Crazy foods and cuisine

[Dreamweaver]

Has anyone ever indulged in a kind of food that would make most people think, "What the heck did you do that for?!?" I'm not talking about eating raw hamburger or uncooked ramen, but rather the foods that other cultures treasure while others just look at it and blink.

You may have even been inspired by Fear Factor to eat such foods.

I myself tried preserved duck eggs last week. A Chinese delicacy, they're also known as Thousand Year Eggs, although it only takes around 100 days to preserve them.

Words don't accurately describe what they look and taste like. One of my friends bought a half dozen at a local Asian food mart and brought them to school for us to sample. Some of us were literally gagging down every bite, wheras others popped them back without any problem. I had a few gags myself, which was better than many of the guys who tried them.

[url="http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/16/features/ingredient.html"]Here's a picture and description of them[/url]

[url="http://www.ns-nakagawa.com/tyukasozai/pidan.jpg"]And another picture, yum yum![/url]

[waldo]

Ha ha ha. I waxed my egg down faster than you. I didn't have a problem with it either.

But I will give you credit of eating it better than most others and you were the only girl to dare try one. Thats my girl

I've eaten a few weird things myself. I took a bite of raw deer flesh right off the leg. I figured if my dog likes it, it can't be that bad. I was pretty wrong. It tasted like meat flavored bubble gum.

I've also eaten many many varieties of dog foods and dog treats. Same reason as before. They're not usually that bad. Some taste kinda good. I wouldn't eat them again though. I also ate one dog treat that tasted awful though.

Finally I have eaten the dreaded rocky mountain oysters. Unlike what anyone would guess they are really good and I would eat them again. It just takes a little while to get over what you're actually eating.

I don't really know if I should be telling all these. Everyone is gonig to think I am quite crazy. Oh well. I always have said I will eat anything once.

[Balthazor]

what did they taste like though....sweet salty, mushy, cheesy. what ?

the thousand year eggs?

[waldo]

[quote name='Balthazor' date='Dec 16 2004, 09:55 PM'] what did they taste like though....sweet salty, mushy, cheesy. what ?

the thousand year eggs? [/quote]
The eggs tasted awful. I really didn't like the taste. The taste like really strong eggs. They also have a rotten taste to them. They were also really slimy. The yolk was thicker to get down. The "white" if you could call it that was runnier than a hard boiled egg and leaked a little bit of green juice.

I was just lucky that I couldn't smell them. Well I guess thats anothr thing about me no one here knows. I have no sense of smell whatsoever.

[Benedict]

Unusual, since smell and taste are simply two facets of the same sense. Much of what you 'taste' is actually you smelling the food while you chew.

Otherwise . . .

Thousand Year Eggs are quite nasty unless you have been acclimated to them.

Today I went out with my girlfriend for Korean food. Nothing gross but I did eat dried and fried squid strips, cuttlefish slices, cereal jelly (gelatin extracted from grain; it has the texture of jell-o but no taste at all), and sauerkraut soup (known to the Koreans as kim chee jigae). I had a spicy beef sirloin soup (yuk gae jang). Everything was very delicious.

[azaelia]

I've actually always wanted to try Rocky Mountain Oysters. Hmmm...

I think the weirdest thing I eat is whole lobster...which doesn't sound weird to alot of people but seriously think about it...it looks like a giant bug. And I eat everything. Most people just eat the tail and the claws. Oh no...no I take it all apart. It's rather scary, actually.

[IcePrincessKRS]

I've tried a few random Japanese things that my college roomie would bring back after going home for the weekend (her mom is Japanese and would fly over to visit her family and bring back tons of goodies) some of it was weird, some was good, and some I just couldn't handle the consistancy. Often its not flavor that makes me gag but consistancy--the 1000 year eggs sound like consistancy would be a HUGE problem for me. lol

[Dreamweaver]

Yeah, it was the consistency of the eggs that made me gag. The taste wasn't that great, but slimey stuff just doesn't go well with me.

Another unusual thing my friend bought at the Asian food mart was a can of dried baby clams and anchovies. It was it sounds like, except they're coated with sugar and a small amount of salt. They were delicious! If I had to describe them, I'd say that they were fish flavored crunchy candy. No one, except for Waldo and I really liked them, so we wolfed down the whole can!

[shelly_freak]

I like sushi, sashimi, spicy pees, rice crackers, etc etc

[waldo]

[quote name='Benedict' date='Dec 16 2004, 10:58 PM'] Unusual, since smell and taste are simply two facets of the same sense. Much of what you 'taste' is actually you smelling the food while you chew.
[/quote]
Yeah I am in a pretty unusual situation. I have a very distinctive sense of taste but have no smell. It even puzzles doctors. I have had no sense of smell for as long as I have lived. So I believe my sense of taste has accomodated by not having a sense of smell to go with it. My doctors best guess as to why I can't smeel was that I got a bad nasal infection while I was very young that severed the olfactory nerve to my nose.

[crusader1234]

I actually happen to like Chinese Eggs. All it is is green tea soaked eggs... silly ethnocentric westerners

[DancesforLove]

Bulluts! My dad was in the Marine Corp and he traveled to the big rock (Owkanowa) and little kids would be running around selling those, really gross lol

[Norseman82]

Has anyone ever tried czarnina? It is Polish soup with duck blood in it.

[Luthien]

[quote name='azaelia' date='Dec 16 2004, 11:03 PM'] I've actually always wanted to try Rocky Mountain Oysters. Hmmm...

I think the weirdest thing I eat is whole lobster...which doesn't sound weird to alot of people but seriously think about it...it looks like a giant bug. And I eat everything. Most people just eat the tail and the claws. Oh no...no I take it all apart. It's rather scary, actually. [/quote]
Yeah, we're quite barbaric when it comes to our devouring of these succulent crustaceans.

I eat the green goo in the middle... :ph34r:

[Cesar624]

In Puerto Rico we have this thing called morcilla. It's basically the lining of a pig intestine stuffed with rice and pig blood. A blood sausage I guess you can call it. When being fried up, it emits the the foulest smell in the world. My family had to stop making it because everytime they would cook it I would become very sick. The smell alone made me vomit, so I never dared put it to my mouth.