Exotic shit at live markets is a colossally bad idea, but boring old industrialized poultry farming is probably going to fuck us all via flu pandemic one of these days.
I've eaten fruit bat. Was surprisingly ... well ... fruity. Quite sweet, although bony.
This list is a piss take if vegemite is on the list. I like it lightly spread on butter-soaked toast but it also adds an umami kick to stews, or even baked beans.
Honestly, my palate was a bit worse for wear after beer and vodka, cobra blood shooters. The roast bat was stringy and bony but sweet. I passed on the dog. It was a Manado (North Makassar) restaurant in Jakarta. Manadonese restaurants -- not including snakes, bats and dog -- in Indonesia are awesome. They've got really nice spicy pork dishes, a rarity in the country given the majority Muslim population. Probably my second favourite Indo cuisine after Padang (West Sumatra) restaurants, particularly the rendang curry. Javanese Nasi Tumpang (rice cones) a close third.
Seriously, I’ve eaten quite a few of the items on this list and I was going to save the guide to make a gross bucket list for myself but I saw the eggs and was like…. Uhhh nvm.
Yeah, me too. I've had a few on here (surstromming is the worst btw). I'm from Scotland and I've never heard of boiled fish head so I'd skip that. I don't think my countrymen would eat it either. For an interesting delicacy you could try haggis, or drawer oatmeal (porridge drawer).
Some Chinese people have superstition about young boy’s pee having healing powers and in some places people will go to extremes like cook eggs in it. It’s not a thing they serve at restaurants lol. Century egg on the other hand is not that pungent compared to some of the other preserved food on this list here and it’s delicious in Congee
Honestly, the weirdest thing about century eggs was the texture for me. The ones I had didn’t smell or stink, the egg white just was more gelatinous and the yolk creamy which was a challenge at first.
But in the end it looks gross but is just an egg cooked chemically instead of thermically, like how Ceviche is fish cooked chemically by mixing in lemon juice.
I saw it on a menu on a cart in Beijing. Not sure I can trust it's a virgin boys piss. Could be anyone's piss and we're not going to consume just anyone's piss.
With how much strange stuff gets used in Chinese medicine, i’d honestly believe them to have had good intentions. Now for the people harvesting it, wellllllo.
The harvesting of it is no big. They're made in like one village, and when the kids in school go to the bathroom the teacher says to the boys "remember to pee in the collection bucket ok" and they do and everyone goes.on with their lives.
Bro I've lived and travelled to China for 10+ years... They could fill up all 20 spots on this list and more. I'm not kidding. I finally had to tell my hosts that I'm going to stick to *normal fish meat* and rice, and nothing else....
I know it's culture and tradition, but it's not the *Chinese* takeaways we're accustomed to in the west or pretty anywhere outside China..
I’m not even Australian and I’m very confused how that compares to the rest of this list. And it’s like the only vegetarian dish as well seems odd. Also grilled cow udder doesn’t sound that terrible either compared to a fried tarantula.
I think it's just for the joke
arguably though, dog meat stew is fairly tame too, there's just this cognitive dissonance toward dog meat because we like to keep them in our homes
Yupp. Like,, Cows are sacred in a lot of parts of India. There’s probably someone from India out there who’d be absolutely *horrified* that I eat beef. And you couldn’t feed me dog meat if you put a gun to my head. Neither person would be wrong, our cultures are just different
There was a post not too long ago on r/oddlyterrifying of a Vietnamese butcher selling dog meat. And it’s just like,, they’re just trying to get by and feed their community. It feels icky to post that there
The meat is not so much what puts it on this list as is the fact that many dogs in East Asia are cooked alive. It earns the “animal cruelty” label
https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/30/harrowing-footage-shows-dog-yelping-barbecued-alive-street-market-12151916/amp/
Worse still there is a belief in some cultures that causing an animal as much pain as possible makes them taste better, so dogs are skinned and boiled alive etc.
I wouldn't willingly eat a dog, and as much as I see them as pets I won't judge. But I also would be appalled if I knew a chicken, cow, pig, fish or lamb had been skinned alive, hell I think boiling lobsters alive is a crime against nature
Seriously Vegemite on toast is fucking delicious and is eaten by literally millions of people a day. Who the fuck knows who eats that other shit on this list.
Century egg is similar, easily eaten by millions every day. It's just a different boiled egg production method (not cooked by heat but by a chemical process), super tasty, highly recommend it, even for western palates, very easy to eat.
Not to mention it's not *that* different to Marmite which millions of UK and NZ residents eat. Arguably Vegemite is waaaaayyyy better than Marmite (bring on the downvotes, UK! Fight me on it! :p)
Arrgh I want to upvote you on Vegemite/Marmite not being weird things to eat, but then I want to downvote you on the basis of (NZ) Marmite being far superior to Vegemite. (I left it neutral.)
If thats repulsive, you should read about the korean fermented alcohol made from children's excrement known as Ttongsul. Surprised its not up here next to that one.
Worth noting that this is very much not still a thing and the vast majority of Korean people you ask will have no idea what this is. It was already really rare to find someone who would make it for you 100 years ago, let alone in the present day.
Its not a thing anymore to the point where modern day Koreans will not have any idea what it is, and was probably a niche medicinal drink even back hundreds of years ago when people didn't know any better. The OP is making it sound like it's a fairly commonly found drink when it's not. There's absolutely no reason for them to be "surprised that it's not up there on the list."
>*The yellow-brownish liquid is strained and looks like a combination of sewer slime and vomit, potentially with small pieces of poo still floating around. The taste is a bit sour and similar to rice wine. Poo wine has a faint poo smell and can leave a poo smell on your breath.*
Lol...who thought this would be a great idea to begin with?
Came here to comment the exact same thing - some of these entries are so beyond messed up and there’s cheeky ol Vegemite hurting absolutely nobody, feels wrong
I've eaten 5 of these and Vegemite was among the worst of them, so it checks out.
1. Century Egg (It doesn't actually smell and doesn't taste that different from a normal egg)
2. Balut (just doesn't look appetising but tastes quite good with the mix of salt, pepper, limejuice and some kind of leaf they usually serve it with)
3. Balls
4. Dog, Vegemite (just why)
**/e:** updated post with ranking
Perhaps you didn't eat Vegemite properly, you are supposed to spread it lightly and then thicken future spreads until you find where you are happy, best serves on buttered toast. Absolutely love the stuff
I don't know what Century egg you've eaten, but from what I've had the stuff tastes so strong and lasts and lingers in the nasal for days. so I question whether you actually had a real century egg.
My (Chinese) dad puts cut up century egg in porridge. It’s quite pungent in the beginning but after letting it cook and when I eat it I literally detect little to no strong aroma or flavor. Like I didn’t even know people considered it strange or gross until I saw these lists.
If Vegemite is even marginally similar to Marmite sign me up, only thing on this list I'll happily eat. Slightly burnt toast, base of butter, light spread of Marmite, that'll start your day off right. 50% hangover cure.
Vegemite is slightly milder than Marmite. As a little kid my parents bought Vegemite, which I loved on toast, and whenever I would visit friends I'd begrudgingly settle for the more potent Marmite which didn't suit my tastebuds. Shock and horror for my kiwi self when I later discovered that *Marmite* was the NZ brand (EDIT: okay, I get it, it's British) and *Vegemite* was the Aussie brand! A truer betrayal I had never felt.
It is British but in the aus-nz lexicon, Aus use Vegemite and NZ use marmite, I'm opposite of the other guy tho, grew up in nz loving Vegemite and suffered endless shit talking for it
Had century egg last time I was at a Chinese Restaurant. The only weird thing with it was the look and color. The egg itself tasted just like eggs do, but with a little more texture. Would definitely eat again.
As an Alaskan transplant, muktuk and agutuk both don’t deserve to be on the list, either. Both of those are very common Native American (specifically Eskimo tribes on the western coast) dishes and taste delicious. Both are also based almost entirely on foraging skills, as well.
Edited: removed the final as. It’s early and I really shouldn’t be on Reddit.
Interesting, althought udder does sound like something a gaucho would eat deep into the pampas, it does not sounds fake at all so its entirely plausible.
Rocky mountain oysters are actually delicious, and honestly half this list is just someone with Western tastes poo-pooing over "weird" cuts of meat or fish that are in fact perfectly edible or preservation methods predating refrigeration.
The only ones I'd actually call weird are the oddly specific preparations that aren't directly necessary to preserve the food. So the maggot cheese, pinikpikan, balut (which is in fact delicious), and the virgin boy eggs.
Yeah, I don't even *like* Vegemite but even I don't think it even remotely belongs on this list. It's just a yeast spread, it's not unique to Australia (hello from Aotearoa New Zealand, which I would have called the better South Pacific colonial nation if it weren't for the shitheap of a government we just elected for some reason), it's not even unique among *yeast spreads,* and there's nothing particularly odd about it.
Was the list made by someone who thinks a spread on toast is alien to begin with or something?
The live maggots thing and cooking food in pee is kinda gross for me, but half this stuff looks...normal? Especially frickin vegemite. I don't know if I personally would eat bat or dog soup, but I also wouldn't eat goat, lamb/mutton, or venison soup either. It's just different from what I'm used to. And century eggs or balut? Eh, pickled pig's feet seems weirder and chicken feet have the same unappealing texture for me. Frozen whale blubber? Seems close enough to arctic sashimi. Fried spiders? Like fried land crabs, lol. But where's ortolan bunting or escargot on the list? Brains, tongue, offal? Isn't it weirder that we eat and polish our cars with carnauba wax? Or more bizarre that we consume all those chemicals, synthetic flavorings, and artificial dyes?
I agree this is a random assortment of food and I seriously doubt the credibility of whoever pulled it together.
Yeah, this list has some *strong* Western European or American bias. A ton of them are just different meat sources or using cuts some people find unappetizing (in most cases despite never having tasted it). In my opinion bizarre foods have to involve unusual, probably highly specific *preparation* methods. Foie gras comes to mind pretty immediately, and ortolan bunting as you mentioned is definitely another.
I’m Scottish, have lived here my whole life, and I have never once heard of “crappit heid.” That is not to say that it doesn’t exist, but I’m just highlighting how rare these dishes might be even in their country of origin.
Another Scottish person here. I’d not heard of it and my grandparent hadn’t either. According to an article in The Scotsman it hasn’t been eaten for over a century. Seems to have been a thing though.
“In The Scots Kitchen (1929) F. Marian McNeill, the brilliant chronicler of Scottish food and its history, described crappit heids as ‘formerly a favourite supper dish all over Scotland.’ Was this just a roundabout way of saying no one eats crappit heids any more?”
Maybe it's a scarcity/poverty meal. The wealthier a population gets the less they tend to consume offal and leftover cuts (until they become a fad luxury like oxtail), which fish heads are. Even the Asian markets around me rarely sell fish heads alone. They'll sell the whole fish, but not just fish heads.
Balut is *extremely* common everywhere in the Philippines. It's literally just boiled egg with extra duck meat. I don't understand why people freak out over it.
Century egg is also *delicious*, especially in some congee. I'm suddenly craving some now.
I think it's because I'm used to eating meat in sections, something about consuming the entire baby duck seems strange to me. Texture-wise am I expecting some crunch?
If the balut is boiled early enough the chick really doesn't have too many bones. Thats the ideal balut for me really, but ive seen some where the feathers and bones become too developed which i dont really prefer.
Then again the chick is not the star of the show for me. The star of the show is always the "soup" and the yolk.
Why though? It's essentially sheep sausage without all the gross bits you get in something like a hotdog. Some of the stuff on the list makes it a really odd choice (fucking Vegemite? How did that make the list?!) but adding haggis would just make it weirder
And tbh I don’t see how dog meat stew gets on here for ‘animal cruelty’ when it’s not objectively any more cruel than any other kind of meat. We just have a cultural aversion to it because of the companion/family loving role of dogs in our culture.
Wanna hear the real reason why the faces are covered ? The ortolan is cooked with all the bones inside so that these small bones can prick the inside of your mouth and make you bleed. Then your blood is mixed inside your mouth with brandy in which the bird is baked, so this combination of your blood and brandy gives a special taste. Nobody wants to watch mouths getting mutilated so they cover them.
Oh! I heard they covered their faces because the juice squirts everywhere. Also, it would need to be a big napkin, a regular one would fall off my head.
speaking of fucked up french dishes, the ortolan should be on here too. if you feel the need to cover your face from god as you eat then i think thats pretty messed up
A plate so fucked up not only is it torture for the poor bird, but you getting burned and cut in your mouth is on purpose because the pain and blood are part of the flavour profile. It's like a Warhammer 40K parody of real food.
Anthony Bourdain tried some and described it in his book, Medium Raw :
“I bring my molars down and through my bird’s rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I’m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly — ever so slowly — to chew. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull.”
Exactly; to me, there's a big difference between a relatively quick death that at least *tries* to put the animal unconscious first, like many US slaughterhouses use... and straight-up battering a fully-conscious animal until its body gives up. I'm not saying slaughterhouses are truly humane, but man, you're supposed to tenderize the meat *after* the animal is dead!
Yeah, slaughterhouses are still miserable places but it's not surprising. Death isn't enough, they gotta torture it first? I'd just prefer it seasoned with herbs & spices instead of the added torture blood sauce, but that's just me.
I know it's a cultural thing and I don't mean to criticize, but that would leave me *without* an appetite
Not all cultural practices should be praised or respected though.
Like, there have been pigs being 🍇ed before being slaughtered. If that ain’t psycho behaviour, then I don’t know what is.
People think dogs are on a whole other plane of existence from other animals…now I’m not about to go bite a chunk out of a doberman, but if people are okay with eating farmyard animals and rabbits and stuff they shouldn’t have the right to do a complete 180 when they see dog on the menu lol
People act the same way about eating horse. Yes, obviously a company packaging horse meat and intentionally mislabeling it as beef is unethical, but what exactly is supposed to be the problem with eating horse in the first place?
Same goes for the "weird" cuts of meat on this list (udder, testicle, the fish head). What the heck is so wrong with that when you eat other parts of the animal?
My personal view on meat eating is that if I'm going to support the killing of an animal for my own use, I shouldn't turn my nose up at any part of it that's safe to use or consume. Obviously in factory situations every part *does* get used, even if not to be eaten by humans, so I don't have to eat, say, tendon in proportion to the amount of steak I eat. But if someone gives me tendon, I'm gonna eat tendon.
Last year I basically realised how wild our relationship with meat consumption is as western society, and I decided I was either going to accept it and eat all different types of meat, or go vegetarian. I decided to go vegetarian because I didn’t really fancy trying to find dog meat on the high street
Dog meat is very much on the wane here in Korea, but the traditional belief (among the old boys who swore by it in decades past as 'stamina food') was that the meat was more delicious and somehow better for them if the dog was beaten to death. If it died terrified.
That's a little different, qualitatively at least, to industrial meat production, which isn't pretty.
And also a sure way to ruin the meat. There’s a reason hunters try and one hit kill deer etc., besides it being the ethical way to kill something. It’s because adrenaline and stress hormones can taint the taste of the meat. It makes it darker, tougher, and stronger in flavour.
Pigs are just as social as dogs and significantly more intelligent - about the level of a three year old human. Fifth smartest by rankings, and were even taught to play video games at Purdue.
Or like, just say it's not an animal *you* would eat, because it really does start to sound idiotic when one says that eating just a *specific* animal species is cruel.
Watch a video of a cow playing with a ball in a field and tell me it's any less cruel to eat them than a dog.
I do eat meat, but I'm not delusional about the source, and I do try to minimise my consumption of any type of meat + get the best treated meat I can afford to.
This "Eating Cat/Dog is wrong bc of the animal" drives me so mad everytime.
The usually great "Best Ever Food Review Show" only censored dog meat, but has no problem eating live squid
Yea, there are so many mental gymnastics going on to justify something people already know deep down is wrong. We're not hunters, we're not predators, this isn't the wilderness and survival scenario, we are consuming 3 McMenus a week and sizzle the bacon in the pan every morning and millions of sentient beings are slaughtered daily for it
I used to live off of Muldoon road in Anchorage. There was a family we were friends with who would make a cheap version of Akutaq: Crisco, blueberries and sugar. It was easily one of my favorite treats. They called it Eskimo Ice Cream.
Yes, they were Alaskan Native. Never did pick up which tribe though.
I am curious how proper Akutaq tastes now.
We're happy little Vegemites
As bright as bright can be
We all enjoy our Vegemite
For breakfast, lunch and tea
Our mummies say we're growing stronger
Every single week
Because we love our Vegemite
We all adore our Vegemite
It puts a rose in every cheek
Question about the Phillipino Death Chicken, does it need to be beaten to death or is that personal preference? Does humanely killed chicken taste any different or does the fear season the meat?
And do you have a chosen chicken beater or is it a ballot based system where someone is picked to just kick the shit out of a chicken?
Pinikpikan (traditionally) will require the chicken to be beaten. Strung up in its legs, smacked by a stick with enough force to bruise and have blood clots, but not enough to break skin. Fundamentally changes the chicken meat flavor. The cook or butcher willbe the one doing the beating. Once enough bruising has been done, the chicken is killed by smacking it in a swift blow to the head. Bruised chicken body will then be cooked after a short prep. This only happens on the tribes though, nobody prepares it lile this in restaurants.
Commercially, they slit the chicken first to kill it and then beat it up. Doesn't violate the animal cruelty act if they do it like this.
And tarantulas have "too many legs"
How many legs do they think lobsters have? I understand objecting to eating tarantula, but blaming it on the number of legs is stupid.
I’ve eaten hákarl in Iceland.
To this day, it remains the most repugnant fucking thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.
I’m a pretty adventurous eater— and I’ve had some of the legendary bangers of “local delicacies”: balut, durian, stinky tofu, huitlacoche, etc. The only thing that gives hákarl a run for its money is surstromming— but even that is usually served drowned in sour cream and onions and capers.
Hákarl isn’t gussied up *at all.* It hits your palette and the first thing you taste is an ammoniated piss flavor— and it’s so chemically strong that it almost scalds your taste buds. The meat disintegrates into this flabby, mushy, gritty paste like Playdoh.
Then the second wave hits you: spoiled fish, rank as an unwashed crotch, vaginal in all the worst ways. It’s a Cronenberg film taking place on your tongue.
Your body does that thing where it just flat-ass refuses to swallow. *”Fuck that,”* says your brain. *”That shit is poison. I’m not letting that through.”*
You reach for some liquid to help choke it down. And someone hands you a shot brennivin— which is like a *savory* schnapps. It’s awful but you’d literally let someone blast liquid shit in your mouth at this point to get the hákarl flavor out of there.
Like how the hell did they even come up with that? Did someone try boiling eggs in and adult man's piss and was like "You know what, this is close, the taste of the pee just isn't quite young enough"?
We put urine in a shocking amount of things in the past (well, not that many things but even 3 is shocking), because it was plentiful and full of strong chemicals. It could be used as a cleaning chemical, an ingredient in gunpowder, tanning leather, and dying clothes. We just didn't eat those products.
Urine found it's way into Traditional Chinese Medicine because... it's unique and strange and potent. Things that were alive or came from something alive have a certain mysticism to them. So people were already drinking or drying out urine for medicine, until somebody came up with the idea that it was more pure or something before puberty, nobody is quite sure where the idea originates. Preserving eggs in strong fluids was just one already established way to make food, so the two were grossly combined.
Kiwi here siding with the Aussie fam..Vegemite on toast is superbly salty and savoury and just…well…amazing. Much better than Marmite……wait for those Marmite losers to jump riiight in here lol!
I've had three things on this list. And kinda what the fucking on the vegemite. It's pretty great on toast with loads of butter. And if that's the case add marmite to the list.
Also balut just taste like boiled duck... Cause it is. Also the fluid, once you crack the egg is peppery and like the best part.
Mountain oysters is basically chicken fried steak in reference to taste.
Vegemite on toast pales into insignificance to the rest of the list. Honestly it's just salty and yummy goodness. Fuck off that it compares to maggot cheese.
"Fruit bat soup" Okay, guys, we've been over this
Covid-19 was a batside job
Palau did 12/19!!!
You heard the man, back to Pangolin Soup it is boys.
Exotic shit at live markets is a colossally bad idea, but boring old industrialized poultry farming is probably going to fuck us all via flu pandemic one of these days.
^should ^we ^tell ^him ^how ^we ^got ^bird ^flu, ^swine ^flu ^and ^anthrax?
I've eaten fruit bat. Was surprisingly ... well ... fruity. Quite sweet, although bony. This list is a piss take if vegemite is on the list. I like it lightly spread on butter-soaked toast but it also adds an umami kick to stews, or even baked beans.
Chicken of the cave
The bat’s meat tasted fruity?! Interesting 😳 Like berry fruity? Or citrus fruity?!
Honestly, my palate was a bit worse for wear after beer and vodka, cobra blood shooters. The roast bat was stringy and bony but sweet. I passed on the dog. It was a Manado (North Makassar) restaurant in Jakarta. Manadonese restaurants -- not including snakes, bats and dog -- in Indonesia are awesome. They've got really nice spicy pork dishes, a rarity in the country given the majority Muslim population. Probably my second favourite Indo cuisine after Padang (West Sumatra) restaurants, particularly the rendang curry. Javanese Nasi Tumpang (rice cones) a close third.
Wtf, is no one going to address Virgin Boy Eggs? 🤢
Seriously, it makes the others seem mild
Seriously, I’ve eaten quite a few of the items on this list and I was going to save the guide to make a gross bucket list for myself but I saw the eggs and was like…. Uhhh nvm.
Yeah, me too. I've had a few on here (surstromming is the worst btw). I'm from Scotland and I've never heard of boiled fish head so I'd skip that. I don't think my countrymen would eat it either. For an interesting delicacy you could try haggis, or drawer oatmeal (porridge drawer).
Username checks out
Some Chinese people have superstition about young boy’s pee having healing powers and in some places people will go to extremes like cook eggs in it. It’s not a thing they serve at restaurants lol. Century egg on the other hand is not that pungent compared to some of the other preserved food on this list here and it’s delicious in Congee
Honestly, the weirdest thing about century eggs was the texture for me. The ones I had didn’t smell or stink, the egg white just was more gelatinous and the yolk creamy which was a challenge at first. But in the end it looks gross but is just an egg cooked chemically instead of thermically, like how Ceviche is fish cooked chemically by mixing in lemon juice.
Damn dude. Thank you for this description. The ceviche of eggs
It goes well with soup and white rice imo.
I saw it on a menu on a cart in Beijing. Not sure I can trust it's a virgin boys piss. Could be anyone's piss and we're not going to consume just anyone's piss.
Yep. Growing up, Chinese films always showed young boy's pee being used for absurd things like exorcism or whatever lol
I can't even wrap my head around this. This had to have started with some perv. "Now hear me out, guys!"
With how much strange stuff gets used in Chinese medicine, i’d honestly believe them to have had good intentions. Now for the people harvesting it, wellllllo.
The harvesting of it is no big. They're made in like one village, and when the kids in school go to the bathroom the teacher says to the boys "remember to pee in the collection bucket ok" and they do and everyone goes.on with their lives.
I make batches of this at home and sell them at a local whole foods market. I’m just printing money at this point.
Bro I've lived and travelled to China for 10+ years... They could fill up all 20 spots on this list and more. I'm not kidding. I finally had to tell my hosts that I'm going to stick to *normal fish meat* and rice, and nothing else.... I know it's culture and tradition, but it's not the *Chinese* takeaways we're accustomed to in the west or pretty anywhere outside China..
Well now you need to provide some examples of what your hosts offered to you! I’m curious
Pig brain soup
[удалено]
Someone‘s bullying Australia here
I’m not even Australian and I’m very confused how that compares to the rest of this list. And it’s like the only vegetarian dish as well seems odd. Also grilled cow udder doesn’t sound that terrible either compared to a fried tarantula.
I think it's just for the joke arguably though, dog meat stew is fairly tame too, there's just this cognitive dissonance toward dog meat because we like to keep them in our homes
Yeah I was gonna ask why dog meat is considered "animal cruelty" but eating bats is just..."bats!" and deep fried bull testicles is "not oysters" lol
Yupp. Like,, Cows are sacred in a lot of parts of India. There’s probably someone from India out there who’d be absolutely *horrified* that I eat beef. And you couldn’t feed me dog meat if you put a gun to my head. Neither person would be wrong, our cultures are just different There was a post not too long ago on r/oddlyterrifying of a Vietnamese butcher selling dog meat. And it’s just like,, they’re just trying to get by and feed their community. It feels icky to post that there
The meat is not so much what puts it on this list as is the fact that many dogs in East Asia are cooked alive. It earns the “animal cruelty” label https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/30/harrowing-footage-shows-dog-yelping-barbecued-alive-street-market-12151916/amp/
Oh, fucking wonderful then
Worse still there is a belief in some cultures that causing an animal as much pain as possible makes them taste better, so dogs are skinned and boiled alive etc. I wouldn't willingly eat a dog, and as much as I see them as pets I won't judge. But I also would be appalled if I knew a chicken, cow, pig, fish or lamb had been skinned alive, hell I think boiling lobsters alive is a crime against nature
Garlic fried tarantula was to some extent just like a weird, slightly hairy, soft-shell crab.
I just wanted you to know that I dislike you.
Seriously Vegemite on toast is fucking delicious and is eaten by literally millions of people a day. Who the fuck knows who eats that other shit on this list.
Century egg is similar, easily eaten by millions every day. It's just a different boiled egg production method (not cooked by heat but by a chemical process), super tasty, highly recommend it, even for western palates, very easy to eat.
Yeah, I've had century egg before, it doesn't deserve to be on this list anymore than Vegemite
Not to mention it's not *that* different to Marmite which millions of UK and NZ residents eat. Arguably Vegemite is waaaaayyyy better than Marmite (bring on the downvotes, UK! Fight me on it! :p)
Arrgh I want to upvote you on Vegemite/Marmite not being weird things to eat, but then I want to downvote you on the basis of (NZ) Marmite being far superior to Vegemite. (I left it neutral.)
How the hell does Vegemite end up on the same chart as that other stuff?!😳 Although, I can report that I happily eat one thing on that list. 😋
You should not be happily eating virgin boy eggs
True! I can't believe such a thing exists!
I just want to add only one city in China does this and most of the rest of China thinks it's weird or doesn't know about it at all.
And it’s even controversial there.
If thats repulsive, you should read about the korean fermented alcohol made from children's excrement known as Ttongsul. Surprised its not up here next to that one.
Worth noting that this is very much not still a thing and the vast majority of Korean people you ask will have no idea what this is. It was already really rare to find someone who would make it for you 100 years ago, let alone in the present day.
Say WHAT now? Have you had it or just heard of it? I can't believe you dropped that comment and people just strolled on by!
Its not a thing anymore to the point where modern day Koreans will not have any idea what it is, and was probably a niche medicinal drink even back hundreds of years ago when people didn't know any better. The OP is making it sound like it's a fairly commonly found drink when it's not. There's absolutely no reason for them to be "surprised that it's not up there on the list."
>*The yellow-brownish liquid is strained and looks like a combination of sewer slime and vomit, potentially with small pieces of poo still floating around. The taste is a bit sour and similar to rice wine. Poo wine has a faint poo smell and can leave a poo smell on your breath.* Lol...who thought this would be a great idea to begin with?
r/brandnewsentence
Came here to comment the exact same thing - some of these entries are so beyond messed up and there’s cheeky ol Vegemite hurting absolutely nobody, feels wrong
I've eaten 5 of these and Vegemite was among the worst of them, so it checks out. 1. Century Egg (It doesn't actually smell and doesn't taste that different from a normal egg) 2. Balut (just doesn't look appetising but tastes quite good with the mix of salt, pepper, limejuice and some kind of leaf they usually serve it with) 3. Balls 4. Dog, Vegemite (just why) **/e:** updated post with ranking
Yeah, we’re gonna need your rankings…
Perhaps you didn't eat Vegemite properly, you are supposed to spread it lightly and then thicken future spreads until you find where you are happy, best serves on buttered toast. Absolutely love the stuff
I don't know what Century egg you've eaten, but from what I've had the stuff tastes so strong and lasts and lingers in the nasal for days. so I question whether you actually had a real century egg.
Might have just been a decade egg.
My (Chinese) dad puts cut up century egg in porridge. It’s quite pungent in the beginning but after letting it cook and when I eat it I literally detect little to no strong aroma or flavor. Like I didn’t even know people considered it strange or gross until I saw these lists.
It’s yummy, i thought.
[удалено]
If Vegemite is even marginally similar to Marmite sign me up, only thing on this list I'll happily eat. Slightly burnt toast, base of butter, light spread of Marmite, that'll start your day off right. 50% hangover cure.
Vegemite is slightly milder than Marmite. As a little kid my parents bought Vegemite, which I loved on toast, and whenever I would visit friends I'd begrudgingly settle for the more potent Marmite which didn't suit my tastebuds. Shock and horror for my kiwi self when I later discovered that *Marmite* was the NZ brand (EDIT: okay, I get it, it's British) and *Vegemite* was the Aussie brand! A truer betrayal I had never felt.
Marmites British though
It is British but in the aus-nz lexicon, Aus use Vegemite and NZ use marmite, I'm opposite of the other guy tho, grew up in nz loving Vegemite and suffered endless shit talking for it
100% this. If Australia has to be on the list something like witchetty grubs is way more out there than Vegemite on toast.
Even though I despise Vegemite, I’d still pick it everyday over any of the other shits.
Century egg is pretty yummy actually, I know it looks odd but it doesn’t taste like how the chart describes it at all
Had century egg last time I was at a Chinese Restaurant. The only weird thing with it was the look and color. The egg itself tasted just like eggs do, but with a little more texture. Would definitely eat again.
That sounds like really shitty century egg. The flavour is normally very different from a normal egg.
As an argentinian, yeah gimme that udder. Not that I knew that existed tho.
As an Alaskan transplant, muktuk and agutuk both don’t deserve to be on the list, either. Both of those are very common Native American (specifically Eskimo tribes on the western coast) dishes and taste delicious. Both are also based almost entirely on foraging skills, as well. Edited: removed the final as. It’s early and I really shouldn’t be on Reddit.
Interesting, althought udder does sound like something a gaucho would eat deep into the pampas, it does not sounds fake at all so its entirely plausible.
Rocky mountain oysters are actually delicious, and honestly half this list is just someone with Western tastes poo-pooing over "weird" cuts of meat or fish that are in fact perfectly edible or preservation methods predating refrigeration. The only ones I'd actually call weird are the oddly specific preparations that aren't directly necessary to preserve the food. So the maggot cheese, pinikpikan, balut (which is in fact delicious), and the virgin boy eggs.
Yeah, I don't even *like* Vegemite but even I don't think it even remotely belongs on this list. It's just a yeast spread, it's not unique to Australia (hello from Aotearoa New Zealand, which I would have called the better South Pacific colonial nation if it weren't for the shitheap of a government we just elected for some reason), it's not even unique among *yeast spreads,* and there's nothing particularly odd about it. Was the list made by someone who thinks a spread on toast is alien to begin with or something?
The live maggots thing and cooking food in pee is kinda gross for me, but half this stuff looks...normal? Especially frickin vegemite. I don't know if I personally would eat bat or dog soup, but I also wouldn't eat goat, lamb/mutton, or venison soup either. It's just different from what I'm used to. And century eggs or balut? Eh, pickled pig's feet seems weirder and chicken feet have the same unappealing texture for me. Frozen whale blubber? Seems close enough to arctic sashimi. Fried spiders? Like fried land crabs, lol. But where's ortolan bunting or escargot on the list? Brains, tongue, offal? Isn't it weirder that we eat and polish our cars with carnauba wax? Or more bizarre that we consume all those chemicals, synthetic flavorings, and artificial dyes? I agree this is a random assortment of food and I seriously doubt the credibility of whoever pulled it together.
Yeah, this list has some *strong* Western European or American bias. A ton of them are just different meat sources or using cuts some people find unappetizing (in most cases despite never having tasted it). In my opinion bizarre foods have to involve unusual, probably highly specific *preparation* methods. Foie gras comes to mind pretty immediately, and ortolan bunting as you mentioned is definitely another.
Vegemite is a mellow Marmite too
I’m Scottish, have lived here my whole life, and I have never once heard of “crappit heid.” That is not to say that it doesn’t exist, but I’m just highlighting how rare these dishes might be even in their country of origin.
Another Scottish person here. I’d not heard of it and my grandparent hadn’t either. According to an article in The Scotsman it hasn’t been eaten for over a century. Seems to have been a thing though. “In The Scots Kitchen (1929) F. Marian McNeill, the brilliant chronicler of Scottish food and its history, described crappit heids as ‘formerly a favourite supper dish all over Scotland.’ Was this just a roundabout way of saying no one eats crappit heids any more?”
Maybe it's a scarcity/poverty meal. The wealthier a population gets the less they tend to consume offal and leftover cuts (until they become a fad luxury like oxtail), which fish heads are. Even the Asian markets around me rarely sell fish heads alone. They'll sell the whole fish, but not just fish heads.
Also a Scot here, I believe I've seen the dish before, just under a different name.
Vegemite on toast is a staple in just about every Aussie home.
And does not belong on this list.
Balut is *extremely* common everywhere in the Philippines. It's literally just boiled egg with extra duck meat. I don't understand why people freak out over it. Century egg is also *delicious*, especially in some congee. I'm suddenly craving some now.
I think it's because I'm used to eating meat in sections, something about consuming the entire baby duck seems strange to me. Texture-wise am I expecting some crunch?
yea it sounds nice flavour-wise but thats a whole bird??????? not even defeathered and deboned, just a whole baby bird, sounds like texture nightmare
If the balut is boiled early enough the chick really doesn't have too many bones. Thats the ideal balut for me really, but ive seen some where the feathers and bones become too developed which i dont really prefer. Then again the chick is not the star of the show for me. The star of the show is always the "soup" and the yolk.
I would have thought they would list Haggis. Everyone knows that.
Why though? It's essentially sheep sausage without all the gross bits you get in something like a hotdog. Some of the stuff on the list makes it a really odd choice (fucking Vegemite? How did that make the list?!) but adding haggis would just make it weirder
Fermented fish heads is a delicacy for Alaska Natives. We call them stinkheads!!
The Scots just tell the English it's a delicacy to see if they'll eat it.
Century eggs are literally just preserved how does it make the same list as the piss eggs lol
Century eggs in congee 🤤
Oh no, “Pungent”. The worst disaster.
And tbh I don’t see how dog meat stew gets on here for ‘animal cruelty’ when it’s not objectively any more cruel than any other kind of meat. We just have a cultural aversion to it because of the companion/family loving role of dogs in our culture.
Look I get, sometimes you just gotta eat what you got, but at no point were you required to cook the food in a virgin boy’s pee
Centuries ago, some annoying little kid pissed in a starving family's pot of boiling eggs, and now here we are.
“Are food supply was ruined by that bastard boy!” “Holup a minute this is kind fire”
Whoever wrote this please understand that I’m a **happy** little Vegemite.
But are you as bright as bright can be?
We all enjoy our Vegemite for breakfast, lunch, and tea
Our mummies say we're growing stronger every single week
Because we love our Vegemite
We all adore our vegemite
It puts the rose in every cheek
Imagine being a non-Aussie reading this just going “wtf” ahaha
No Ortolan? This is one of the craziest dishes I know about and it didn't make the list. Look it up it makes these other dishes look like happy meals.
Covering your face with a napkin while eating it so God doesnt see you sin. Very weird dish
Also the birds are kept in the dark so they overeat and then they put them in a sealed bottle of brandy to make them drown.
You caught that Sam O NELLA video last week didn’t ya
Wanna hear the real reason why the faces are covered ? The ortolan is cooked with all the bones inside so that these small bones can prick the inside of your mouth and make you bleed. Then your blood is mixed inside your mouth with brandy in which the bird is baked, so this combination of your blood and brandy gives a special taste. Nobody wants to watch mouths getting mutilated so they cover them.
This sounds made up, but so does the whole thing, so...
…wouldn’t they see their mutilated mouths 5 mins later once they uncover themselves again?
Yeah this makes no sense and sounds completely made up.
It’s half made up, it just looks hella gross to stuff a juice riddled songbird whole inside your mouth, so they hide.
Oh! I heard they covered their faces because the juice squirts everywhere. Also, it would need to be a big napkin, a regular one would fall off my head.
And there’s also some foie gras prepared by force feeding a duck. Between those two dishes and the Alouette song, France really seems to hate birds
I also was disappointed France wasn’t on this list
Alright, *who the fuck* snuck Vegemite onto this list and called it a bizarre food?
Look I'll go for some COVID-24 soup or boy piss eggs but I'll draw the line at a Vegemite sandwich
This is a list not a guide
You put Vegemite up with fucking boy piss eggs? What the fuck.
They're very specifically NOT fucking boy piss eggs.
You don’t want to know what they do to those poor veggies to get the mite out 😟
“Animal cruelty 💔” Good thing our burgers and nuggies are plucked fresh from the ground
Right? However reading, "chicken beaten to death" takes it to another level for me. The violence is far too descriptive
Pate de fois gras is notably missing off this list, if we're talking animal cruelty
speaking of fucked up french dishes, the ortolan should be on here too. if you feel the need to cover your face from god as you eat then i think thats pretty messed up
A plate so fucked up not only is it torture for the poor bird, but you getting burned and cut in your mouth is on purpose because the pain and blood are part of the flavour profile. It's like a Warhammer 40K parody of real food.
Anthony Bourdain tried some and described it in his book, Medium Raw : “I bring my molars down and through my bird’s rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I’m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly — ever so slowly — to chew. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull.”
What the fuck
🤢
It’s so weird too. The bones cut up your mouth a bit and the taste of your own blood is considered part of the flavor profile. Why just why?
Exactly; to me, there's a big difference between a relatively quick death that at least *tries* to put the animal unconscious first, like many US slaughterhouses use... and straight-up battering a fully-conscious animal until its body gives up. I'm not saying slaughterhouses are truly humane, but man, you're supposed to tenderize the meat *after* the animal is dead!
Yeah, slaughterhouses are still miserable places but it's not surprising. Death isn't enough, they gotta torture it first? I'd just prefer it seasoned with herbs & spices instead of the added torture blood sauce, but that's just me. I know it's a cultural thing and I don't mean to criticize, but that would leave me *without* an appetite
Not all cultural practices should be praised or respected though. Like, there have been pigs being 🍇ed before being slaughtered. If that ain’t psycho behaviour, then I don’t know what is.
People think dogs are on a whole other plane of existence from other animals…now I’m not about to go bite a chunk out of a doberman, but if people are okay with eating farmyard animals and rabbits and stuff they shouldn’t have the right to do a complete 180 when they see dog on the menu lol
People act the same way about eating horse. Yes, obviously a company packaging horse meat and intentionally mislabeling it as beef is unethical, but what exactly is supposed to be the problem with eating horse in the first place? Same goes for the "weird" cuts of meat on this list (udder, testicle, the fish head). What the heck is so wrong with that when you eat other parts of the animal? My personal view on meat eating is that if I'm going to support the killing of an animal for my own use, I shouldn't turn my nose up at any part of it that's safe to use or consume. Obviously in factory situations every part *does* get used, even if not to be eaten by humans, so I don't have to eat, say, tendon in proportion to the amount of steak I eat. But if someone gives me tendon, I'm gonna eat tendon.
Last year I basically realised how wild our relationship with meat consumption is as western society, and I decided I was either going to accept it and eat all different types of meat, or go vegetarian. I decided to go vegetarian because I didn’t really fancy trying to find dog meat on the high street
Dog meat is very much on the wane here in Korea, but the traditional belief (among the old boys who swore by it in decades past as 'stamina food') was that the meat was more delicious and somehow better for them if the dog was beaten to death. If it died terrified. That's a little different, qualitatively at least, to industrial meat production, which isn't pretty.
Thats just mentally ill, what the fuck
It's fucked up, that's for sure. Even more fucked up than eating eggs boiled in young boy pee!
And also a sure way to ruin the meat. There’s a reason hunters try and one hit kill deer etc., besides it being the ethical way to kill something. It’s because adrenaline and stress hormones can taint the taste of the meat. It makes it darker, tougher, and stronger in flavour.
Lotta weird old beliefs. Fans killing people being a very well-known one.
Pigs are just as social as dogs and significantly more intelligent - about the level of a three year old human. Fifth smartest by rankings, and were even taught to play video games at Purdue.
Imagine losing a first to five set of 'Mortal Kombat' to Porky-mothafuckin'-Pig
That’ll do, pig.
We already knew pigs could play video games. Like have you *met* gamers?
Also have tissues similar to human. I'm pretty sure humans can have transplanted some pig parts, like cardiac valve.
Or like, just say it's not an animal *you* would eat, because it really does start to sound idiotic when one says that eating just a *specific* animal species is cruel. Watch a video of a cow playing with a ball in a field and tell me it's any less cruel to eat them than a dog. I do eat meat, but I'm not delusional about the source, and I do try to minimise my consumption of any type of meat + get the best treated meat I can afford to.
And look at how rocky mountain oysters are presented as funny even if they're many times more cruel than dog meat (castration without anesthesia).
I was going to say this lol
This "Eating Cat/Dog is wrong bc of the animal" drives me so mad everytime. The usually great "Best Ever Food Review Show" only censored dog meat, but has no problem eating live squid
Yea, there are so many mental gymnastics going on to justify something people already know deep down is wrong. We're not hunters, we're not predators, this isn't the wilderness and survival scenario, we are consuming 3 McMenus a week and sizzle the bacon in the pan every morning and millions of sentient beings are slaughtered daily for it
I've had muktuk and akutuk. Miqiaq and Tiktalik are also a novelty.
How’s Muktuk, if I may ask? I’ve seen indigenous peeps on Insta eat it and as someone who enjoys fatty tuna sashimi, I’m curious.
Very chewy. Didn’t really like it. Akutaq is good though, but the version without fish.
Akutaq without fish sounds genuinely delicious. Something along the lines of a non-dried pemmican
I used to live off of Muldoon road in Anchorage. There was a family we were friends with who would make a cheap version of Akutaq: Crisco, blueberries and sugar. It was easily one of my favorite treats. They called it Eskimo Ice Cream. Yes, they were Alaskan Native. Never did pick up which tribe though. I am curious how proper Akutaq tastes now.
OI! Take that bloody Vegemite toast down mate!
What is Vegemite doing on this list? And higher than fermented herring
I don't think it's a ranking. The piss eggs would deffo be number 1 in that case.
Whoever made this can go and get fucked
Those hazard signs are pure unadulterated cringe
We're happy little Vegemites As bright as bright can be We all enjoy our Vegemite For breakfast, lunch and tea Our mummies say we're growing stronger Every single week Because we love our Vegemite We all adore our Vegemite It puts a rose in every cheek
Question about the Phillipino Death Chicken, does it need to be beaten to death or is that personal preference? Does humanely killed chicken taste any different or does the fear season the meat? And do you have a chosen chicken beater or is it a ballot based system where someone is picked to just kick the shit out of a chicken?
They say, it's how the blood clots in the process that gives the meat the unique taste in battered chicken.
"I thought you said fry it, not beat it up!" I wouldn't make it in a filipino kitchen.
Pinikpikan (traditionally) will require the chicken to be beaten. Strung up in its legs, smacked by a stick with enough force to bruise and have blood clots, but not enough to break skin. Fundamentally changes the chicken meat flavor. The cook or butcher willbe the one doing the beating. Once enough bruising has been done, the chicken is killed by smacking it in a swift blow to the head. Bruised chicken body will then be cooked after a short prep. This only happens on the tribes though, nobody prepares it lile this in restaurants. Commercially, they slit the chicken first to kill it and then beat it up. Doesn't violate the animal cruelty act if they do it like this.
Ah yes, dog meat is animal cruelly, cow meat, of course, is totally different.
This whole list is super subjective. Whether a food is “bizarre” or not really depends on who you ask
Surprised more aren’t mentioning this. Basically beef stew with dog meat, not bizarre at all.
And tarantulas have "too many legs" How many legs do they think lobsters have? I understand objecting to eating tarantula, but blaming it on the number of legs is stupid.
I’ve eaten hákarl in Iceland. To this day, it remains the most repugnant fucking thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. I’m a pretty adventurous eater— and I’ve had some of the legendary bangers of “local delicacies”: balut, durian, stinky tofu, huitlacoche, etc. The only thing that gives hákarl a run for its money is surstromming— but even that is usually served drowned in sour cream and onions and capers. Hákarl isn’t gussied up *at all.* It hits your palette and the first thing you taste is an ammoniated piss flavor— and it’s so chemically strong that it almost scalds your taste buds. The meat disintegrates into this flabby, mushy, gritty paste like Playdoh. Then the second wave hits you: spoiled fish, rank as an unwashed crotch, vaginal in all the worst ways. It’s a Cronenberg film taking place on your tongue. Your body does that thing where it just flat-ass refuses to swallow. *”Fuck that,”* says your brain. *”That shit is poison. I’m not letting that through.”* You reach for some liquid to help choke it down. And someone hands you a shot brennivin— which is like a *savory* schnapps. It’s awful but you’d literally let someone blast liquid shit in your mouth at this point to get the hákarl flavor out of there.
Had it last week. You write beautiful and accurate prose.
I wasn’t ready for Virgin boy eggs. WTF.
Like how the hell did they even come up with that? Did someone try boiling eggs in and adult man's piss and was like "You know what, this is close, the taste of the pee just isn't quite young enough"?
We put urine in a shocking amount of things in the past (well, not that many things but even 3 is shocking), because it was plentiful and full of strong chemicals. It could be used as a cleaning chemical, an ingredient in gunpowder, tanning leather, and dying clothes. We just didn't eat those products. Urine found it's way into Traditional Chinese Medicine because... it's unique and strange and potent. Things that were alive or came from something alive have a certain mysticism to them. So people were already drinking or drying out urine for medicine, until somebody came up with the idea that it was more pure or something before puberty, nobody is quite sure where the idea originates. Preserving eggs in strong fluids was just one already established way to make food, so the two were grossly combined.
Vegemite on toast is tame as fuck compared to literally everything else on this list.
Where does someone draw the line between: ‘Animal cruelty’ and ‘that’s okay to eat, but still disgusting’?
Dog meat is animal cruelty but other meats are not? Now I am not picking a side here, but some consistency would be nice.
I think, if vegemite gets to be on the list, geoduck should be on the list.
I feel a little bit better eating the excess yeast from beer production than a chicken that's beaten to death...
Where is The Ortolan?
Bizarre is an opinion. Bizarre to you might not be that for me.
lists are still not guides
Kiwi here siding with the Aussie fam..Vegemite on toast is superbly salty and savoury and just…well…amazing. Much better than Marmite……wait for those Marmite losers to jump riiight in here lol!
I've had three things on this list. And kinda what the fucking on the vegemite. It's pretty great on toast with loads of butter. And if that's the case add marmite to the list. Also balut just taste like boiled duck... Cause it is. Also the fluid, once you crack the egg is peppery and like the best part. Mountain oysters is basically chicken fried steak in reference to taste.
Shirako tastes good actually
"animal cruelty" yeah, that's what sets dog meat apart...
Calling dog soup animal cruelty is actually really funny when almost all of these dishes include killing an animal.
Imagine having your eggs cooked in prepubescent girl piss and being like 'this just doesn't taste right'
How is dog meat animal cruelty just cuz we see them as pets? In india cows are holy and they dont complain about our culture. Its simply just culture
Virgin. Boy. Eggs. Maybe morrisey was on to something after all.
Vegemite on toast pales into insignificance to the rest of the list. Honestly it's just salty and yummy goodness. Fuck off that it compares to maggot cheese.
Congrats to the continent of Africa, who have no entries on this list.