Exotic Foods...Have you tried it?

I love to eat light, and I like Cook, a local cooking is our right

Wow, I guess from some of the replies to this post that I've lived a rather boring life (gastronomically speaking) back in Canada. The most exotic foods that I've ever eaten were frogs legs (on a French restaurant menu in Vancouver) and escargot (snail) which I would make at home all the time.

I love the food here in Brazil, there are so many different regional dishes, but nothing that one would consider truly EXOTIC in terms of their ingredients. Certainly, I've never tried anything like rattlesnake, ants, earthworms, horsemeat all of which I understand are considered delicacies in some cultures.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog

I love to try new,unusual things from time to time. So here's the list of exotic food I've tried ;
- Bats
- Pigeon
- Frog
- Durian
- Snake
- Grasshoper
- Stinky tofu
- Duck Tongue
- Chicken feet (a favorite!)
- Snails
- Sea urchin

That's all what I can remember

Not sure what to make of this list ; I'm looking for the sick icon...

YUK !

ive eaten:
-jellyfish
-frog legs
-shark fin soup
-fried earthworm (just a small one.. they put it on an egg with some peruvian spice mix)
-broiled pig intestines
-fried pig intestine stuffed with shrimp
-chicken feet with black beans
-pigs blood hot pot
-balut egg
-cow tongue (every sunday in my mom's house, not as bad as it sounds)
-taro root jelly with mini shrimp on top
-durian
-lychees
-frozen jackfruit...thats all i can think of


has anyone ever heard of "live lobster sashimi" or "live fried fish"? you should youtube both, its crazy! they chop the lobster in half, and then make a quick sashimi out of the tail then put the other LIVING half on your plate so u can see its head and eyes moving while u eat its body, its so gross! and the fish they just deep fry the middle part and the head is like still moving around while u pull the meat off the bones...really nasty.

im vegetarian now by the way lol

@HPG - have you turned vegetarian now because the exotic foods made you sick ? 

Although i'm not as adventurous as you, I have tried  two items on your list ; frog legs and jackfruit (not frozen). Jack fruit is quite slimey and when eating it, well you feel like vomiting.. its quite sweet though.

jazzy851 wrote:

@HPG - have you turned vegetarian now because the exotic foods made you sick ? 

Although i'm not as adventurous as you, I have tried  two items on your list ; frog legs and jackfruit (not frozen). Jack fruit is quite slimey and when eating it, well you feel like vomiting.. its quite sweet though.

i'd be lying if i said it didnt contribute somewhat to my decision on becoming a veggie

ive never had fresh jackfruit but if it's slimy i doubt i'd like it!

jazzy851 wrote:

I love to try new,unusual things from time to time. So here's the list of exotic food I've tried ;
- Bats
- Pigeon
- Frog
- Durian
- Snake
- Grasshoper
- Stinky tofu
- Duck Tongue
- Chicken feet (a favorite!)
- Snails
- Sea urchin

Ew! What century is this?

Grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, frogs, ducks blood,lambs testicles, raw meat salads.

try to experience

stumpy wrote:

Grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, frogs, ducks blood,lambs testicles, raw meat salads.

gross

Already tried all of that!!
Super delicious!!!!!

how about some nice putrid shark? If that's not your taste, there's putrid skate served with the fat from a sheep's belly. Icelanders have some particularly stinky traditional foods.

Omay,, never tried that before.. How about the Cocunot worm? wherein youll gonna eat it ALIVE? fresh from the rotten coconut tree?... Its really gooood!!!

We are in the 21st century i would never in a million years try that.

ECS wrote:

how about some nice putrid shark? If that's not your taste, there's putrid skate served with the fat from a sheep's belly. Icelanders have some particularly stinky traditional foods.

People eat shark here - which I think is pretty disgusting - but I've heard that in Iceland it's old rotting shark that's been left out for weeks.

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

ECS wrote:

how about some nice putrid shark? If that's not your taste, there's putrid skate served with the fat from a sheep's belly. Icelanders have some particularly stinky traditional foods.

People eat shark here - which I think is pretty disgusting - but I've heard that in Iceland it's old rotting shark that's been left out for weeks.

Gross !

the shark is indeed putrified but it's not exactly rotten. The ammonia in the flesh keeps it from rotting but makes it smell horrific. The taste is actually not so horrible but the texture is rather strange.

Some people say that eating it keeps you healthy because the ammonia kills pretty much any microbes that might be floating around.

That definitely doesn't make it sound any better.

ECS wrote:

the shark is indeed putrified but it's not exactly rotten. The ammonia in the flesh keeps it from rotting but makes it smell horrific. The taste is actually not so horrible but the texture is rather strange.

Some people say that eating it keeps you healthy because the ammonia kills pretty much any microbes that might be floating around.

That sounds interesting but why did you have to eat that semi rotten meat?

it's traditional, and it's actually poisonous to eat this variety of shark fresh. For a long time Icelanders were pretty desperate when it came to sources of food, so they ate all kinds of weird things that would turn a modern stomach. With this shark, they figured out that burying it in the sand and waiting a while makes it "edible".

Pretty much all the most traditional foods are preserved in horrible ways and are the least favored bits of animals- testicles, eyeballs, heads. If you're curious to know more, check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Eorramatur

you can read more about the shark in particular here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

I've just read that thanks for the links   that's unbelievable ! But still you haven't answered my question yet.

I ate it because it's traditional. Nobody forced me to but when you're up in a hut on a glacier with 8 male mountain guides, you don't want to be that girl who passes up on the tasty bit of shark.

Bingo!  8 years back when you were in  US  who would have thought that you'd be in Iceland broken hearted and eating things that you'd never even think it's edible?
Life is a box of unexpected surprises.

Who comes up with the ideas to take inedible food and let it sit around for a long time just to see if that makes it better?

Hericles wrote:

in Iceland broken hearted and eating things that you'd never even think it's edible?

not sure about the broken-hearted bit but I would say the shark eating is the least surprising feature of my life these days.

and Hailey, my guess is that it was a combination of desperation, innovation, and seeing other animals eating the thing. Iceland spent many long years living in pretty horrible conditions. It's an isolated island almost on the arctic circle, rife with volcanoes. Growing season is short, winter is long and dark, and many of the remote governments were interested in taking all the good stuff and leaving the local population with the crappiest scraps of leftovers.

so, if a stanky but not deadly bit of 4-month-old shark is what keeps body and soul together, people will eat it.

what is haggis ?? try snake its good, but don't tell me before eat it was snake

ECS wrote:

not sure about the broken-hearted bit but I would say the shark eating is the least surprising feature of my life these days.


so, if a stanky but not deadly bit of 4-month-old shark is what keeps body and soul together, people will eat it.

I read your link But what i don't get is that  Vultures, hyenas Coyotes and other scavengers are the ones who can really digest semi rotten or putrefied meat because their stomach is highly acid  compared to humans.

I'm surprised you are ok.

Haggis is sheep's heart, liver and lungs cooked in the sheep's stomach.  It's usually served with neeps & tatties.

And a lot of alcohol.

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

Haggis is sheep's heart, liver and lungs cooked in the sheep's stomach.  It's usually served with neeps & tatties.

And a lot of alcohol.

Gross.

Being a Filipina,  I grew up on:
Duck fetuses (Balut) and,
Pig/chicken intestines (Isaw).


These are two popular "snacks" in the Philippines lol I mean people actually eat these for snack and are usually readily available on the streets.  7-Eleven in the Philippines already sell baluts you know (I should know).  Other unusual stuff I tried are Durian, Cow tongue (Lengua) - this one's quite an acceptable and is considered as a normal viand in the Philippines. Lengua is sometimes served in traditional gatherings.  There are many other "exotic" food in the Philippines that I haven't tried though such as: Blood (Betamax), Chicken feet (Adidas), Fresh Tamilok in Palawan (worms), Crocodile Meat and many others hahaha

sanjayskachhawa wrote:

Is there anyone who tried Cabbage Curry

Cabbage curry doesnt sound exotic. Lol.
Sometimes we cook curry with cabbage in Indonesia :-)

I just came back from dinner with a Korean friend. She made me eat raw baby octopus, freshly chopped and its moving around in my mouth.
It was mixed with raw beef and pear, pretty tasty but ... not going to have it again.

Annie