Nasty food in your country

Kretcher

Active member
The Chinese also eat like 2 year olds - slurping, smacking their lips, mouth open, constantly shovelling "food" in, spitting on the floor and smoking during meals - to be told you eat like the Chinese is not a compliment - more an indication that you eat disgustingly and should learn some table manners.

Actually the slurping and smacking of lips is a way too say that you appriciate the food, I guess they look at us and think that we eat strangly: Silently, cloased mouth and more. So I guess if you where in china you would not follow there table manners and therfore be "strange".

But it is a strange way of eating and difficult to get used too, it all boils down too cultural differences and usually we have a harder time the first time we "meet" something new and strange behaviour. Second time around we are generally a little more accepting to the diffrences in culture.


/Kretcher
 

Oktane

New member
Being the multicultural country that Australia supposedly is these days (and 17 years being a chef) I've had the opportunity to eat a lot of bad tasting food.My least favourite though would have to be unmarinated kangaroo,the trick to cooking it is to marinate it for a minimum of 24 hours then chuck on the BBQ for 3 minutes either side and eat it straight away.Crocodile was nice (tastes like chicken....),emu is tough as all hell (give it to your dog as a chew toy) and snake is delicious (especially Red-Belly Black snakes). One thing I will never eat though is horse (I grew up around horses and my folks owned a breeding stud),how the french can eat it I will never understand.Oh and I had a South Korean housemate once that thought dog tasted nice.........seriously.
 

ischa

New member
aww, it´s a shame you said no to horse oktane, it´s really incredibly tasty, but i get the poit, i´d never eat rabbit.
 

me_in_japan

New member
I had raw horse once, and it was ok. Nothing to write home about, particularly, but OK. Whale, otoh, is actually bloomin good. (not raw, although I cant say for sure on that one. But marinaded in some soy sauce and mirin, dipped in corn starch and fried? damn fine.) I had 'roo last time i was in australia, and found it to be rather good (although to be fair it had been marinaded overnight then chucked on a barbeque, so I guess I had it done proper for me. It was an Aussie cooking, so I can only assume he knew what he was about.)

also, while on the subject of wierd meats, there's a restaurant in glasgow (my home town) where I had:

shark
ostrich
gazelle
zebra
crocodile

I swear they musta just swept the african savannah (and also gone shark fishing. Not a lot of sharks on the savannah, as I understand it.) Anyway, of the 5, shark was the worst (boring taste, odd texture) and the ostrich was the best (quite a rich taste, but nice nonetheless)
 
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MAXXxxx

Well-known member
Some that are in Hungary:

- disznosajt: actually very similar to the scottish haggis, but with more meat, less heart and other inner parts. If done right it's pretty good, but not my favorite.
- Tripe is also known here. Everyone says, that it's really good, and it might be if bought in a decent restaurant. But I had the 'luck' that my parents like it and made some at home and while the finished product doesn't look too bad the smell during the cooking is so bad, that I hate it for life, never tried to eat it, never will
- cooked chicken feet (is part of a soup): well not these days, but when we bought live chicken instead of the prepackaged from supermarkets. It tastes really good, and has a funny sticky consistency (your fingers will stick to everything :) ) and the soup gives it an exra flavour. Of course you have to clean it really good. The difference to the chinese ones I've seen, that here the nails are always cut off and thrown to the garbage, on the pics from the net they are left there.

- one that I really like is 'kocsonya' (basically 'jelly'), but only the way it's made at home. Basically it's a soup with some extra special meat (from pigs face, ears, tail), that when cold is acts like a jelly (hence the name). Most of the older people like it, but those who were born in the 'wonderful world of fastfood'(McD, b*king,...) can't stomach it. What I don't like in those made by others: usually they put a LOT of garlic in it and sprinkle the top with gound-dry-paprika. I think these 2 ruin it.

and a dessert, that I hated for a long time because of the texture: Madartej (birdmilk). Officially it's translated to "Floating island", a dessert made of milk custard with eggwhite dumplinds floating on top.


other than these I know no local food, that can be considered nasty by others. All the others are pretty much loved by tourists / local people.
 
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Oktane

New member
That fish does sound pretty grim.

Tbh, as long as the haggis is made properly, it's not too bad - same with black pudding

Although I have never tried it, and it's not from around here, balut looks pretty gross

I've read about Balut before,a duck egg that has been fertilised and grown to almost hatching and then boiled as is and eaten,sounds absolutely appetising,mmmmmm yum,serve me up some of that...when pigs fly out of my butt.

Being of German decent,a couple of my uncles are umpteenth generation butchers so apparently there is a closely guarded family recipe for black pudding,I'm a bit on the fence with it though,I like the taste of it but knowing that I'm basically eating pigs blood puts me off it.Still I wouldn't pass on it if I was hungry.

One thing I remembered after reading through earlier posts is Vegemite,this stuff is awesome,about twice a year I get real hankering for it most likely when my body is low in B vitamins.Its a veritable gold mine of them,thats why most people think it smells funky,have you ever spilt Berocca or Red Bull on your carpet (or whatever) and not cleaned it up properly?? What you're smelling is those lovely B vitamins doing their thing.

And one other thing: What the hell is "Pound Bakery"?
 
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Einion

New member
Black pudding, coincidentally I happened to eat it three times in the last week! I love the stuff. As with any blood sausage it takes some getting one's head around but it's generally very tasty (and nutritious). And they're not really that weird in the grand scheme of things - compared with maggot-infested cheese, decayed shark, digestion-processed coffee beans for example.

Never had haggis but I'm sure I'd love it as it's similar enough to other puddings, most of which I'm fond of.


funny noone mentioned marmite, most disgusting crap there is.
Most disgusting food you could think of? You need to get out more! It's very salty and like most salty foods, best not eaten by itself but used in small amounts or as a flavouring. Can be thought of as quite similar to Worcester sauce or soy, and used similarly.


...chicken feet (they eat the feet and necks and throw the rest away!!!)
No they don't, that's ridiculous.

The Chinese are noted for using practically everything, like most cuisine based on peasant cooking (everything but the oink).

This is the way all avowed carnivores should eat but sadly in the West we're too squeamish for a lot of what makes good eating - brains, glands, tongue. Which is odd given there're a lot of bits that in their way are just as odd that are commonly relished, like skin and fat. Cooked in the wrong way they're disgusting, cooked in the right way (hint there) they're delicious and crave-worthy.


...emu is tough as all hell (give it to your dog as a chew toy)...
Cook it long and slow then. Any tough meat is usually packed full of flavour (as opposed to the languid muscles that do little or no work, like the fillet on cattle).

One thing I will never eat though is horse (I grew up around horses and my folks owned a breeding stud),how the french can eat it I will never understand.
One bite at a time would be my guess :) I can understand your reticence though, in the same way that most people would feel about eating dog or cat. But honestly, we are very selective when it comes to this kind of thing.

Einion
 

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
And one other thing: What the hell is "Pound Bakery"?
New extremely cheap mass produced chain store Bakery in the UK.

Not a fan of this high salt, high fat el cheapo food, as I see too many Chavette's ramming one of the sausage rolls into their offsprings mouth to shut them up. And there is a wonder why childhood obesity is on the increase.
 

Griffin

New member
sheesh, here in China, where to start?

live shrimp, sauteed while still alive...
duck neck, any neck really, yuck...
dog meat...
toad...
scorpions, centipede, other crawlies...
I dislike eggs (am allergic) so gotta add eggs to this list...
bread. Bread in China is LOADED with sugar. Totally horrible...
the gristly bits of chicken. seriously, tiny chicken cuts which are ALL gristle, mmm...
hundred year old preserved duck egg. did I mention I am allergic? yeah well tell my students that, who forget to tell me I was eating one hundred year old preserved duck egg... "oh we though you were only allergic to CHICKEN egg, Griffin." ...

some of the stuff you tell yourself you would never eat, you eat finally and it isn't half bad. Like jellyfish for example. not bad at all. lol. within moderation I mean. and plenty of vinegar.
 

Ebonbuddha

Active member
I like tripe. It is good stuff. Since i moved to Asia I have had several kinds of food that people in the west would think is nasty. Back in Alabama it was chitterlings. Basically, boiled hog intestine served over rice.I also have friend back in Alabama who ate squirrel. I never had it but they swear it is good. I don't think I had anything nasty when I moved to Canada. Maybe Milestones? Think T.G.I.Fridays, Bennigan's, Ruby Tuesday type food. Except Milestones is terrible.
 

Ebonbuddha

Active member
I agree about China. I am in South Korea right now and I have had some of those same things. I tried fried scorpion in Thailand and liked it a lot. I like dog meat as well.

sheesh, here in China, where to start?

live shrimp, sauteed while still alive...
duck neck, any neck really, yuck...
dog meat...
toad...
scorpions, centipede, other crawlies...
I dislike eggs (am allergic) so gotta add eggs to this list...
bread. Bread in China is LOADED with sugar. Totally horrible...
the gristly bits of chicken. seriously, tiny chicken cuts which are ALL gristle, mmm...
hundred year old preserved duck egg. did I mention I am allergic? yeah well tell my students that, who forget to tell me I was eating one hundred year old preserved duck egg... "oh we though you were only allergic to CHICKEN egg, Griffin." ...

some of the stuff you tell yourself you would never eat, you eat finally and it isn't half bad. Like jellyfish for example. not bad at all. lol. within moderation I mean. and plenty of vinegar.
 

freakinacage

Well-known member
e.g. natto - fermented beans (much like yon swedish thing, but beans.) Taste-wise it's actually fairly inoffensive, but the smell!?!? ye gads. That, and the fact I swear those beans are covered in pus. Vile, I know, but that's exactly what it looks and feels like - Pus beans.
is that anything like huitlacoche?
open_can300.jpg



I tried kangaroo the other day and springbok. Both were nice but loved the roo
 
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Ebonbuddha

Active member
I thought of this one last night.

A little over three years ago the wife and I were backpacking through Thailand. Towards the end of our trip we were in a supermarket in Bangkok. In the meat section was...pig vagina. I don't know how it is prepared or the name of the dish. But there was a lot of it there. So someone was eating it.
 
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