Favorite and weirdest dishes tasted.

[Owenmoz]

Ok because in my neighbourhood there is a sizeable ammount of ethiopians i ended up getting dragged to their cusine. Which usually involves a lot of lemon and a lot of spices. So as i wolf down a plain piece of injera. It got me thinking. Which are the weirdest* dishes you folks have eaten along with your favorite ones. I'll post mine bellow soon.

*by weird i do not mean to demean any culture or their food, i simply am trying to get a better knowledge of unusual dishes and a light hearted laugh here and there.

[Brainless Void]

My favorite dish is called Sisig from where Im from. Its a pork dish using parts from the cheeks and ears, some fat and liver. Sometimes brains are put in it. Lots of onions. Some hot chillies. Everything diced and cooked on a sizzling plate. Perfect with a bottle of cold beer.

 

I forgot to mention that all pig parts are cooked over fire first.

[Lilith]

it's kind of hard for me to judge what other people on this forum would find weird about my diet. i'm pretty big on organ meats, which i know from experience that a lot of people are weirded out by, but my mother's side of the family is Ukrainian and she grew up poor so liver and kidneys were always a normal part of her diet, and of mine when i was growing up in turn. usually pan-fried with onions. when she was younger she'd also eat other things like chicken feet which i didn't really get much exposure to

 

anything involving raw meat can be pretty confronting too, the first time you encounter it. since you mentioned Ethiopian food, i've had and enjoyed kitfo, which is basically spiced minced raw beef. but on the other hand, most salami is basically uncooked meat that's been fermented, and people in Europe or the Anglosphere nowadays would think of that as a normal food, so it's not just about the content of the food but the familiarity. my mother grew up in a time and place where most people thought of even spaghetti as an exotic foreign food; growing up, she quickly learned to keep her mouth shut about her own diet around other kids at school. heck, as someone who grew up in Australia Vegemite is a completely normal condiment to me but i've encountered lots of foreigners who are baffled by it. so it really does come down to what you've had experience with, i guess.

 

okay that was all sort of rambly and nonresponsive. what else have i had that people might find weird. i guess i tried stewed pig's feet at a Malaysian restaurant once? they were okay. i've eaten stir-fried crocodile, that was pretty good, but i feel odd about calling it a weird food because, like, protein is protein, you could make the same dish with calamari instead and the taste and texture would only be a little bit different

[Owenmoz]

My favorite dish is called Sisig from where Im from. Its a pork dish using parts from the cheeks and ears, some fat and liver. Sometimes brains are put in it. Lots of onions. Some hot chillies. Everything diced and cooked on a sizzling plate. Perfect with a bottle of cold beer.

 

I forgot to mention that all pig parts are cooked over fire first.

Thats a lot of pig man! And pig brains beats anything i've eaten. Is it tasty?

 

[Owenmoz]

it's kind of hard for me to judge what other people on this forum would find weird about my diet. my mother's side of the family is Ukrainian and she grew up poor so liver and kidneys were always a normal part of her diet, and of mine when i was growing up in turn.

anything involving raw meat can be pretty confronting too, the first time you encounter it. since you mentioned Ethiopian food, i've had and enjoyed kitfo, which is basically spiced minced raw beef. but on the other hand, most salami is basically uncooked meat that's been fermented, and people in Europe or the Anglosphere nowadays would think of that as a normal food, so it's not just about the content of the food but the familiarity. my mother grew up in a time and place where most people thought of even spaghetti as an exotic foreign food; growing up, she quickly learned to keep her mouth shut about her own diet around other kids at school. heck, as someone who grew up in Australia Vegemite is a completely normal condiment to me but i've encountered lots of foreigners who are baffled by it. so it really does come down to what you've had experience with, i guess.

 

okay that was all sort of rambly and nonresponsive. what else have i had that people might find weird. i guess i tried stewed pig's feet at a Malaysian restaurant once? they were okay. i've eaten stir-fried crocodile, that was pretty good, but i feel odd about calling it a weird food because, like, protein is protein, you could make the same dish with calamari instead and the taste and texture would only be a little bit different

 

My familly from Grand dad's side is ukranian he used to make a mean salo. My mother is russian and i tend to generalise eastern european food as "potato, beetroot, cabbage, cucumbers, dill and acid healthy stuff" its daunting really xD just kidding. I will eat anything. Never eaten kidneys tbh, but i do love livers. Add some cream onions and garlic you get actually something nice.

 

Ah raw meat, i think only if you count sushi and kitfo( last orthodox christmass a familly had me over) i've tried. But raw raw nope. And I will murder people if they serve me raw pork(just raw pork though) Also salami is smoked which sorta "cooks" it. And jesus i have a vegimite flask thingy dating 2008 back home. My dad likes it though.

 

Ok pig's feet i've seen somewhere. Never eaten. Stirfried crocodile i could eat it at a restaurant nearby but im always broke xD but simce you say its good I'll put it on my list. Honestly know some folks that have eaten girafes and hipopotamus(apparently very good) too. I think on the same restaurant. Its called carnivore.

Yeah when it goes down to it food is food and when you're hungry it holds even more true

 

 

 

[Zaego]

I must confess, I've always been kind of picky over what I put to my mouth but aside from the unimaginable potatoes and "the usual" European food, I guess the weirdest I've eaten and which also happens to be my favorite (national) food would be mämmi with vanilla sauce. If mämmi isn't a familiar one as a food, look it up, and draw your conclusions on why it is considered weird by foreigners. But believe it or not, it's really tasty. Especially with the sauce. Actually, that's the only way it can be eaten. It's way too sticky and stretchy on its' own.

 

Then again, I've got used to mämmi and from what I read from above, eating pig ears and brains sounds completely new to me. If I had to pick which was the weirdest to my own taste, it'd be the brains. Well, then again fried croco sounds exotic, too. And I can't say that I'd have heard of kidneys being used in kitchen before, but hey, that's what we're here to do, learning about other cultures' foods. I actually just ate some liver as a part of liver casserole (I'm not sure if it's translated like that?).

 

EDIT:

(I really like editing my own comments...) One other thing. Has anyone ever eaten that Scottish food haggis? Is it haggis? The food where the lungs, heart, and a bunch of other organs are put into either the sheep's or the pig's belly-sack and cooked for hours. That is also one definite top 10 exotic food. EDIT2: I haven't eaten it, myself. Just heard of it from a British man.

[Edgwyn]

I have eaten some African game mammals, but I am not sure that they qualify as weird. Sashimi is considered weird by some, normal by others. Same thing with various sea food items like squid and octopus.

[Brainless Void]

The pork dish that I've discribed above is not considered weird in my country. Some weird (for me) food here include fried frogs, stir fried worms, and fried 1-day old chicks(hatched chicken egg). Sadly the only one that I have tried is the day old chick.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

I once had this Jewish ethnic food called ptcha. It's the jellied foot of a calf boiled up and chilled in a pan. It is cut into squares that are about two inches high that sit there quivering on your plate waiting for you to eat it. I don't know its actual origins but I assume it's Hungarian or Polish.

[Dintiradan]

Going the "what's weird for other ethnicities" route, I've had paardenrookvlees which is good but apparently taboo for most other people. Not a fan of maatjes. And of course giving dropjes to people always makes for good entertainment.

 

Outside of that... I've had beef tongue? Alligator jambalaya? Maybe bison counts as weird for some people?

[Alorael at Large]

Being vegetarian really limits weird food. We often get weirded out by the meat of strange animals, or by strange parts of animals, or by strange preparations even of familiar animals. But plants? I guess you can get something like a durian or some odd textures, but none of it tends to produce the kind of conceptual disgust that meat can evoke. Plant distaste is really only food preference-ish. It smells bad, or has a really weird texture. Meat invokes more visceral revulsion, if you'll excuse accidental the pun.

 

I want to try lutefisk and hákari at some point, for a certain value of want, but I haven't yet.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't really do favorite foods. He's on a current stir-fried bok choy binge, though.

[Lilith]

Being vegetarian really limits weird food. We often get weirded out by the meat of strange animals, or by strange parts of animals, or by strange preparations even of familiar animals. But plants? I guess you can get something like a durian or some odd textures, but none of it tends to produce the kind of conceptual disgust that meat can evoke. Plant distaste is really only food preference-ish. It smells bad, or has a really weird texture. Meat invokes more visceral revulsion, if you'll excuse accidental the pun.

 

i mean some fermented stuff has the potential to be pretty offputting even if it's plant-based, like natto

 

Going the "what's weird for other ethnicities" route, I've had paardenrookvlees which is good but apparently taboo for most other people. Not a fan of maatjes. And of course giving dropjes to people always makes for good entertainment.

 

Outside of that... I've had beef tongue? Alligator jambalaya? Maybe bison counts as weird for some people?

 

i've had tongue but tbh it didn't even occur to me that people would think of it as that weird. it's just a muscle, like most of the meat that people eat is

[Owenmoz]

Ok. That's a big collection. Jellied calf foot seems intimidating a bit.

So weirdest things i've eaten include: roasted field rat(better than chicken i tell you), cooked snail(i personally don't like it), a kind of grasshoper roasted also known as camarão voador/flying shrimp(really good), vegimite(not my favorite condiment), i don't think there is a kind of sea food i've never eaten and some people find it weird. The one other thing that might be weird i've eaten was caviar( I prefer the red one honestly, black one tastes like butter)

On vegetarian side it includes my two least favorite foods although not really weird. There is, eggplant and watermelon. Can't stand either. But there is plenty of weird food made of veggies, there is a thing called cacana idk the name in english, there is a dish that is famous for being good called mucapata(greengrams rice and coconut milk cooked and mixed together), pumpkin leaves might be considered weird(although still good), casava leaves(i personally dislike it but many others like it), chicory is a bit agressive too. I could go on but the realm of vegetarianism is not free from weird food xD

As for my favorite dish its very hard to pinpoint. I like a lot of food abd travelled a bit and grew up to very different kinds of food so to make a list would be tiresome. But i guess first to come to mind is zambezian chicken. Which is chicken roasted with coconut milk and some other conventional spices, when done right you end up with a well seasoned juicy roasted heavenly delight. Favorite vegetarian dish. Mushroom and cream casserole i think.

[Necris Omega]

 

I want to try lutefisk and hákari at some point, for a certain value of want, but I haven't yet.

 

 

... I was going to say, coming from the extremely Scandinavian portions of the mid-west, I wouldn't normally be exposed to much "weird" or "ethnic" foods. Then this reminded me of the bizarre, sometimes literally, intentionally putrid foodstuffs our viking fore-bearers "enjoyed."

 

I can't recommend lutefisk I'm afraid.

 

Unrelated, but I've also sampled some reptile meat at one point - Gila monster and rattlesnake. I can't recommend them either.

[Dintiradan]

i've had tongue but tbh it didn't even occur to me that people would think of it as that weird. it's just a muscle, like most of the meat that people eat is

I agree, but it seems most people have an immediate aversion to it. It's all a matter of what you're used to.

[Blxz]

I'm most certainly NOT an adventurous eater. Despite that I've eaten quite a few things that although generally quite normal in the cultures they are from but are interesting enough to people who've never tried them.

 

I've had Kangaroo in a variety of ways. Most interesting was actually kangaroo spaghetti bolognase. Of course just a regular steak is the obvious favourite way to eat kangaroo.

Other Australian animals include Emu which is a dark meat and quite 'beefy' from my recollection. Delicious but a bit rare. Crocodile is bland and a bit boring. A white meat that is halfway between very mild fish and chicken. I'm told that the chicken comes from farm grown crocs as the wild ones apparently don't have that taste. Texture of fish as well.

 

Going overseas a bit, I've tried Whale meat in Japan. Not particularly delicious. Was a heavy meat, and quite oily.

And I've done the usual variety of raw foods in Japan. Raw Beef with raw egg and fermented soy beans, etc. Not to mention the popular beef tongue which tastes almost like bacon when cut thinly.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I enjoy natto with oatmeal, although it's been years since I've had it. My ex-fiancee used to take me to a Japanese grocery store in Medford, MA but she ditched me in early 2014 and I therefore haven't been able to go there anymore. I also enjoy a Japanese milk-based soft drink called Calpico, a type of smoked green tea called hoji-cha, spicy shredded squid, some canned fish that smells like cat food, and other Japanese delights.

 

I hate the concept of "adventurous eating", where people eat things just so they can say they did, even if it's an endangered animal, like whales, giraffes (some types are doing OK and others are not), elephants, apes, bluefin tuna, etc. Just because it's OK in the local culture doesn't mean it's at all ethical or OK. I admit I'm judging some of you, talking like this is no big deal or like it's good fun, although it may just be my bad mood from seriously upsetting circumstances in my house right now...

[Alorael at Large]

I've had natto. I didn't particularly like it. I can understand why people think it's gross. But it's gross because of taste and/or texture, whereas a lot of critters and parts of critters seem gross before you even face them but are perfectly inoffensive on a plate.

 

Scandinavia, on the other hand, has perfected foods both horrifying in concept and horrifying in execution.

 

—Alorael, who thinks tofu is probably high on the list of foods that could be extremely off-putting to anyone not accustomed to it. It's beans that have been turned into a sort of soft, somewhat gelatinous block. Faintly flavored. Oddly dense. Depending on the type, possibly slippery and/or prone to disintegration so it can contaminate everything else.

[Blxz]

I hate the concept of "adventurous eating", (...) Just because it's OK in the local culture doesn't mean it's at all ethical or OK. I admit I'm judging some of you, talking like this is no big deal or like it's good fun,

 

While I appreciate your absolute stance that your 'ok' is the absolute definition of what is ok by all standards and that somehow you have the right to therefore judge some unnamed random people in the thread I think you might want to have a quick rethink of your position when you calm down from what you have admitted are some upsetting circumstances in your house.

 

In the meantime I am more than comfortable in calling that kind of reaction narrow minded and pompous. I also feel that your inherent 'moral superiority' is perhaps something that could be addressed on a more far-reaching scale but I have no desire to start a character assassination.

 

Next chance I get, however, I will have another serving of whale because I am petty like that.

[Goldengirl]

There's no reasons to judge someone's character based on a well-founded moral argument. Eating meat that is prepared from endangered animals, in the name of "adventurous eating," sounds like a perfectly fine moral judgment to me. In fact, it's not even just me who thinks this, because it turns out that this principle is enshrined in manifold ways in local and international laws.

 

Food turns out to be something that is the subject of vast ethical debates, from principle based arguments about categorically opposing the eating of meat (as an example), to consequential arguments about the sustainability of eating a global diet (the locovore movement). Having a moral opinion on food is, if anything, admirable and conscientious.

 

I'm with Alorael on this one; being a vegetarian limits my options. That said, before those days started, I had tried alligator. I found it be pretty gamey and not really too exciting. Lutefisk and various other Scandinavian dishes sound revolting, but aren't really that bad; lutefisk is so buttery that it slides past your taste buds before you know it. Lately I've been diving into a lot of Thai cooking, because I crave punishing my taste buds with hot spices, which has led me to some interesting cooking techniques that might be considered weird.

 

Yogurt is probably really weird, if you don't know the concept. Personally, though, jello is always the strangest to me. Consider it my rebellion against my Lutheran potluck upraising.

[Necris Omega]

Jello - we don't not call it powered bone slime for nothing.

[Callie]

People tell me unagi is weird, but I rather like it. Tongue meat is delicious.

 

What I find weird is mayonnaise; really gross man. And... ground beef is pretty much blended leftover cow parts. Also, that "process cheese" Americans eat so much of makes me nauseous.

 

I suggest we just find something universally weird, like fried unicorn pituitary glands gently shoved through a spaghetti strainer with a meat tenderizer.

[Goldengirl]

Blood?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Blood pudding is tasty.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

Blood?

Blood is best, freshly sucked out of someone's neck.

[Owenmoz]

Tbh. I think everyone has tasted blood. Im pretty sure one of the first reactions to a paper cut is putting your finger in your mouth worldwide. I could be wrong though. For those who never tasted, its like iron and salt markedly like iron and salt. You folks missed nothing

[Blxz]

I have no natural instinct to put my injured finger in my mouth. Although I can understand people who do. Many mammals have antibacterial effects in their saliva.

[Owenmoz]

I have no natural instinct to put my injured finger in my mouth. Although I can understand people who do. Many mammals have antibacterial effects in their saliva.

 

This is exactly why we all think you are a reptilian alien really

[Owenmoz]

Also i was trying to avoid comenting on adventurous eating. But i don't think any of us went out of their way to hunt down endangered species eat their hearts and dance howling in the moon covered with their entrails. (Sorry i was playing dragon age. Couldnt help it)

From the list here only whales are endangered that i know of, unfortunatelly eating or not eating them has no difference as if im not mistaken whales are hunted for the oil which makes for a relativelly clean fuel, japan and iceland are likelly to keep killing whales because of that. Even though crocs are not endangered(i think) they are also mostly killed for their skin which makes for good quality if unreasonably expensive leather.

 

That being said it is a very fair concern and good/important point was raised, as there are some people who like hunting endangered species for the lolz. And thats not cool and i think i speak for all of us when i say we do not condone that.

 

 

Finally i don't think local cultures worldwide really eat endangered species. And I'm really adamant about this since a lot of hunters that come around in africa try saying they killed this or that for the local populations to eat. I assure you having lived here for a long time, that that does not happen. No one really eats lions or leopards or anything like it. Some might eat girafes or other kinds of "bushmeat" but is not out of tradition its out of various things such as affordability availability and others. Give them a cow and they will be gratefull, you dont even have to hunt a cow. Hell give them rice and maize and its still helpfull. Don't use people with food insecurity as a scapegoat for certain actions. Luckilly the ammount of people that live in or near national parks is VERY low. A fair ammount lives in cities and the rural comunity would really rather stay away from rhinos, lions, elephants and anything that might kill them.

 

And im sure most countries have very tight regulations on endangered animals. Even ones that are consumed worldwide(such as beluga sturgeon). And those rules tend to be enforced, for instance park rangers in kenya, south africa and mozambique(other countries too likelly but i do not know for certain) are allowed to kill poachers. Not arrest or detain. They are allowed to kill them. Not encouraged to but so far at least in kruger park it has been a major deterrent against poaching. Not that the regulations are perfect.

 

 

This of course was largelly off topic but i think it merited a post.

[Zaego]

(...)

I hate the concept of "adventurous eating", where people eat things just so they can say they did, even if it's an endangered animal, like whales, giraffes (some types are doing OK and others are not), elephants, apes, bluefin tuna, etc. Just because it's OK in the local culture doesn't mean it's at all ethical or OK. I admit I'm judging some of you, talking like this is no big deal or like it's good fun, although it may just be my bad mood from seriously upsetting circumstances in my house right now...

 

I have no trouble with adventurous eating, so long as the animal is not endangered. If one eats some part of an endangered animal, then that individual is funding the business that causes that particular animal to go extinct, and I have a huge problem with that. That's why I stopped eating tuna because it's basically being overfished and the tuna populations have crashed in the last years. The one good way to fight against these kind of poachers is to hit them right where it hurts; their pockets full of money, because that's the only thing they care about.