Friday bento
I was supposed to meet my friend Chad for breakfast nice and early last Friday morning; I’d told Jac I wouldn’t have time to do bento. But I got a call from Chad late on Thursday evening – she was crook and wouldn’t be able to make it. I hadn’t prepared anything for bento but decided to raid the fridge and pantry and put something together for Jac and me to have for lunch.
Jac’s lunch was a bit of a mixed bag: the last of the KFC sandwich mix (KFC, mayonnaise, dijon mustard and wholegrain mustard), salad, heart-shaped fried SPAM, a mini Babybel cheese, a few Jatz crackers and stawberries.
We were out of bread at home but Jac had said she had some bread at work she could use to make toasted sandwiches. And that’s what she did – that evening when she got home from work, she told me she made a KFC mix toasted sandwich and a half-sandwich with the SPAM hearts and some cheese.
I kind of copied this bee from the cover of the yellow bear and bee bento box. Get the pun on the note? :)
For me, fried SPAM stars on salad and four SPAM, tomato, cucumber and lettuce skewers on a bed of crisp baby cos leaves. I had to do some serious rearranging to get the bento box to close properly, but I did it! Apart from the SPAM, my lunch was all salad – consequently I was starving when I got home that evening!
New lunch bag
I wanted to show you my latest lunch item – a gift from my friend E. It was handmade by Rick Rack Queen – check out her online store where many other lunch bag designs and her other lovely handmade items are available for purchase. I chose a basic oilcloth lunch bag, but there are oilcloth lunch bags with handles too. You may notice there’s even a side pocket on the outside of the lunch bag.
The lunch bag is kept secure closed by this strip of bright red velcro.
I was able to easily place my red bento box and an orange in the bag – but it would seriously fit much much more inside.
For size comparison – the new lunch bag next to my very first bento bag (which has Jac’s lunch in the bee and bear bento box in it).
* A special giveaway! *
The creator of my new lunch bag, RickRackQueen, has generously provided me with a lunch bag for a giveaway! The lunch bag up for grabs is the basic oilcloth lunchbag in kiwi gingham (click for more info and to see photos). I love the gingham pattern and the crinkle-cut edges. One lucky reader will win a kiwi gingham lunch bag! It’s very easy to enter:
1) Leave a comment here, by 4 October 2008, with your response to: what is the most exotic or unusual food/thing you’ve eaten? Did you enjoy it? There are no right or wrong answers here – I just hope I get some interesting ones!
2) Make sure you include your valid email address (which will not be published; I will use it to get in touch with you if you win).
EDIT***To clarify, you don’t have to be located in Australia to enter! International shipping of the prize is not a problem! (It is going to be shipped from the US anyway!)
A winner will be selected at random. Please note, in the interest of fairness, my family members and their partners, friends and blogging mates who’ve met me in person are not eligible to win.
If you’re not interested in winning the lunch bag, please feel free to leave a comment and/or answer the question any way! Just mention that you don’t want to be included in the draw, and I’ll leave you out of it.
****** Thank you, all! This giveaway is now closed to new entries. ******
I will be conducting the draw for the winner shortly. Stay tuned to find out if you’re the winner!
PS. The most unusual thing I’ve eaten was squirrel. My grandma cooked it with ginger and soy sauce, and it tasted like chicken. Therefore it’s not surprising that I really enjoyed it!
UPDATE
Make sure you check out the follow-up post:
Lunch bag giveaway winner, special offer and the wrap-up
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 100 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a long-time lurker, guess you’ve gotten me out to comment! :) The most exotic food I’ve eaten is alligator .. it also tastes just like chicken!
the most exotic thing i’ve every eaten is surstromming. i was visiting northern sweden and got strong-armed into trying the regional delicacy: fermented herring. it actually didn’t taste as bad as it sounds; but the smell, which is a pervasive odour of used socks and gym clothes, takes some getting used to.
I love your site! I don’t know how weird or exotic this is, but I have eaten barbecued elk steak. It tasted like a gamier version of a thin strip steak…heavy on the gamey taste. I don’t think I would eat it again, lol.
hmm… unusual…
everything I have eaten is pretty tame.
I have eaten emu, kangaroo and crocodile though. emu’s nice, kangargoo’s too gamey for me and the crocodile was a little tough.
But haven’t most Australians tasted these things somewhere along the way?
Holy moly, squirrel?! That’s pretty darn unusual. A friend of mine ate raw horse unknowingly recently, but that’s not really my story. The weirdest thing I’ve probably eaten is simple frogs’ legs. I was sick once and my mother made congee out of them and fed them to me without telling me what they were. I remember it tasted like chicken. I also licked a jellyfish lump that had washed up onto the beach once. It was a dare. :D
Hey TFP! I would say that the most exotic food that I have ever eaten would be monkey brain and nope i certainly did not like it!! hahaha I was in China in some village at that time, and the villagers cooked some dishes for us. At first glance, i thought it was some beef or lamb but after a few bites(with a weird taste), I asked the tourguide what is was, and he happily answered that it’s monkey brain! From then onwards, i would asked what dish was it even if it’s some egg just to be on the safe side. lol
PS: I want to be included in the draw. Thanks
the most exotic food? turtle soup. the soup is pretty yummy actually, like all double-boiled chinese soups..but the turtle meat is another story. some parts are tasty and tender, though i refuse to eat the parts where there’s a thick layer of blubber/wobbly fats.
and hey, that’s a fab, fab, website. im going to get something from there soon! :)
Hey tfp. I’ve had tons of weird things. I’ve had what used to be a staple in both Southern and African-American cooking: chitterlings (pork intestines) and pigs feet. I don’t eat either anymore.
I’ve also had zebra, wildebeest, crocodile, and alligator. the Zebra was VERY peppery and I did NOT like it.
Snake grilled on a stick – was very rubbery and had no taste…
At some point, you’re going to run out of cute post-it ideas. It’ll make me a sad panda. =)
I love those spam shapes, they’re so fun :)
The strangest thing I ate was in Vietnam. I’ve grown up eating Vietnamese food so I didn’t have an issue… until I looked at the piece of chicken I was eating and realised it was a whole chicken head. I freaked out and everyone laughed and somebody else took it and ate it. Something about chomping into a whole head is unnerving…
I enjoy your site, but I think I noticed a mis-spelling in your first paragraph (or else I don’t quite understand the wording….)
Friday bento
I was supposed to meet my friend Chad for breakfast nice and early last Friday morning; I’d told Jac I wouldn’t have time to do bento. But I got a call from Chad late on Thursday evening – she was crook and wouldn’t be able to make it. I hadn’t prepared anything for bento but decided to raid the fridge and pantry and put something together for Jac and me to have for lunch.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN YOU SAY ‘SHE WAS CROOK AND WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO MAKE IT’…I’ve never heard that term before.
Otherwise, everything else made sense.
Sad to see you’ve had trouble with postings; your lengthy preface before one can post, seems to call attention to quite a bit of frustration on your part, to those who have shown bad etiquette in commenting and/or e-mailing you.
I’m sorry for that, and hope things will improve.
I have actually eaten quite a few exotic foods, rattlesnake, skunk, deer, antelope, bear, alligator….can you tell my Dad was a hunter? But, I think one of the most exotic was when we had Choc covered grasshoppers. They were very different and surprisingly crunchy.
My grandmother used to make her own head cheese when I was a kid. I remember trying it, thinking, “Why, this doesn’t taste like cheese at all!” And then when I found out what it was made of, I wasn’t a happy camper.
And my other grandmother used to make menudo (tripe stew) on Sundays and I didn’t care for it, either.
Wow, not very exotic, am I?
I have two items to choose between; both are from trips to China. The first is fried duck tongue, the second is jellyfish. The duck tongue I would eat again, definitely. Ultimately, it wasn’t really strange to eat, just strange in concept. What was really odd was the jellyfish. I can’t speak really to how it was prepared, other than it was maybe dried. It was very tough and rubbery, with a lot of snap when you bit into it. Not a lot of flavor, mostly just a texture experience, and one I probably won’t repeat. But, there you have it!
eek i guess you’ve got me, the silent reader/admirer out to comment too!
the weirdest thing I’ve ever tasted is “balut”, duck embryo which is a common street snack in the Philippines. I didn’t really like it but I was there for a vacation and it was all part of the thrill. So I definitely did not regret trying those either!
HEy, I wonder if I qualify for winning the bag since I live in Ireland? Anyway, I am Spanish and we do have a few items considered weird by some: we eat pork intestines and tripe all the time, pork feet, tongue, blood (not as in blood sausage, but as in a fried square of pork blood), etc. Pretty much the whole pork is edible. We also eat octopus, bull’s tail and even bull’s balls…go figure!
And yet I find so weird when I see my irish friends having a banana sandwich! weirdos!
Longtime lurker here coming out of the woodwork.
My friend took me once to a fondue restaurant that featured a platter of meats that included buffalo, ostrich, alligator, elk, venison, and wild turkey.
I was most impressed with the buffalo. It had a marvelously tender texture and the taste was that of the finest beef.
I’ve also had rattlesnake on a backpacking trip. That was surprisingly delicious. I can’t quite describe the taste but it was very tender and somewhat sweet tasting.
Hey! Long time lurker, first time poster! The most exotic thing I have ever eaten was friend rattlesnake at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Texas.
To be quite honest, it was horrible!!
Exotic food ? I don’t recall, but the two most unusual foods I’ve eaten are squirrel – yes, another squirrel story ! – and medlars.
The former was in the form of shall we say, food recycling ( less politely, ” roadkill ” )served up by my highly eccentric then landlady about 15 years ago. She cooked it in port wine, bit like jugging a hare, with lots of garlic, onions and mushrooms. The sauce and the long cooking made it very tender and tasty – it was definitely lean gamey meat but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Medlars are a very oldfashioned kind of fruit that you don’t find in the shops. You generally have to know someone with a tree, and you don’t eat the fruit until they are softened by decay, or ” bletted “. To me they tasted like a cross between a somewhat funky fig and well matured dried apples ( the brownish leathery kind ) I liked them but I enjoyed the jar of beautiful amber coloured medlar jelly my friend presented to me even more :)
Keep ‘em coming, guys! I’m really enjoying your responses! A special hello to the self-confessed lurkers, great to read your comments! Now that you’ve taken a plunge, I hope you’ll feel compelled to comment again in future. :) To answer a few questions you’ve asked…
Perthie,
Out of those three, I have only ever eaten kangaroo. But I guess if I had the chance I would try all the others. I don’t know if most Aussies would have the chance to eat “bush tucker”, but I reckon many would give it a go, given the opportunity.
Chubbypanda,
I’ll take that as a challenge. :)
Diane,
No, it’s not a typo. It’s Aussie slang – someone is “crook” it means they’re sick/not feeling well. I’ve had that disclaimer for some time now. I still get the odd troll/abusive comment, but they no longer get the satisfaction as I won’t publish their comments.
Luisa,
Yes, don’t worry, you do qualify! :)
I’ll reply to your other comments later, let’s see how many we can get for this post! :-P
The strangest things I’ve eaten are not so strange to me, but probably are to others.
I’ve had Bison (delicious!), fake duck (yummy, with crispy skin, fat and everything!), and Uni (sea urchin – definitely not yummy).
Lurker here too — I had octopus and just looooved it. When prepared wrong, it’s very chewy, I guess, but when I’ve had it, it was tender and delish!!
Gosh I am such a woose when it comes to food. I won’t eat any meat that I think the animal is cute ie duck, kangaroo, dog etc..
The only strange food I have eaten and enjoyed is black pudding.
P.S Just wanted to add that I love your blog. your bento lunches are just inspiring.
Keep up the fabulous work.
I have tried aligator, but I thought it was a bit fatty.
I once ate haggis (grains and pork and sheep bits cooked in a sheeps stomach) and loved it until I knew what it was.
I have had black and white puddings in Ireland-fun sausage like rolls made with blood, grains and bits. I would eat those again.
As far as roadkill, I have tried red fox. Our science teacher was boiling it so she could preserve the skeleton, and some of us ate bits as a dare. I remember it tasted like dark meat from a chicken.
Love your site, Karen
goat’s balls in a soup called soto betawi, which is the indonesian spiced beef coconut soup.
(i love offals)
the soup based was creamy and sweet and the balls were quite chewy gummy but quite nice. I have no reservation against eating it. would do it again in a heartbeat if i have a chance.
=)
I am a little aussie girl stuck in regional country Queensland and therefore haven’t really eaten anything overly exotic. (do you count being totally vegetarian for 3 years + 3 months?? hommus, nutmeat etc. I do however have a thing for weird sandwich combos – ie. nutmeat and tomato sauce, beetroot and peanut butter, baked beans and tomato, apple & cheese, vegemite & lettuce (exotic australian mate!) haha.
I’m a loser. Our town only just got it’s first sushi bar! (sad & pathetic but I”m happy!)
P.S I’m not vegetarian anymore (that was when I was a teenager!)
to Carly:
uni is very satisfying!! very creamy in a good way, a little like carbonara?? to be taken in small amounts only :)
The strangest thing I’ve ever eaten is probably rabbit. Although it tasted quite like chicken…at the time I didn’t know what I was eating for which I am grateful b.c I don’t think I would have eaten Thumper willingly xP
When we were young, our grandma’s neighbor butchered a pig and asked her if she wanted the head.
We ate head cheese, fried brains and sausage from that pig’s head. Our younger brother loved the tongue and “hogged” it all to himself.
The most exotic thing I have eaten was pigeon while I was in Kuwait. I thought it was chicken. A very flat and small chicken. LOL It was very good.
I ate moose burgers while visiting my husband’s family in Newfoundland. I’ve had kangaroo, wallaby, crocodile, jellyfish, baby octopus(freshly caught, marinaded and cooked on the bbq – absolutely delicious), frog’s legs & snails. Of course, it just depends where you come from, doesn’t it? I grew up eating shark meat but my husband warned me not to mention it to his relatives in Newfoundland. They would be thoroughly revolted at the idea of eating shark.
Oh boy..looking at the long list..I doubt I could consider mine as exotic. The closest I can recall is just curry monitor lizard.. which of cos i didnt realize until i had literally cleaned the plate (I had bread to wipe the curry gravy too :P). But I kinda suspect something wasn’t right cos monitor lizard has bones which are TOTALLY different from chicken (obviously!). Well, I was only 11 back then… can’t blame me! :P
anyways, i dunno if you want to include me in the list cos i’m not staying in Aussie :P
Ooh, I’m enjoying reading your comments too. I’ve also had emu, in the form of sausages- they were fine, but rather dry. (Low fat content is my guess.) There’s this stall at the Victoria Night market, that serves up interesting meats- crocodile, emu, snake, kangaroo (I love kangaroo), camel?? I want to try crocodile.
Now, the most unusual thing i’ve eaten would have to be a turducken, where they shove a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey and cook the sucker for several hours. When you cut into it you get gamey duck meat, dry flavorless chicken, all wrapped in delicious turkey. This has apparently become a fun thing for us Americans to try at Thanksgiving as a traditional turkey replacement. Our family tried it once, we went back to regular turkey the next year. ^_^
As far as exotic goes, i worked in a sushi bar so ive tried all manner of sea creatures, and i live in Texas so ive had alligator, snake, blackbirds, doves, squirrel…
i had dog meat before (dont blame me!) when i was in china. it was one of the coldest winter back then and i caught a very bad cold. the locals told me i must have some dog meat soup. was told that dog meat is not something you can have everyday because it’s very very heaty (taste a bit like turtle soup. peppery and herbal but there are many ways of cooking dog meat). indeed after having only 2 chunks, i got blisters on my lip and my nose bled that night in my hotel room! imagine the horror on the chambermaid’s face when i pass her a pillow-full of blood stain =P
oh anyway. i dont need the delivery bag =)
Peky and everyone else,
International shipping of the lunch bag is not a problem! A large number of my readers are from overseas, and anyway, the bag will be shipped from the US! :)
I’ve eaten lots of interesting things, however when I was a child and lived in outback OZ my step-father’s specialty was Galah stew.
I’m not quite sure it’s legal to hunt and eat Galah. If it isn’t it should be – it was a shocker!
cheers, Belinda.
I feel horribly out of place here, my most exotic thing ever eaten is veal!
I love food very much but i am stubborn in the fact i will not adventure in the realms of the unknown. *sigh*
i guess i am only young, i have many years to catch up!
*drumroll*
YET ANOTHER LURKER EMERGES!
This little Melbournian has eaten plenty of strange things. Damn, I’ve eaten some crazy things. I’ll give you the shortest breakdown possible.
1) fermented raw pork skin wrapped in banana leaves
it’s chewy. salty. doesn’t taste like much, but the texture is like cold sticky rice wrapped in crunchy leaves.
2) chitterlings
goat intestines in tonic broth. they were quite tasty, really. I was only told what they were at the end of the meal, but the meat juices soak into the soup really well ^_^
3)rabbit and dove satays
had these in my hometown, Penang. it was quite a treat, and racked up a big bill. rabbit was plenty meaty and juicy. I toyed with the dove, and shoved it around … then took the smallest bite. It was drier than I liked, and while the meat was nice, I don’t fancy the idea of eating dove that much.
4) snapping turtle eggs
“Mmm-mm. The eggs we had last night were just so damn good :). Half-boiled, they’re salty and yet the yolk pools brilliantly on rice or bread and has just the right texture. Fry them whole, and the soft shell will just pop. Then you’re left with these delicious soft, semi-firm eggs you can just sink your teeth into, and the yolk is just the perfect mix of sweet and salty.”
That’s what I emailed my friend when she wanted to know what we’d eaten. A few days later, I found out that they were snapping turtle eggs. TURTLE EGGS.
… I felt so strange.
And finally,
5) Maghaz Nuli Nihari (Indian spicy beef dish with cow brain and bone marrow)
This was disturbingly satisfying. It was spicy, and the smell was sort of pungent – sort of like a touch of durian, I suppose? But then the spices made my eyes water and my nose run and my stomach rumble uncontrollably so I didn’t really mind. You couldn’t tell what the contents were – it was just overwhelmingly soft and yet with a perfect texture for bite, and utterly delicious.
—
Yes, we Asians have strange tastes :)
Lurker alert!! :)
Well, I’ve eaten some pretty weird things so let’s see if I remember all of them:
Frog legs (deep fried, tastes like chicken), snails (escargots in French, with tomato sauce, yum), pork intestines (pretty good), pork brains (disgusting), birds (I just took a bite, nothing remarkable).
Phew, that’s all I guess! I’d love to be entered to the draw! :)
Lol, you know what they say about the Chinese; we eat everything with legs, except tables!
But I am not that adventurous so that most exotic food that I have ever eaten would have to be rabbit meat! ( only because I didnt know it was a rabbit on my plate!)
I don’t qualify to win the bag, as I have 1. met you in person 2. bought you the first bag to start with!
But I will add my own two cents: when I was 9 or so my granddad took the family to some odd restaurant in Singapore where we ate FLYING FOX, deep fried, and crocodile on a hotplate. Flying fox tasted kinda crunchy, and crocodile, yes, like chicken.
Here in Sydney you can easily have kangaroo meat, I had kangaroo pizza at a pub once. It was a bit tough but not too bad. I’ve also had ostrich (quite nice, lean and low-fat).
In response to some of the other commenters, jellyfish is considered run-of-the-mill food to Chinese and Japanese people I think! As are frog’s legs. I’ve also had snails (escargot in France, marsh snails in Vietnam) and sea snails (a few varieties, steamed and eaten with black sauce and chilli). In Kunming in China I had eat fried insects, heavily salted, as a snack.
Thank God I have never had the misfortunate (IMHO) to eat dog, or monkey’s brains, or even worse, bear’s paw. (You hear such horror stories about such food in Hong Kong) I have been presented with duck’s tongues, pig’s blood, and chicken feet is commonplace in dimsum restaurants, but have never tried them.
Tripe, Buffalo, Frog legs, Alligator and Elk. I keep looking for weirder food, but it is kind of hard to find in Texas :)
Ah, most exotic….definitely would have to be this box of chocolate covered bugs I had once. It had a warning label because for some odd reason, ants are naturally spicy as hell. It had ants and grasshoppers. It also came with one of those grasshoppers encased inside a sugar pop. That was interesting. They’re…very crunchy little critters xP. In Utah I had a buffalo burger, that was gooooood. So different from regular beef. Hmm..what else…..the standard, I guess, frog legs, rabbits, what not. OH! My uncle from Taiwan brought this seed packet stuff over. It turns out, you rub those seeds together in some water and it makes this jello-y run off substance! It was goooood, we bought the premade-canned stuff all the time, but it was the first time we had it homemade.
Honestly, after reading the comments I feel so boring! I’ve eaten ostrich, bison, pig’s feet (standard Chinese fare, right?), but nothing super out of the norm. I think the oddest eating experience I had was head cheese, which incidentally was like eating a more gelatinous SPAM. hehe.
I live in America, I haven’t eaten anything too exotic. Buffalo, that was alright. Deer sausage, don’t really like deer meat. Once I had some very expensive caviar, that must be an acquired taste, I did not like it. Good thing I guess. My husband has spent alot of time in China, now he has eaten things I could not imagine eating!
I once ate raw chicken at a special chicken restaurant in Japan. My friend had invited me to go out with some of her friends and, as I don’t eat seafood, they changed plans and went to a chicken place especially for me. So Nobu told me I had to eat everything to make up for it and then gleefully made me try raw chicken.
It tasted like … chicken!
I’ve never really eaten anything terribly exotic. To me the most exotic things I’ve had are rabbit, horse, salmon and tuna sashimi and durian. For most of the world, though, those are everyday foods. I’d like to try foi gras sometime.
Oh wait–I tried Vegemite once. That was pretty exotic, and not something I’ll try again.
~Brandi
That’s a beautiful Bento. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is!!
Being Filipino, many of the “exotic foods” I’m reading above are part of our traditional cuisine! I’ve eaten ‘balut’ which is basically a hard-boiled egg with a baby chick inside. Scary, I know. But again, not unusual in my native country!
The strangest thing for me was eating rat when in China. We were in a restaurant where you chose your dinner… from a cage/tank… alive. It was either rat or snake thanks to my business folks out there and I am terrified of snakes, so that narrowed it down. While there, I also ate a delicacy called ‘a thousand year egg’ which is rumored to be fermented in horse’s urine for many many many years. Blegh.
It’s really fun reading everyone’s comments. What a great topic TFP! :)
I guess being a Chinese living in Singapore means I’m exposed to quite a bit of unusual food (not necc exotic in my opinion)… someone did make a joke once that if Adam and Eve were Chinese, they’d probably have eaten that serpent in the garden! haha…
Anyways, the most exotic food I remember eating was in this sushi bar in Singapore on my hen’s nite! It’s called Shirako (if I’m not wrong). My friend told me it’s semen of some fish on a sushi and I had to eat it. Gosh. It looked revolting – not to mention that I ordinarily don’t fancy raw jap food. But I DID it! Just put lotsa soya sauce on it, shut the eyes and pop it in! It’s disgusting, in my opinion. But if I win the lunchbag, I might give it a try again?!? haha… Thanks TFP!
My friends are gross. :P
I was asthmatic as a child and my peranakan grandmother believed I had to drink flying fox soup. a flying fox is like a small bat.
in a fairly hair-raising and gruesome way, a flying fox was procured and I was made to drink the soup.
it was strangely sweetish, but it could have been the herbs that were added.
Fun!
The most odd food I’ve eaten has to be boiled pigs intestine sesasoned with something that turned it bright orange! It came in a dim sum steamer container under the guise of ordinary yum cha menu in Hong Kong!
I didn’t enjoy it…but my parents always made us try one bite…but THAT’S IT!!!!
First off – addicted to your website since I came across it – I guess I’m a lurker….
I’ve even started making bento’s but not as creative as you…
I adore sheep brains deep fried in batter. It’s so yum… but I can’t eat it if I “see” the squiggly lines haha. I get squicked out.
Also eaten horse in China – it was yummy but don’t remember much of it as it was a long time ago. I ate it not realising what it was.
Also chicken intestines are crunchy. There’s a great place in Taipeng, Malaysia that specialises in chicken where you can eat everything including the blood. Not a huge fan of the blood tho…
A deep fried grasshopper!
My friend and I dared each other to eat one, while we were in Thailand. I ate it. She chickened out.
Ooh, the stuff up there are pretty weird, but so interesting! It’s a great topic! Also from Singapore, so I guess those frog legs, crocodile and innards like pig’s stomach and intestines and feet and things seem ok since we’re always trying new weird meats – there’s crocodile bak-kwa (dried and barbequed meat) here too.
I wouldn’t say its the most exciting and exotic, but I had a stewed smelly tofu dish in Taipei, which tasted and looked like vomit with duck’s blood cakes in it. The duck’s blood cakes were quite smooth, smoother than tofu in fact, but the vomit-y taste was quite unbearable for me. My friends said it was smelly until it smelt good – uhh.. ok..
Hi TFP,
Interesting topic!
I work in an NGO and live in a south Indian state. Some time back, we had a visitor from North East India. He found our food very difficult, but managed with a big jar of spicy meat pickle he had brought along. He used to offer us some lovingly, which we all enjoyed. When he left, still some pickles were left over which we all fought and polished the bottle, later to know that it was dog meat pickle!
Great question!
The most unusual thing i have eaten is ‘balut’. It is a Filipino delicacy, it is a fertilized sometimes chicken)duck egg. Inside you will find an almost formed unhatched baby duckling or chick (embryo). Once it’s cooked you open up the egg and suck the whole thing into your mouth. A sprinkling of salt gives it a nice kick.
I did enjoy it for it tastes like egg yolk and liver. It doesn’t look very appetizing but tastes wonderful!
squirrels??? really weird!!! i guess the weirdest thing i’ve eaten was this fried, honey glazed insect creature thing that my sis and i bought in bangkok. there were free samples so we tried them and they were awesome so we ended up buying a bagful which we wolfed down in a jiffy..up till now we still don’t know what it is!!! for the record it tasted like some squidy sea creature!
I once ate tuna fish eyeball. I was living in Japan and the village held an ice festival which had a whole tuna fish as a centerpiece. As well as the delicious sashimi some of the men in the village urged me to try this tennis ball sized piece of rubbery looking gray offal. They used scissors to cut me a piece and, as I was chewing away, they turned the eyeball around so that I could see what it was. I swallowed hard and said it was delicious but it really wasn’t.
Gosh this is a hard question! I don’t think I’ve eaten anything that unusual. Reading some of the comments here it seems as though some people have eaten some very interesting and strange stuff!
I had an ostrich burger once, that was very nice! The meat was really rich and lean, excellent burger meat! I’ve had black pudding plenty of times too, yum. I have had fois gras, I suppose that’s not an everyday sort of food either. I suppose I’ve eaten some moderately unusual seafood, I absolutely love fish and shellfish! Octopus is tasty (although not very uncommon!) and I’ve also had drum fish and emperor fish (very tasty, meaty white flesh – delicious!).
Thinking away from meat, I’ve eaten prickly pear, which I thought was absolutely delicious! I suppose this is really common or really unusual depending on where you live! I’m from the UK, and I had it in Spain, bought from the roadside by this brilliant old lady who was there skinning the prickly pears and selling the juicy flesh to overheated tourists. Yum!
hi tfp!!!
i’ve had and loved fish eyes and duck brains..haha. From where i come from (Sarawak) its kind of like a delicacy. haha
All fish’s eyes can be eaten but there is this one species that is exceptionally yummy. In our dialect its called “Kek lin chong” and all you do is pop the eye balls in your mouth and chew it then spit out the hard parts. Its a bit floury but really yummy as well. Sorry if im a bit gross.
Roast ducks and “loh ark”(braised duck) is exceptionally good for the brains. My granny would chop the head into half and dig the white parts out for me. If you’re not too grossed out, you should give it a go. :)
have also had bats, monitor lizards and all, but thats another story for another day before you think im a psycho! :)
The most unusual thing I’ve eaten was…squid! Not all that unusual, but I did enjoy it and did not grow up eating seafood at all. One of these days I’d LOVE to try raw oysters.
Hey TFP,
Love your site!
The most exotic thing I have eaten is probably sea urchin (uni) at a Japanese restaurant. I don’t know if the piece I had was off..but it smelt and tasted like a sponge which had been left on the deck of a fishing trawler below a table where they gut fish, then dried out in the sun for a few days…blech!! I gagged and had to spit it into a napkin.
err… the most unusual thing I’ve probably eaten is dog meat.
Probably because I’m still not sure – it was in this tiny roadside hole in vietnam. the tour bus had stopped outside one of those tourist traps and we didn’t want to eat there so the four of us wandered off and followed our noses. This guy was sitting on a stool over a makeshift barbie grilling some meat and there were some locals eating there. We kept trying to figure out what it was cause it was bloody delicious! not chicken.. not beef.. maybe pork.. but not quite either.
A few months later, one of my friends watches a program on Nat Geo about Vietnam and *lightbulb moment*! THAT’s what it was..
Darn! I’ve not eaten anything weird before. Perhaps I don’t have the courage.. It’s yucky to think about it! HEHE… Anyways, don’t mind me hogging your comment since I have not experience the weird culinary. But I want to wish good luck to all your commentators! May be best wins!
http://wescribble.blogspot.com
I’ve also eaten a ton of unusual things, from balut to alligator, and most people would find my favorites (natto and pigs feet–but not together!) to be unusual.
Probably though, the most unusual thing I think I’ve eaten is squirrel. It was made into little deep-fried nuggets, like McSquirrel nuggets. Poor thing.
First time poster…I really enjoy your site, TFP! I love everything to do about food. I work as a pastry cook at a 4-diamond hotel in Texas, and I get to try all sorts of interesting things. My favorite so far has been seared ostrich with a buerre blanc sauce.
I’m chaldean so a lot of the foods I eat are considered “exotic”
My FAVORITE foods are biryani with raisins and potatos but I would have to say the most exotic unusual food I have ever eaten would be
cow stomach filled with beef and rice and cooked in a broth with chick peas or sheep intestine with rice and chick peas and pieces of meet in a salty broth with chick peas. Also stuffed grape leaves or theres the delicious potato curry gravy over rice. I know it’s not monkey penis or kitty cat paws but i don’t think food has to be crazy weird to be considered exotic, dont ya think?
There is a restaurant in Arizona that serves all sorts of odd dishes. I tried rattlesnake there. It was skewered (rather like chicken satay) and served with a sauce made from cactus. It was good! I was surprised that it was as tender and mild as it was.
Another long-time lurker here too :)
My cousin coerced me to eat bat, black shark and wild boar all in the same sitting. When I asked what all the dishes were, he just said, “Very nice! Eat! Eat!”.
Not very nice at all I must say. I got so sick the next day hehe… :(
Hi TFP!! I’m another lurker who is coming out of the dark.
The most ‘exotic’ food I have eaten seems pretty mediocre to some of the other readers, I’ve eaten snails (at a French Restaurant) which I did not enjoy at all due to the texture. I’ve had some different fruits including durian (which I enjoy), mangosteen (ok) and dragon fruit (which looks cool).
But what I wanted to add was that my brother has eaten witchetty grub! He went camping and decided to try it. I thought that was pretty disgusting.
Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog! Keep the posts coming. :)
Monitor Lizard! It was kind of a staple delicacy when I was growing up. My mum would prepare it Indian masala style, very spicy and hot and yums. The wierdest thing about monitor lizard was that even after she cut it up into pieces, the nerves in the flesh would make it twitch and move.
Hmm,I don’t think I’m very adventurous with my eating so I’m pretty boring compared to most of y’all.
Most things Ive eaten that could be considered weird were eaten against my will. My parents called everything chicken but once I was finished,Ta-Da,you just ate raccoon! Thanks to them,I ate squirrel,goat,frog legs,rabbit,all sorts of offal and on and on.
I did try squid and alligator of my own free will though and while I really enjoyed the squid,the alligator wasn’t something I liked very much but I did try it twice to be sure.
Oh,I forgot to say I would like to be entered into the drawing please.
the weirdest thing I can remember eating is stinky tofu. it was certainly stinky, and definitely not tasty to me. oh, well. :)
you really do have many lurkers.. (me included heh)
well being mainly pescetarian i really haven’t tried much ‘exotic’ stuff.. i think my best was a worm! which was white and small but the eyes part freaked me. it was camouflaged in the midst of my iced soursop dessert :(
The weirdest thing i have ever eaten would be fried horses uterus when i was in Japan! I didn’t know it at the time, it was served up at an izakaya and i trusted my husband and what he ordered but yuck, once i found out, that was just gross!! I nearly vomited it back up again.
Hmm Great question! My wife is chinese, so I’ve been lucky to eat some weird and wonderful food… the strangest though, wow, so many to choose from! Could be anything from Jellied duck foot to munching on the head of a deep fried pigeon… the winner is…
Duck Stomach! It was blue!!!
Hey!!! reading through the comments made me want to share what were some of the weird foods me and my relatives have eaten.
I’m a student, Chinese and live in M’sia.
However i’m not particularly adventurous when it comes to eating exotic food. What i’ve eaten though is actually considered pretty normal from where i come from.
I’ve had frog, roasted pigeons and pig’s head skin. (I’m not sure if there is an actual name for the pig’s head skin dish but i do know that most people usually cook it with curried vegetables).
Two of them were eaten unintentionally, the other (pigeon) i was coerced into giving it a try by my parents. =D
Needless to say i never do eat any of those food items again.
There is something else. Sandwich combos i make myself. My friends think i’m weird because i tend to mixed everything together.
Example… Marmite, Thousand Island Sauce, Camembert Cheese and Mayo on toast. =D Maybe some turkey ham if i have.
I know, not exactly the healthiest of food options. But i swear it somehow tastes just so good to me. =D
***
What i gathered from my dad was this. Living in the rural area, my grampa and some relatives once caught hold of a cobra. Apparently they slit it open and proceed to drink the blood fresh from the snake. My dad didn’t dare give it a try. Lol.
My mom on the other hand, told me my grandma used to ask her and her siblings to go around catching cockroaches.
She will then boil it and make it into a form of soup. It supposedly cured a cough you might have when you drink it.
Oh, and i had a friend who told me he ate squirrel, bat, musang (civet) and many other animals/bugs you wouldn’t have thought of eating.
The reason was back then poultry and pork were expensive and those ‘other’ animals were easily attainable by hunting in the forest, especially the civet.
Sorry this comment became so long!! =/
ps* i don’t want to be included in the draw. =D hope you guys enjoy reading about it though!
Elo TFP! love your blog, im so into bento now because of you!! i’m gona blame u for that hehe. The weirdest thing i had… It was a Fried Scorpion when i was in China for holiday.
It taste like KFC, yummy. But i got Diarrhea after that. I learnt my lesson. Never eat Roadside food in china… hahaha.
Reading all these comments, it’s so interesting to see how people from all over the world read this blog. I’m in Queensland and was delighted by the person who said they tried Vegemite. Growing up Australian, we eat it every day, but I can see how it would seem unusual. I love it slathered thickly on hot buttered toast. Delicious! If you are trying it for the first time, spread it sparingly.
Conch pistol.
It’s the “male reproductive part” of a conch (big mollusc) it’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac… but not so much as I could tell! Didn’t really taste like anything.
I had stir fried cactus at a roadside stall in Mexico that was quite good. Alligator tail – tastes like chicken, only fatter. LOVE your blog!
Being Malaysian-Chinese, I think it’s pretty normal for me to have eaten frogs’ legs, pigs’ ears, tongue, bone marrow (I think?), intestines, squirrel, duck brains, fish eyes, turtle soup, weird snail things, and if I ask my parents, they might remember more considering they fed/feed me most of it! For some reason, I’m thinking ‘bats’ might go in that list? But I believe none of that tasted bad. I actually enjoy almost all of the above! :)
Hi TFP, you make all kinds of food look really good! =) I really enjoy reading your entries and find them useful as I’m relatively new to Perth..
Anw, to me, the most unusual food I’ve eaten are snails and alligator. Don’t think i’ll want to try any of those again though… =P
Hey! Been enjoying your blog for a while, really love how you manage to make colourful vegetables in a bento box look so delicious :D
The strangest thing i ate has got to be chicken blood. I grew up in Indonesia and this chicken blood thing I ate was part of a Soto dish (coconut milk based soup). The chicken blood has a jelly-ish consistency and it was cut up in cubes (I have no idea how they got it to harden like that). Anyway it didnt have a peculiar taste or what.. just that it gives me a weird feeling knowing what it is I was eating. Euccchhh…
You should try it! :D
The most exotic thing I ate growing up would be … two things.
I would spend my summers in Peru and we would have guinea pig (well a rabbit hybrid type animal) at my grandparents.
The other thing would be, during Peruvian Independence Day, we would have beef heart kabobs which we would grill and then my mother would put on this awesome sauce. We call them anticuchoes.
Hi there, I really love looking at your food pictures, they all look very tasty all the time!!! The most unusual thing I’ve ever eaten is crocodile, I was in a restaurant in China, and they have those fish tanks with swimming fishes for you to choose from, and there were crocodiles!! Live ones!!! although they aren’t very big, but still as big as a 10 years old!! And we saw them take one out then drag it to the kitchen… for us!! Anyway, the taste is ok, the texture is like eel but a little more firm. I presonally think that it’s the most unusual thing that I’ll ever eat again!
The most unusual thing I’ve eaten would be monkey brains. I must say, I like snake better..
My first post – I love your site, you certainly have a way of making your food porno-y with the way you take pictures of the dishes you eat. Anyway…
The most exotic food I’ve ever had is actually a fruit called mangosteens. They’re probably the most amazingly delicious fruit in the world, I just wish they were more readily available in the states and not $10 a pound. I first enjoyed them in Malaysia – I could tell they were fresh picked that day. My only gripe about the fruit is that they will stain everything they get in contact with.
Awesome – I think the worst sounding is the babyduck in egg thing.. sorry to those of you its ‘normal’ for ….
I have tried the snails and frog legs (can’t go to France without it)
Black pudding and haggis were nasty but I can say I’ve tried them ….
I grew up in wyoming so hunters food was our ‘normal’ rattle snake, moose, etc were normal. Elk jerky is the best type of jerky ever …. as for ‘Exotic’ I would go for either Rocky Mountain Oysters (balls), or my dad made me eat deer heart and liver.
The Subway while I was in wyoming had a special promotion and had Ostrich and buffalo and crocodile sandwiches… so of course I ha to try the all. The ostrich was pretty trippy as it tasted like chicken, was the color of chicken but had the texture of roast beef.
As for ‘accidental’ food – I once drank a hot chocolate and found my sister had put a wood beetle in it as i chewed it… YUK.. but for some reason I swallowed it:)
I’m not as adventurous as most people here, apparently. I have tried buffalo jerky and venison, both of which I like a lot. I’ve also had crawdad brains — not so tasty. I suppose vegemite doesn’t count as exotic in this case, so I guess that’s it.
Also, I want to say that I love this blog. I’ve been inspired to start packing bento lunches for my hubby and son. Plus, food is yummy.
(**waves to Tiphphine**)
Oddest thing I ever ate was rabbit in wine
sauce. It was great. I thought it was chicken.
Until I learned it was rabbit. All I could
think of was Thumper in Bambi.
I would love to win the lunch bag!!!
Hiya TFP, I think the most unusual thing besides the jellyfish in my noodle soup in Thailand when i visited my grandpa, would definitely have to be the time my parents and i traveled cross country here in the US. We had stopped in a little town in Texas for gas, and my father came back out of the little store with RATTLESNAKE JERKY! My mom wouldn’t touch the stuff, but my dad and i agreed it was pretty tasty! Crazy unusual, but pretty good :)
Hi TFP! :) I’m not sure if the deadline still applies, it’s still Oct 4th for me, so I’m just going to go ahead and submit a list of foods I’ve eaten before that might be considered unusual…
1) Turtle soup-had it once at a hawker stall in Singapore when I was a child, and I remember actually enjoying it.
2) Pig’s innards-also sold at a hawker stall in Singapore, and yes, I enjoyed it as a child.
3) Some type of snail or whelk my grandma bought from the fresh market once, not sure if I enjoyed it, it was just the fun of sucking at the tip of the shell to get the meat inside, yea, kinda sound gross, doesn’t it?
4) A Big fish roe, and I don’t mean caviar, or the type in sushi, it’s like a big piece of steak, tasted sort of like chicken liver, ate it once as a child, and yes, I enjoyed it!
5) Venison, Buffalo burgers, Wild boar-all of which I enjoyed
6) Durian-which I really enjoy except nowadays i can’t get it too readily, but speaking of the fruit, I might as well add another accidental ingestion, which might be unthinkable, maggots on a piece of durian, yep, I freaked out when I found out but my grandma had supposedly checked the piece and as a child, I truly thought the white, fat, things were just part of the piece!!! It took me years to get over that experience!!
7) Cempedak- which is more available in Malaysia, I remember staying over at my cousin’s and her parents went out to get cempedak fritters for breakfast, and that was good!
8) Soursop- had it once and it was tart & sweet at the same time..
9) Mangosteen- which almost always is sold with durians, from what I recall, I like them, but not as much as durian!
10) Goose- cooked Chinese soy braised style, sold at a hawker stall in Singapore, yes, I enjoyed it, and ate it quite a few times
11) Tempeh- fermented soy bean cake, used in some asian cooking, and I enjoy it
12) Another fermented rice cake like thing wrapped in banana leaves which my grandmother bought in malaysia, it was almost like a custard & yoghurt at the same time, the taste left me with mixed reactions, would not say I was fond of it, unfortunately, I can’t recall what the name for it is, and it’s so unusual I’m having a hard time trying to locate it on the internet as well!
Okie Dokie! I’ll wrap it up now, that is, if you’ve read it this far! :) And good luck to all the contestants!
****** Thank you, all! This giveaway is now closed to new entries. ******
I will be conducting the draw for the winner shortly. Stay tuned to find out if you’re the winner!
The most exotic thing I’ve eaten would be raw horse’s veins. chewy and weird. it was in Japan. there’s also a delicacy there which is a chilled jelly made from fishes’ sperm. didn’t try that, though.
Most exotic things I have ever eaten:
Live octopus, 1992, outdoor seafood market in Busan, South Korea.
Dog stew, 2005, Korean restaurant in Shenyang, China.
Sizzling pork cheek with liver, 2007, Cebu Philippines.
Blowfish, 2007, specialty restaurant in Busan, South Korea.
Mexican tripe stew, 2010, Tucson Arizona.