San-nakji

10 Weirdest Foods In The World

Food is something very essential for every human being. Several tasty food recipes and dishes around the world have been invented to fulfill the hungry-mongers. A wide variety of cuisines around the world are available to enjoy the delicacies of those parts. Do you know there are some strange food items and even stranger dishes? There is a huge list of weird foods around the world to make you say “Yuck”, “Oh My God!” or even “Wow”. These weird foods are a witness on how humans are strange and weird living beings on Earth.

A list of 10 weirdest foods from around the world:

10. Bull Frog, Namibia & China

Bull Frog

In France, frog legs are popular but Namibians eat entire frog. It becomes a deadly dish if eaten during the wrong time of the year as the poison from its body can cause fatal kidney failures. Still Namibian relish on it. In Sichuan region of China people from different places queue up for hot pots of spicy frogs. Sichuan’s sticky marshy climate makes bull frogs easy to find and bull frog dish had been in the eating habits of China for almost 1000 years. The white meat off the frog legs may give you a bullish feeling.

9. Bushmeat, Africa

Bushmeat

In Africa and particularly West Africa, people hunt non-domestic animals such as monkey, chimpanzee, gorilla, rat, fruit bat for food. Disgusting! The Ebola is said to have originated from such meat, which is a life-threatening disease. Poverty pushed the people to eat bushmeat. It is a traditional food for them and food of their forefathers. It is not a sign of blood lust, but old habits which die hard. Africa’s biggest bushmeat market is in Angola. Bushmeat is everyday fare here despite the ban from U.N. which termed it as an “Environmental Crime”. $6 will buy you a monkey and $60 for a fine cut of snake!

8. Escamoles, Mexico

Escamoles
Credit

The larvae of a venomous black ant species are called escamoles. It has a consistency like a cottage cheese and taste nutty. It is eaten as a filling with omelette. It is mostly consumed in Mexico since the age of the “Aztecs” – insect caviar. The light colored eggs, harvested from maguey plants and cactus are pan fried with butter and spices. Mexicans take escamoles like popcorn and it is also prepared as ice-creams. Several types of dishes are made out of the escamoles. Even the ant is not spared with the weird people on Earth.

7. San-nakji (Live baby octopus), Seoul

San-nakji

Live baby octopus is cut into pieces and served in sesame seeds and sesame oil. The weirdness is when you chew the tentacles, they tend to wriggle and writhe in your mouth. There is every possibility of sticking tentacles to choke the throat and cause death to the customer. Korean restaurants serve San-nakji with alcoholic beverages. In Korean cuisine raw dishes are considered a delicacy.

6. Balut, Philippines

Balut

Balut is a dish of hard-boiled duck fetus. Duck’s egg is fertilized and the embryo is allowed to develop from 16 to 20 days before it is cooked. Filipinos are eating a duck fetus in utero. It has the flavor and texture of a pencil eraser and has an unappetizing cartilaginous taste. Strange! It is tender, soft and slides in your mouth like a mousse. It is considered highly nutritious, heat and energy giving. One has to crack the shell and eat. The dish may look shocking (shell-shocked?) to unfamiliar eyes. Filipinos don’t duck the balut.

5. Hákarl, Iceland

Hakarl

This bizarre food is a fermented shark dish which has been cured with a particular fermentation process and left hung to dry for 4 to 5 months. It has fishy taste and a strong ammonia smell. Hákarl is Iceland’s national dish and is eaten year-round but not for the beginners as the smell is too strong than their taste. The meat of the Greenland shark is poisonous when fresh, but may be consumed after the process. The irony is that the decomposed, rotten, dried carcass of the shark became the traditional cuisine of Iceland but is discouraged for outsiders.

4. Dog meat, Nagaland, India

Dog Meat
Credit

Following the end of the Yulin Dog meat Festival in China, Humane Society International (HSI), India released evidences that nearly 30,000 stray and stolen dogs are killed and eaten every year in Nagaland. Consumption of dog meat is illegal in India but it is flouted in Nagaland and other eastern states. They consider dog meat to have high nutritional and medicinal value, reported in the Times of India. “When a man’s best friend is his dog, then that dog has a problem” – A quote by Edward Abbey.

3. Palolo Worms, Samoa

Palolo Worms

It is a delicacy for Southern Pacific islanders. The strange part of the delicacy is that the reproductive part of the Palolo worm is the source of food. These worms are pinkish-brownish or greenish-blueish and are caught at their reefs in the ocean just 2 times in a year during their annual risings. It is served as a spread on bread. It is one of the most bizarre food people eat. National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C describes the taste of worm as scratchy and endorse this weird habit. Some do not hesitate to eat them raw.

2. Tarantulas, Combodia

Tarantula

A tarantula is a large spider covered in hair and has a poisonous bite. After digging them out of ground, tarantulas are defanged, hair removed, washed and deep-fried. Cambodians say it tastes great like lobster or crab. But on the dinner table, it looks scary, Halloween decoration. Some tarantulas can grow as big as a dinner plate. Have a sting of Tarantulas!

1. Fugu, Japan

Fugu
Credit

Fugu is a Japanese food of pufferfish. It can be served in a strew, grilled or as paper-thin sashimi. What is the weirdness about it? The fish contains enough poison to kill 30 people!! The poison is in its intestine and only an expert master-chef can prepare the food sans poison. But, why people do take it? It’s a delicacy and people are crazy to taste it once in a lifetime. Weird indeed; weird in deed.