What weird or exotic foods have you eaten?
 

This weekend I went to a seafood restaurant and had shark for the 1st time. It was o.k. I guess.

I'm sure all of you here have been to the meat market. Have you seen the really insane looking food? I've seen some really gross stuff, like cow tongue, pig ears, pig snout...ect ect. How can people eat this? Pig snout???:confused: Yuck!

What exotic or not your "everyday" normal foods have you eaten before?

Haggis. I took two bites, because I wasn't sure I was really tasting what I was really tasting.

Gator. It's tough - doesn't taste like much of anything, but maybe that was the chef's fault.

Boar. Gamey pork.

Pig's brain-tasted like old flavorless gum (I was in Spain and this was considered a delicacy by my host family.)
cow intestines-not bad, but it looked nasty (same Spanish family)
escargog-they were really really salty
frog's legs-tasted like chicken
ostrich meat-very tasty

Eel sushi. Yum.

Venison. Some people consider venison weird/exotic, others think of Bambi and get upset... I view it as population control (we have a huge deer problem here) and revenge (for the deer that destroyed my roses a few years ago :mad: ). Venison is actually pretty tasty.

I don't eat anything exotic like the rest of you freaks.

I had caviar once.

Venison is pretty good when cooked the right way. It's not something that I'd go out of my way to eat, but it's not bad at all.

Otherwise, I haven't tried much else. I'm pretty adventurous in what I eat, within certain limits.

Venison makes great chili or BBQ in my experience. Hard to work with it as steaks.

I have had most of the typical game meats, but there is one meat I have tried which tends to gross people out or make them mad,

When I was in Peru a while back, we went to the Peruvian equivalent of a Texas "home cooking" restaurant.

The main course was cuy (aka cui)- known in the US as guinea pig. They just scraped scraped off the fur, cut them down the middle and grilled them- skin, organs, face and all- then served them whole.

The organs and the meat around the face- especially the jawbone- were quite tasty- very tender with a mild flavor. The rest was pretty good too, but you really had to pick and explore to get to all the meat.

And in Venezuela there was a place with blood sausage that contained quite a bit of blood- I do not remember from what animal. Very tasty though.

The only exotic meat I have never really cared for is sea urchin in sushi. Otherwise, I tend to be happy when I explore.

I actually like haggis. :o

I've had cow's tongue, s'okay. My grandma used to make it when they were down to the last bits from the butcher.

Otherwise, nothing else too exotic. It's not that I don't like trying new things -- I do -- there's just not much available around here.

True - I really enjoyed venison chili when I had it. However, I was never sure if it was because of the venison, or because of the spices used (it's always been made by the same guy).

I've liked caviar when I had it, but I don't consider it quite as exotic as some of the other stuff mentioned in this thread.

Venison sausage can be quite tasty.

venison
buffalo
blood sausage
tripe
chicken feet
snake
escargot
eel
sea urchin
sea cucumber (type of sea slug...soooo gross, took one bite and spit it out)
pâté
fish eggs (caviar, salmon roe, smelt roe, flying fish roe)
raw sweet shrimp
raw scallops
raw lobster
raw beef

Beef carpaccio is good stuff. I'd like to go someplace that serves raw Kobe beef strips and try that as well.

Haggis (love it)
Venison on pizza
Rotten Shark also known as hákarl
Svið (singed sheep's head or face)
Súrir hrútspungar (pickled ram's testicles)
Hvalspik (whale's blubber)
Starry Ray (like a stingray but fermented)

I'm really more of a meat & taters girl, so I don't get too crazy with foods.
One of my friends is a deer hunter and I like the venison chili he makes. It's good on a cold day while watching a football game at home.
Escargot had so much garlic butter on it that I couldn't really taste anything else. It was sorta like eating a sauteed mushroom.
I had caviar for the first time this summer. Wouldn't go out of my way to eat it again.

FTW - but you have an Icelandic advantage.:)

I don't eat anything weird other than what you people would consider weird...

squirrel
deer

squirrel is the best in a gumbo with duck meat and okra.

do you live in the south? because that list you've got is totally southern, not exotic lol!

go to any soul food restaurant in the deep south and thats everyday vittles my friend! (oh, and vittles is a southern things too lol!)

Escargot - been eating them since I was 5 - they're great!
Foie gras
Kangaroo- I didn't order it, just tasted...it was good.
Sea Urchin - gross, the ssushi chef told me it was Japanese peanut butter and I was like 7 so I believed him. So not like peanut butter.
Steak and kidney pie - the kidney was not my fave.
Pate - used to hate it, now I like it a lot.
Caviar - meh...not that great.
Probably lots of other stuff, but I tend to draw the line at internal organs.

Cow Stomach--in Menudo
Intestine--Tripe...or "tripas"
Pigs feet --another common occurance in Menudo. It gives it 'flavor' hoof and all
Tounge--DELICIOUS!! It's really popular here, so restaurants sell out of it quickly. When I can get a burrito or sandwich w/ lengua I feel like i'm in heaven!
Octopus--delicious with onions. I always like it when the suction cups stick to your tounge. lol.
Brain (i think it was cow)---my grandma used to make it. The thought of it still grosses me out. I never could stomach it.
Ox tail--not as bad as I though it was gonna be.
blood (cow's blood)--again, another thing my grandma used to cook (when she was alive). It's really good when fried with onions, tomato, garlic and a few other things. It has a special name, but i can't remember it at the moment.

i feel like i'm reading a forum version of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmeran. Ew.

Does sheep milk count? I've eaten a few pesto dishes that had it as an ingredient.

the alpha gams are gonna hate you, lol

durian fruit (smells like shitz, but taste good)
grilled cow tongue
rabbit
chicken feet
frog, turtle
blood (cow and duck)
pig ears
intestine
pigeons
eel sushi is my favorite (must be that sweet brown sauce)

Just looked up durian fruit..... EW it looks gross too!

I'm tickled by the fact that the lists seem to be all animal foods (obvious exception Durian). There are a lot of really weird fruits and vegetables out there, but I guess they don't seem as exotic.

I haven't tried too much, probably the most 'exotic' would be
-tomatillos
-plantains
-jicama
-about every kind of leafy green and mushroom you can think of
-quinoa & bulger (neither of which are exotic, but not too many people eat them nonetheless)

On the animal end, I've had various kinds of
-sheep cheese
-every type of sushi under the sun (it feels like, although I'm sure there's something I haven't tried)
-escargot (which I don't think are exotic because I've had them too often)
-shrimp that are so tiny they don't get peeled and you eat them whole, eyes and all
-the grossest was a tapa in Spain that was some kind of pig item with the skin still on, with the hair still on the skin. That was hard to eat!

I just thought of some more:

goat milk
durian (only took one bite, didn't like it)
fried tiny shrimp and fish that you eat whole
fried sweet shrimp head
sting ray
octopus
squid
turtle soup


I don't know if these are really exotic:
lychee
longan
bamboo
cactus fruit
guava
pomelo
loquat
bitter melon
lotus root
sugar cane



When I was younger, I wasn't as adventurous an eater. When I was about 11-12, my cousin got married and had her reception at a Chinese restaurant. They served pigeon and I refused to eat it. My mom tried to trick me, saying it was a really small chicken. I could totally tell she was lying to me.

Around that same age, my parents took me and my brother to a restaurant that served frog legs. I refused to eat them.

^^Aren't the little shrimp you eat whole creepy?

I forgot one that's not so much exotic as amusing. There is (or perhaps was) a restaurant in North Little Rock called Gators. They have a menu item called Gator Balls. Which IIRC are really just little fried and breaded meatballs made from aligator meat - but the name is funny enough I had to try them one visit just to say I've eaten Gator Balls. ;)

I personally trend to avoid items from the organ food group.

When we lived in Chile, we ate a lot of ceviche.

I had eel on my birthday a couple weeks ago. I think I said it tasted like fish and worm. I didn't hate it, but I can do without it. And I actually like fried tripe.

So oneday while getting my hair done, my hairdressers 2 little sons, 2-3 years old were running around acting foolishly... So, I grabbed one of them, and I started playing this game, like "what does a dog sound like, a cat sound like, a cow sound like..."--you get the picture... Anyhow, I got to a snake, and they told me what it sounds like, then I asked, "What does a "snake" taste like?"

The look on their faces were total confusion... LOL... So I said, "when someone asks what something you never tasted, taste like, just say 'Oh, it tastes like chicken..." With a little movement go along with that...

Then I asked them what the entire zoo taste like and I had them going around saying all of it tastes like chicken... :)

Anyhow, they have an exoticmeats.com

I fed my husband:

Ground Llama
Caiman--gator
Kobe steaks--very pricey
Bear bacon--he was kinna pissed about that--cryptosporidia...

I would have gotten rattlesnake, but he said absolutely not... LOL...

I've had reindeer (sooo bomb!), moose heart (I think it was jerky), eel, and lutefisk (cod preserved in lye).

I eat sushi on such a regular basis that I didn't even think of it as being exotic. Goes to show you how geography influences things. I'll add to my list:
Eel
Raw Yellowtail
Raw Tuna and White Tuna
Raw Salmon
Raw Mackeral (not a fan)
Octopus
Seaweed
Squid
Caviar

I've had reindeer, too, while in Sweden, but I would never eat Lutefisk!
I've had sheep's brain, durian, softshell crab/crawfish, alligator, tripe, beef tendon, caviar, foie gras, pate, sweetbreads (yum!), jellyfish, eel, sea urchin, venison tartar, beef tartar, all types of sushi, octopus, frog legs, escargot, pigeons, scrapple, quail...I'll try most things at least once. But...I don't want to try kidney...they smell like urine!

I totally forgot to add Iguana. It's popular down in southern Mexico. I had iguana soup. It was pretty tasty, I just had to pretend it wasn't iguana!

Mexican Radio
 

. . . wish I was in Tijuana, eating bar-b-cued iguana. :)

I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican whoa-oh radio


(I just couldn't help myself)

I love haggis -- especially when accompanied by a wee (or not sae wee) dram. ;)

So true, and also, if you live/were raised someplace where the schools are off for the first day of hunting season....venison is not exotic. About the weirdest thing I've probably had is escargot.

There's scrapple & pudding, which I think are basically American versions of haggis. My dad used to eat pigs' feet.

Oh, and someone mentioned tongue. When I was about 8 I came home from school one day - my mom was upstairs or in the cellar or someplace. On the stove was a very large beef tongue sticking up out of the pot. I was so freaked out I screamed bloody murder. I don't care how good this stuff tastes, NWIH will I ever eat it - I'm still not over the trauma!!

Love love love Tripe. Mom makes Tripe Stew all the time and it's absolutely delish! Menudo's similar to a Filipino dish called sankutsar, I think. The intestines are my favorite part.

Speaking of intestines, I love em fried. Dip em in vinegar and chili pepper-water and mmmm. Same with fried cow ears.

Octopus is best when it's smoked. Although seasoned with soy sauce, onions, and sesame oil is great, too.

My all time favorite is yet another Filipino dish, dinuguan. Not sure of its spelling. It's pork sauteed in pig's blood, ground pepper, and bay leaves served over a mound of rice.