything like Marmite I'd rather eat (or at least try) almost anything on this list before that. Cultural differences, I guess.
Load More Replies...It would have been nice if more of these included the region. I'd like to know where to avoid traveling. :)
Not that I have tried them, so not the most informed opinion, but I wouldn't eat Vegemite Tim Tams, even if they brought out a gluten free version!
I've never tried Vegemite, but if it's anything like Marmite I'd rather eat (or at least try) almost anything on this list before that. Cultural differences, I guess.
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