How do you stack up compared to the Andrew Zimmern’s and Bear Grylls’ of the world? In other words—what was the weirdest thing you ever ate?
Taste Test is our week-long tribute to the leaps that occur when technology meets cuisine, spanning everything from the historic breakthroughs that made food tastier and safer to the Earl Grey-friendly replicators we impatiently await in the future.
I tried this last time I was in the Philippines..
It was different, hehe. didn’t taste bad, just different.. Mr Zebra eater up there (Andrew Zimmern) has had it too, hehe. I don’t think I will have it again though, I didn’t know what it was till afterwoods.
As someone who has worked on Australian Aboriginal wild foods for some decades, my Outback trips have often given me the chance to taste-test some different morsels. Wombat meat is extremely grassy and not to my palate but maybe anyone who likes olive oil (that’s weird food to me) would love it. Dugong is another acquired taste. The meat from females is preferred over that from male animals but again, it is gamey, rich and called them sea cows is not referring to the flavour of their meat.
Another interesting meat was green turtle intestine. The turtle was traditionally hunted and while preparing the carcass for cooking, the intestine is removed, the contents squeezed out, the inside washed and the long intestine gets either baked separately, or added to the gut cavity to cook inside the up-turned shell along with other organ meats and the neck, legs and tail of the turtle.
I have eaten cockroaches from the Queensland rainforest and also bird spiders from the same area. Unlike Chef-Ninja above who obviously has some weird eating practices (why did he eat the vomit?) my cockroaches and the spiders tasted absolutely delicious and exactly like crab. I’d have them again, for sure.
Other delicacies I’d encourage you to try include brown grasshoppers, locusts, crickets and of course, witjuti grubs (number one food for sure). If you ever go to the street markets in Thailand, you’ll find the vendors selling dragonflies, grasshoppers and crickets all deep fried and ready to go. Yum. The funniest sight must have been me with my bag of insects sitting in Maccas with a colleague and a Big Mac. He ate the chemical bread and beef grown on cleared rainforest while I munched on the environmentally sustainable, high protein, all-natural bugs.
When I went to Thailand I decided that I had to try a cricket just to see for myself what they were like. To me, they just tasted like crunchy nothing, not much meat there, just a lot of fried legs.
In Cambodia you can get fried Tarantulas.
And I’ve heard to make dog meat tender, the dog must be tortured first. Being a dog lover, I find this quite disturbing. Can anyone verify that this is true?
Adam Templeton
August 30, 2009 at 2:15 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_%28egg%29
I tried this last time I was in the Philippines..
Report PermalinkIt was different, hehe. didn’t taste bad, just different.. Mr Zebra eater up there (Andrew Zimmern) has had it too, hehe. I don’t think I will have it again though, I didn’t know what it was till afterwoods.
Elly Hart
August 30, 2009 at 5:23 PM
My boyfriend says the weirdest would have to be the food my mum cooks…
Report PermalinkCurtis
August 30, 2009 at 5:47 PM
@Adam Templeton, I don’t think that’s Andrew Zimmern in that picture =S
Report PermalinkJimmy
August 30, 2009 at 11:14 PM
That’s Bear Grylls from Man vs Wild.
Report PermalinkChef _NINJA
August 31, 2009 at 7:03 AM
This is actually Bear Grylls eating a zebra.
the wierdest thing i ate was cockroaches. Tasted like vomit after a week long drinking binge on southern comfort.
It was a deep deep burn!
Report PermalinkVic Cherikoff
August 31, 2009 at 9:00 AM
As someone who has worked on Australian Aboriginal wild foods for some decades, my Outback trips have often given me the chance to taste-test some different morsels. Wombat meat is extremely grassy and not to my palate but maybe anyone who likes olive oil (that’s weird food to me) would love it. Dugong is another acquired taste. The meat from females is preferred over that from male animals but again, it is gamey, rich and called them sea cows is not referring to the flavour of their meat.
Another interesting meat was green turtle intestine. The turtle was traditionally hunted and while preparing the carcass for cooking, the intestine is removed, the contents squeezed out, the inside washed and the long intestine gets either baked separately, or added to the gut cavity to cook inside the up-turned shell along with other organ meats and the neck, legs and tail of the turtle.
I have eaten cockroaches from the Queensland rainforest and also bird spiders from the same area. Unlike Chef-Ninja above who obviously has some weird eating practices (why did he eat the vomit?) my cockroaches and the spiders tasted absolutely delicious and exactly like crab. I’d have them again, for sure.
Other delicacies I’d encourage you to try include brown grasshoppers, locusts, crickets and of course, witjuti grubs (number one food for sure). If you ever go to the street markets in Thailand, you’ll find the vendors selling dragonflies, grasshoppers and crickets all deep fried and ready to go. Yum. The funniest sight must have been me with my bag of insects sitting in Maccas with a colleague and a Big Mac. He ate the chemical bread and beef grown on cleared rainforest while I munched on the environmentally sustainable, high protein, all-natural bugs.
Report PermalinkJulie Wynn
August 31, 2009 at 1:49 PM
When I went to Thailand I decided that I had to try a cricket just to see for myself what they were like. To me, they just tasted like crunchy nothing, not much meat there, just a lot of fried legs.
In Cambodia you can get fried Tarantulas.
And I’ve heard to make dog meat tender, the dog must be tortured first. Being a dog lover, I find this quite disturbing. Can anyone verify that this is true?
Report PermalinkFletcher Andersen
August 31, 2009 at 11:56 AM
Ive eaten dugong (what they call manatee) before. Then just the usual, crocodile, turtle, ants, grubs, snake ….
Report Permalink