Thank you to everyone who entered the oilcloth lunchbag giveaway!
86 people entered the draw by leaving a comment in response to the question: “what is the most exotic or unusual thing you’ve eaten?”
All eligible entries were given a number, and my “barrel girl” Jac selected a number at random to determine the winner.
The winner of the lunchbag giveaway is Carmen, from Michigan, USA. Carmen’s most exotic and unusual foods included cow stomach filled with beef and rice, cooked in a broth with chickpeas, and sheep intestine with rice and chickpeas. Congratulations, Carmen!
***Special offer for TFP readers, available for a limited time***
For those of you who didn’t win, if you’d still like to have your very own oilcloth lunch bag, you can still visit RickRackQueen’s shop and get one for yourself! Order a lunch bag from RickRackQueen by 20th October 2008, include the phrase “TFP sent me” as a comment as part of your order and receive a US$1.00 discount on your purchase! Check out the range of oilcloth lunch bags here!
Thanks again, everyone, for your interest, and a special thanks to all the lurkers who de-lurked! I’m planning to have giveaways from time to time, so stay tuned until the next one! A special thanks too, to RickRackQueen, for your supreme generosity and for making the giveaway possible in the first place – it was RickRackQueen’s idea to have a giveaway!
Now for the wrap-up of your responses!
You guys have eaten an impressively diverse assortment of creatures and their “bits”!
Here’s a summary I’ve compiled from all the responses. The number in brackets is the number of people who named that particular item in their response (where there’s no number, the item was named by just one person). I’m sure some people may not have thought of some of these things as exotic or unusual (depending on your cultural background), so they may not have named things listed below in their responses. I’m sure, for example, more than 2 people who responded have eaten squid, and probably more than 3 people would’ve eaten Vegemite. Which just goes to show the idea of the exotic or unusual depends entirely on the person!
The item named by most readers was… alligator (11 of you)!
In case you’re interested, 1) the ones I’ve eaten are in italics and 2) I haven’t included me in the totals. :) And if you don’t know what any of the items named are, Google is your friend. You guys have been way more adventurous eaters than me!
Seafood and things in shells
Snails (8), jellyfish (4), octopus (3), fish eyes (3), shark (3), squid (2) sea urchin (2), surstromming (Swedish fermented herring), conch pistol, crawdad brains, big fish roe, caviar, salmon and tuna sashimi, drum fish, emperor fish, fish semen sushi.
Reptiles and amphibians
Alligator (11), Frogs’ legs (9), Crocodile (8), Rattlesnake (6), monitor lizard (3), snake (2), turtle soup (3).
Birds
Ostrich (4), doves (2), pigeon (2), emu (2), turducken (chicken in a duck in a turkey), blackbirds, galah (in stew), birds, deep fried pigeon head, wild turkey.
Chicken parts
Raw chicken, chicken intestines, chicken head.
Duck parts
Duck brains (2) jellied duck foot, duck stomach, fried duck tongue.
Insects and creepy crawlies
Grasshoppers (3), deepfried insects (2), fried scorpion.
Fruit and vegetables
Mangosteen (3), durian (3), dragonfruit, cempedak, soursop, prickly pear, stir-fried cactus, medlars.
Cow, bull, buffalo, bison
Buffalo (8), bison (2), beef heart kabobs, maghaz nuli nihari (Indian spicy beef dish with cow brain and bone marrow), bull’s tail, bull’s testicles.
Sheep
Sheep brains, sheep intestine, cow stomach.
Pig
Pig intestines (7), pig feet (5), head cheese (3), pig brains (2), pig’s head skin, pig’s ears, pig’s tongue, pig’s bone marrow, fermented pig skin wrapped in banana leaves, pig stomach, sausage made from pig’s head, white pudding.
Egg-related
Balut (4), thousand year egg, snapping turtle eggs.
Blood-related
Black pudding (4), chicken blood (3), pig blood.
Accidentally consumed
Worm, wood beetle, maggots.
Things eaten by friends or family
Witchetty grub, cobra blood, cockroaches (in soup), civet cat, squirrel, bat, miscellaneous bugs, raw horse.
And the rest:
Rabbit (6), deer/venison (5), squirrel (5), elk (4), dog (4), bat (3), tripe (3), flying fox (2), kangaroo (3), Vegemite (3), horse (2), smelly tofu (2), natto (2), haggis, moose, wallaby, monkey brain, zebra, wildebeest, skunk, antelope, bear, red fox, veal, rat, fake duck, raccoon, goat, goat intestines, fried horse’s uterus, hummus, nutmeat, guinea pig (or some sort of similar rodent-like animal), rocky mountain oysters (balls, not sure which animal), deer heart, deer liver, goose, tempeh, fermented rice cake wrapped in banana leaves, foie gras, weird sandwich combos (various).
But of course, if you haven’t read the comments, they really are worth reading, as they contain all the stories with the juicy (eww!) details.
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
thank you, thank you. I’d like to thank Go…oh this isn’t the academies…is it? :(
oh well!
Thanks again, I’m really excited as my boyfriend bought me a bento box for my birthday. Now I can put that in this cool bag :)
Congrats Carmen!
HAHA, it was hilarious and eeky reading all those comments TFP! ewwww! yucks! LOL!
very cool round-up! i couldn’t think of anything weird i’ve eaten as i’m not the most adventurous eater on earth, but vegemite should hardly be considered weird! okay but given my aussie vegemite loving tastebuds, it’s subjective.
i’m rather alarmed at the guinea pig part because i have a couple of those fat little rodents as pets. :P
to each his own tastes, i guess!
No worries, Carmen. I’m so pleased to hear you’ll have a bento box to put in the bag! :)
Kiran,
Yeah, it was fantastic reading what everyone has eaten! I was amazed and impressed.
dea,
It took me years to like Vegemite, but now I’m quite partial to Vegemite on toast. But I don’t like it spread on too thickly. Jac likes it spread really thick, like fresh, smooth black tar. :) Yes, the key to all of the responses really was “to each his/her own”. What’s standard fare to some will be “extreme eating” or a Fear Factor challenge to others. :)