The Most Adventurous Food

achetocuddle

What is the most adventurous food you have eaten or watched someone else eat? For me it would be squirrel that my dad hunted, pickled beef tongue, escargot, or pork brains cooked in scrambled eggs. I've not gotten to be as adventurous as I would like. I just remembered when I was 18 and working for an insurance company a co-worker came back from the beach and brought back shrimp with heads still on. You had to break off the head before you ate them. I thoroughly enjoyed that shrimp and I could not fathom having enough money to bring back seafood for your co-workers

sunnysideup

I haven't been that adventurous either. Squirrel, sea urchin, and pigs ear are probably the most exotic things I've eaten. I've found I don't do too well with new foods that are an acquired taste, so I'm not exactly encouraged to try other exotic things.

I wanted to like liver since it seems really healthy, but I couldn't get over the bitter taste. I could probably manage liver if it were heavily spiced and chopped in smaller pieces.

Your coworker was quite wealthy or extremely generous.

JohnR1972

My most adventurous would be Sea Urchin that I had in China (I didn’t really like it but I tried it). I have also had horse meat in Sweden (it was OK but not my favorite). My favorite adventurous food was reindeer heart stew in Sweden.

ohnonotagain

Raw pig blood soup is pretty tasty.

achetocuddle

@sunnysideup Where did you eat squirrel? I like chicken livers and don't mind the strong/bitter/mineral taste. If liver is accidentally left with even a little gall attached, it will be inedible. Bitter won't begin to describe it. My co-worker was wealthy. He may have already had money, but he did well as an insurance agent, and he may have been one of the first investors in Cracker Barrel. He had his own two-seater plane and could fly it.

@JohnR1972 @sunnysideup I think sea urchin is very adventurous. They look horrible on TV. Lol.
@JohnR1972 I can't decide if I would try horse meat. Can reindeer heart be made tender?
@ohnonotagain Is that a real thing? Interesting.

GreatHornedOwl

@achetocuddle I can assure you that pickled beef tongue is delicious. What's more, it is absolutely the most tender piece of meat that you can possibly find. You don't even need a knife to eat it. You can cut it with the side of a fork. When I was a kid, we had it frequently. I liked it with horseradish.

The next time you get to Nashville, try it at Josephine (2316 12th Ave S (Elmwood Ave, Nashville).

You just made me recall a memory from when I was about 10 years old. Late one afternoon, a neighbor (Beth) called to talk to my mother (Elsie). The conversation went something like this:

Beth: How's your tongue?
Elsie: What?
Beth: How's your tongue?
Elsie: What are you talking about?
Beth: Robbie (her son and friend of my little brother) came home and said Elsie burned her tongue.
Elsie: Hysterical laughter.

What had happened was that my mother had been making beef tongue for dinner. Being quite thick, it needs to be boiled for quite a long time. My mother got distracted with something else, and completely forgot about dinner cooking. Eventually, all the water boiled away, and the kitchen filled up with smoke. Robbie had been over playing with my brother, and of course, couldn't help but notice all that smoke. When he got home, he casually mentioned to his mother "Elsie burned her tongue."

I have no recollection of what we had for dinner that night, but it wasn't tongue.

JohnR1972

@achetocuddle - I am not sure exactly how it was prepared but the reindeer heart was very tender. I was in Sweden on business and some co-workers took me out to dinner and insisted on “helping” me order. They ordered the reindeer heart without telling me what is was thinking I would be shocked or grossed out at the thought.

However, whenever I travel out of the country I intentionally look for unusual local food to try. When the dish arrived it smelled delicious and I really enjoyed it. When the told me what it was it didn’t bother me in the least.

I was introduced to chocolate covered grasshoppers on a recent venture to Mexico.
Not too bad but I probably won't eat the. again.

sunnysideup

@achetocuddle When I was in college in Frostburg, MD (just a few years ago I went to school late), I attended a few Wildlife Club meetings. I always did like the nature clubs. There was a game dinner night which my friend invited me to, and so we went.

I can't remember if I liked sea urchin, but I generally don't like food with too slimy of a texture. Liver is packed with nutrients so I'm glad you like them.

@GreatHornedOwl what a fun childhood memory.

CuddleDuncan

Beef tongue (unpickled) was a staple of my childhood and indeed I had it for lunch the other day, bought sliced from the local supermarket.

Liver was also a childhood staple because it's also very cheap. And catastrophically nutritious. I didn't like it then because it tended to be dry, but if it's fresh and still pink in the middle I find it delicious in modest quantities.

Sea urchin I don't remember except that it was nice. Whole lamb's hearts I ate a lot as a student because, you've guessed it, they were cheap.

Insects in my experience tend to be either a bit pointless or delicious. I had some tiny red ants once that were sort of mildly crunchy and tasted of a mixture of lemon and orange. Really nice.

Always wanted to try pig brains but have never come across them. And sheep's eyes. I heard of them as a child, being the chief delicacy of an Arab feast in the desert, and although I was slightly horrified at the idea I also couldn't wait ...
Still waiting. It's so hard to get invited to the right parties, you know?

The most adventurous food I have tried I remember clearly. I was in Myanmar, a long time ago. Walking down the street I encountered an odour. It was the most foul odour I had ever smelt, or could imagine. It smelt like the devil himself had eaten something bad, and the resulting vomit and poop had become mixed up ... and then gone off. Nobody else seemed to be aware of it, and I literally followed my nose, up this street and that, until I found the source. It was a man selling ice cream from a street stall. Having established that the olfactory extravaganza was not emanating directly from him, I started sniffing his ice creams. "Oh, it's the durian" he said. "I'll have a large one", says I. I couldn't finish it although it didn't taste as bad as it stank. Mind you that's a bit like saying plague isn't as bad as ebola.

What's the name of that wee Japanese octopus that you eat alive, and it kills you if you don't kill it?

SunsetSnuggles

I didn't have a chance to be too adventurous, before going vegan. Eel, bison, and calamari is about as far as it went.

~ Sunset Snuggles

achetocuddle

@GreatHornedOwl Good story:) I love your posts. And pickled beef tongue is good. Thanks for the restaurant recommendation.

@CuddleDuncan Your post is super interesting, well-written and hilarious. It is so hard to get invited to the right parties. LOL. Your description of durian was superb. I've not had it or smelled it, but it's reputation precedes it. I don't think I could taste durian. I wonder how durian smell compares to the smell of the corpse flower? One just got thru blooming at a university in Tennessee. I was not present; just saw it on the news. When I was growing up we ate what was cheap, whether it was flesh or plants. The red ants sound good.

All the responses have been interesting. Thank you. I hope more people post.

DaringSprinter

The most adventurous food I've ever deliberately eaten was a moldy potato. (If accidental ingestion counts: an uncooked cockroach.)

The most exotic food I've ever tried to eat was natto (I couldn't swallow), and the most exotic food I've ever actually gotten down is probably quail eggs—I'd never had them before, and they're pretty good. Tiny, but richer than chicken eggs.

I've also eaten fried chicken hearts (some groceries do their own butchering, and sell the offal for cheap). Now, those are tasty.

Maverick07

Probably more exotic than adventurous, but I believe it'd be some fried garlic crickets in Mexico - pretty yummy.

During my ag exchange program in the US, I was introduced to rocky mountain oysters (bull nuts); there was bar in MT that offered them for free on Jul 4th... with pickles, ketchup and beer - that was a nice supper! Also, when I moved to KY during that era I decided to try a pelleted horse feed... the mare seemed to really enjoy it, so I was like, "huh, why not?" - I wish I had some type of dipping sauce.

Babichev

The most adventurous thing I’ve eaten was fried gusanos - those caterpillars one finds in tequila bottles. I was in Mexico during the season for them. My friend who lived there wanted to try them. We were at a tiny restaurant in the middle of nowhere and he ordered them. They deep fry them and serve them with tortillas and beans. I ate two just to say I did it. They didn’t taste like much, just fried stuff, but the idea of putting a caterpillar into my mouth was difficult to overcome. I also ate huitlacoche a.k.a. corn smut. I had it in soup. It was pretty mild, tastes a bit like mushrooms. This was also in Mexico. Years later it got to be trendy among foodies in New York. I wonder how many of them knew they were eating corn smut? I also had an opportunity to eat yak momos in Nepal but passed. I was in a small village, there was no refrigeration, and I had no idea when the yak would have been slaughtered.

I’ve had durian. It was frozen, I made it into ice cream. It did not smell bad and tasted a bit like banana. I’ve never been around it fresh but it has quite the reputation. In some countries where they have it, it is illegal to take it onto a bus.

I’ve had some pretty interesting fruits in Nicaragua but I don’t recall the names of any of them.

I had sea urchin at a sushi bar in Seattle. My friend had lived in Japan for awhile and the sushi chefs liked her because Westerners rarely order it.

CuddleDuncan

Oh no wait! I just remembered.

A tin of cat food.

Babichev

The most adventurous food experience I’ve ever had was outside of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1982. My then husband and I were traveling outside of North America for the first time and arrived in Nairobi two days before our friends did. We were staying in a modest hotel but the guests were entirely white Americans, Europeans, and Australians, mostly men on business. There was a small restaurant and we asked the waiter what on the menu was local fare since most of it was obviously western. He pointed to the ugali and another dish I don’t recall the name. One was a mush made of corn, the other a mush made of manioc root, and they were served with stew poured over it. Apparently westerners never ordered the African dishes and he was pleased that we tried them and liked them. He said if we were there on Sunday he would take us to a place where Africans ate ugali.

By Sunday our friends had arrived and the four of us accompanied Charles, the waiter. We walked and walked and walked, past the city limits and into the countryside. There was very little along the road. We came to a market that was a bit off the road and followed Charles.

It was not like any market I’d been to before then or since then. It was crowded, the paths between the stalls were narrow, and they were very bare, run down, pieced together with scraps of lumber and tin. To be honest, it was a little scary. Everyone was staring at us as we walked by. Mentally I was saying, “We’re with him (Charles).” We finally came to a stall with a rough, worn picnic table and two benches. Charles motioned us to sit down. I thought to myself oh my, what have we gotten ourselves into? There were three large pots sitting on a bed of coals. One had corn mush, the other had manioc mush, and the third had stew. I realized that these sat and cooked for a long time so really they ought to be safe. We sat and ate ugali and I asked Charles about his life. Like many African men, he had a wife and a couple of children in a small village. He worked in the city and saw them a few times a year. I’d brought some picture books with me and gave them to him for his children.

I’ve always been touched at how he invited us into his world.

That’s my most adventurous dining experience.

CaringSoul

I always enjoyed eating escargot, and pan seared foie gras ( duck liver ). Before pandemic lockdown, I always go to CasaMono, a cozy Spaniard restaurant near Union Square in Manhattan,
that specialized in tapas, small plate of awesome foods like oxtails; pigs feet; squid cooked with their black ink; sweetbreads; pan seared foie gras ( see photos) & their razor clams cooked with olive oil, garlic & parsley ( see photo ). I really miss those yummy foods.

achetocuddle

@DaringSprinter I believe you about the natto. I would never try it. I can see why people who eat natto, seaweed and things that go with this cuisine don't get big. Lol. I love your correct usage of adventurous and exotic. I hoped people would post about either or both. I don't like to make big thread titles. Also did not think of exotic of course. You may have suspected that. You might have me pegged pretty well. Lol. Quail eggs are richer than chicken eggs. My supermarket had some a few months ago. They were a b*tch to peel.
@Maverick07 It's interesting you tried horse feed and brave to admit it. I've not tried pet food and would not admit here if I did. Thanks for your post.
@CuddleDuncan Why did you eat cat food?

I've liked all these posts.

GreatHornedOwl

@achetocuddle, @CuddleDuncan , et.al.
All this talk about eating pet food reminded me of a good story.

An elderly man came to the checkout counter of the local grocery store with several cans of dog food.

The clerk said "Sir, there's a new store policy that in order to buy dog food, You're going to have prove to us that you really have a dog. You see, it's come to our attention that some people have been trying to save money by eating dog food, and since it isn't FDA approved for human consumption, you're going to have to bring in your dog."

The next day, the man came back to the checkout with his dog on a leash, 8 cans of dog food, and 4 cans of cat food. The clerk said "Okay, you can buy the dog food, but we don't know that you really have a cat.

The next day, the man came back to the checkout, and set his cat on the counter. Then, he handed the clerk a plastic bag, and said "stick your hand in there." The clerk put his hand in the bag, then pulled it back out, looked at it and said "This is sh*t!"

The man said "I want to buy some toilet paper."

achetocuddle

@GreatHornedOwl How can you be persuaded to write your autobio and include some of these jokes and stories?

I might try pet food with a good friend watching under the right circumstances. That would be so far from the worst thing in the world. If you have let someone run poison thru your veins (chemo), you start thinking unwashed produce, pet food, a lot of things are no big deal. Lol.

What a good thread I started. ha ha_

DaringSprinter

@achetocuddle: I love the stories in this thread. I'm really glad you started it—whatever adjectives you could or couldn't think of to describe what you were after. It's a great thread.

The natto, incidentally, didn't taste to me like anything that had ever even been close to being food, and yet it was more disgusting than anything else I'd ever put into my mouth, from rocks or dirt to old plastic or moldy wood (hey, I was a kid once). I don't know how people eat it. Seaweed, though! That has a nice flavor. Especially roasted with salt.

I admit I've also eaten dry dog food. Just a couple nuggets: the first to see what it was like and the second to shock people. It was... eh. Edible.

FoxyDreams

My recent obsession has been increasing the spiciness of my food constantly. I am to the point of getting the max spice level at all the local Thai restaurants.

GreatHornedOwl

@achetocuddle I'm quite certain that with very little effort, I could think of at least half a dozen better ways to waste my time than writing an autobiography that nobody would ever read.

achetocuddle

@DaringSprinter You know I like it that you like this thread. I wish I liked all seaweed. It's so nutritious. I know if it's not you will tell me and I do want to know. I tried Annie Chung? seaweed snacks. It was like eating the dirtiest thing lying at the bottom of the ocean with too much salt. But the seaweed/nori in sushi is fine. Speaking of sushi (this will go over big, I'm sure, LOL) I don't see the point of it. My friend was so certain the problem was I had never tried it. We went to a sushi restaurant and I ate several pieces. It is not hard to eat but it is bland. I just don't see the point of it. My cousin once told me to dip it in the wasabi. I said then you have bland food that is too hot.

And I am almost a baby when it comes to taking medicine that is not a pill. I just can't hardly volunteer to take medicine I have to taste. But I am so tough in other ways. I'm a mystery to myself. Btw, that cherry-flavored medicine is NOT cherry. Lol.

A little off-topic, you know me If a person notices subtle differences in rice they should try Thai Hom Mali jasmine rice.

@BubblegumCuddle I love Thai except for the heat. I know that is basically like saying I don't like Thai. Lol. But the lemongrass and their other seasonings are SO good. I've been told Malaysian is better: I don't know. I don't know of any noodles better than Pad Thai. I'm impressed that you are eating a "five" in heat.

Babichev

This is about weird food:

My husband and I were trekking in Nepal with another couple and stopped in a small village to spend the night. There was a tiny store in this village and they had a lot of boxes of spaghetti, which was kind of odd. The other woman in our group wasn’t feeling well and skipped dinner; my husband and the other guy had dinner in the little “restaurant” attached to the place we were staying. (Along the trail there were places where, for a few rupees, one could rent a platform for the night on which to lay out your sleeping bag and have a modest breakfast in the morning. This “restaurant” consisted of one rough hewn picnic bench in a small, dark room that was lit by small oil lamps.) Most places had very few options. What tended to be available was what the locals ate which was dal bhat - Nepali lentil soup and rice. Other potential options were eggs, greens, chapatis (a flat bread), potatoes, and occasionally chicken. However, this place had a hand written menu that included vegetable spring rolls, egg drop soup, and a vegetable omelet. My husband and the other guy ordered those while I stuck with dal bhat. They wondered why I passed up the opportunity to have something different because we ate dal bhat every day but I liked it and that’s what I chose.

When the food arrived we had quite a surprise. The “vegetable egg roll” was a chapati rolled around plain boiled spaghetti. The vegetable omelet was an omelet wrapped around plain boiled spaghetti. And the egg drop soup was a raw egg dropped into a bowl of dal that was not hot enough to cook the egg. My husband did ask them to heat it a bit more to cook the egg.

I was glad I ordered dal bhat.

CuddleDuncan

Good story @Babichev!

I was reminded of a classic moment in a Carry On film about menu choices. Carry On Abroad it was ... a party of hapless British tourists in a dodgy Spanish hotel. Choices. That's choices!

---

@achetocuddle I was a student; I was hungry; I was drunk; I was bored; and I was dared. It vies for first place as the worst meal I've ever eaten with the dinner I had at Walthamstow Dog Track in 1989.

@GreatHornedOwl

bekah_cuddles

The food I had during a trip to Okinawa was some of the best and most interesting! Like others above, I enjoyed ox tongue. I also had my first legal drink there a week before my 21st birthday (since the legal drinking age there is 20), which was two shots of Habu Sake with the floating flakes of snake skin and all!

Lithellyl

Rocky Mountain oysters, beef tongue, chocolate covered ants,fried grasshopper, rattlesnake, alligator, quail eggs, durian, dragonfruit, black pudding and Blodpättar

Out of all these, I like alligator, quail eggs, black pudding and Blodpättar

The chocolate covered ants the fried grasshoppers, beef tongue,and rattlesnake were ok

And I hated the rest.

SunsetSnuggles

Oh. If spiciness counts, I get the hottest number at Thai restaurants, and occasionally tell them "make me cry"...then they give me hotter than the hottest, "Thai spice".

If I don't have to stop half-way through Mexican or Asian dishes to go use kleenex, I'm not satisfied. 🤧😁

~ Sunset Snuggles

CuddleDuncan

I have to say, it is striking how many of the foods mentioned in this thread are - to me - totally normal foods that I grew up with.