I can't believe no one has mentioned that great west Tennessee delicacy, boiled chitterlings (a.k.a. hog intestines)- proudly advertised outside of numerous local restaurants and Moose Lodges.

Tripe soup, really loaded with tripe. It was at Plitvice park in Croatia. Ugh!

Maybe you could wear some revolting foods rather than eating them.

www.hatsofmeat.com

I'm a 'pescatarian'. I am a vegetarian who eats fish, but only kosher kind. Meaning, no shell fish, no shark, squid, etc. I wasn't a complete vegetarian many many years ago when my mom took me to San Francisco and forced me to try Escargot! Yuckkkkky! I say, if it needs a little pitch fork to pull it out of a shell, it's too much work and not worth it. I'm so glad I don't eat meat. If I did, someone might actually get me to try some of this crazy stuff. Like Chicken balls???!!! Yuck, how can you even think of eating that gross...sorry...had to say it. There are only one kind of balls I want in my mouth....MATZO BALLS (get your minds out of the gutter!)

my first mother-in-laws cooking. the first time we had dinner at her house, she served a casserole. it was lavender. it was sticky. it had tiny little bones. i have never been brave enough to inquire as to what it was. she was from virginia, so if anyone knows of a regional dish that fits the description, please let me know.

This didn't happen to me, but to my DH when he was in High School. He took German, but the french students took a trip to France and he went along. He didn't speak any french, and they were in a restaurant in Paris. He was seated at the end of a very long table of students who were ordering lunch and he figured the pizza was safe, so he pointed to the pizza on the menu and waited. When they brought him his pizza, it looked like it had baby dead spiders all over the top. He found out it was actually tiny baby squid. He didn't hurl, but he wanted to, and to this day he wouldn't eat squid if he was starving. It scarred him for life!

For me, I think the worst thing was probably in China, when on the final evening we gathered for a lovely evening where they make the big deal of the Peking Duck. Needless to say, I nearly passed out when the waiter leaned over the table with a cleaver and neatly sliced the duck, Head and All, right down the middle and it fell apart in two (like parting the Red Sea) and one half of the head landed right in front of my plate. I politely excused myself and left the table and went out to the restaurant in the courtyard of the hotel and got a plate of fettucini alfredo. I'd had enough of the 'sliced-down-the-middle' duck routine after 3 weeks in china. Yikes!

Gosh. Just scanned this thread before heading up to dinner. Yum!

wanderlust5,

The duck brain is for the guest of honor.

I see that marmite and vegamite have been mentioned. I love marmite but I suspect that one must grow up eating it to appreciate it.

As to the most revolting thing I have ever eaten that is simple...NATTO.

Natto, a Japanese product, is fermented soybeans which achieve not only a loathsome taste and aroma but an utterly vile mucilagenous texture.

Understand, I am half Chinese (its the English half that likes marmite).

I am used to eating things that make many westerners gag (aside from the marmite), from fermented shrimp paste to fertilized duck eggs but Natto is simply beyond the pale, even for me.

Rillifane, here's one Westerner who doesn't gag at fermented shrimp paste -I love SE Asian food and always have a supply in the fridge. It does have to be used with discretion, though, as a friend discovered when making a Balinese dish that called for "2 tsp" of the stuff, which he read as "2 tbsp". The result was aromatic to say the least.

TamaraEden, are you sure that "chicken balls" aren't just minced chicken flesh shaped into small meatballs? (While I think of it, what does a male matzo look like?)

wanderlust5's reaction to the Beijing duck head suggests to me that we're too insulated from the sources of our food these days. Although we lived in town, as a kid I have unfond memories of having to catch, decapitate, pluck and clean the Sunday dinner.

Anyway, here's something that made even me feel queasy. Not experienced personally but once seen, and never forgotten, on a cooking show (Antonio Carlucci?) a few years ago: soft goat's milk cheese, swarming with vigorous fat maggots, considered a delicacy by primitive goatherders in the benighted mountains of Sardinia. We actually had to watch a bunch of malodorous peasants tucking into this treat with gusto. Gack.

Here in the Midwest there is popular fall activity- never been myself- but the turkey testicle festival. I read it's all in how you prepare them....

Michael...thanks for your post. Apparently I committed quite a faux pas by excusing myself...that is too funny. I'll always think of myself as The Guest of Honor that dissed the other guests. Now I feel awful, having read that, but duck brain, in all its glory, is not for the faint of heart!

Being "Guest of Honor" reminds me of when I worked for the U.N. at a nuclear research facility in Korea. The laboratory staff took a weekend holiday in the mountains east of Seoul, partly in my honor as I had been in those mountains many years earlier.

We hiked into a camp alongside a rushing stream, in which the locals grew fish in damned pools. For lunch they prepared a feast set on pieces of plywood perched on flat boulders in the stream. The centerpiece of the feast was a huge fish we had selected alive from one of the pools. It was cooked whole over an open fire and placed in all its glory between the lab director and me. The entire staff gathered around to watch me, the "Guest of Honor", do the honors.

"What is expected of me?", I whispered to my distinguised host.

"We are each to pluck out and eat the most valued part of the fish; the eyeball", he muttered.

I did. I chewed and swallowed. I even smiled to the closely watching staff, and managed to keep it down. They applauded.

Lord, did I feel honored!

I was sure you would do it, bravo Dick!=D>
When I was little, at my grand parents', having a lapin aux pruneaux for lunch (rabbit with plums) I always would fight with my grand dad for the brain and tongue, very fine parts. I don't know if I would do that again now...
Am I still your friend after that?

Bon appétit!

Coco,

You will ALWAYS be our friend, Corinne!!!
Even if you do eat the brain and tongue of poor little bunny rabbits.



Actually, I grew up very poor during the U.S. Depression in a rural area of Missouri. Much of the protein I ate during my childhood days came from game. Rabbit, squirril, duck, geese, deer, even 'possum on occasion graced our table. I must say, though, that I think we discarded the inter-cranial portions.
Tammy recalls munching quite happily on chicken feet as a girl.

Hope all is well in Dijon, including yourself.

Hi nukesafe, I had a family member that was with some kind of public relations section of the US Army in Korea and he talked about eating various eyeballs at various meals..to not do so would have been an insult to the hosts. Guess you had the same experiences. Yuck and yuck!!!

Loveitaly,

Yes, they seem to have a thing about eyeballs in Korea, as your relative said.

My other story about Korean cuisine comes from thirty years prior to the fish eyeball incident. A group of us U.S. Marines were on detatched duty with the Korean Marines. One evening we were invited to dinner with them. They said they had something "special". Anything was better than the "C" rations we lived on, and we gladly accepted. We figured they must have shot one of those small and very rare horned deer that live in the mountains of the "Land of the Morning Calm".

When the main dish was served, it was some sort of meaty stew over rice, with a few vegetabvle mixed in. We asked what kind of animal it was, "Moo", we said, mimiking a cow?

"No, no, "smack, smack", they made kissing sort of sounds with their lips, and made "come here" motions with their hands.

"Baaa", we enquired?

"No, no, Kiss, Kiss", they insisted.

After exhausting the domestic animal sounds we knew, we gave up.

Suddenly, one of our party said, "My God, they are calling a DOG!"

The Koreans saw the looks on our faces as we got it, but hastened to assure us, through the interpreter who had just arrived, that it was not an old dog they were mimicing, but a young puppy, and therefore would not be tough, but quite tender.

The rest of the meal was a bit strained.

How about some local American food...tripe and cup cheese. For those of you who have never seen cup cheese- it looks like mucus and smells like my teenagers wet socks he forgot in his hamper for a month.

I have been blessed to not have anything to add from Europe and god forbid anyone is reading this thread before a first trip there!

cheryl

Cup cheese? I had to research this? I've never met a cheese I didn't like.

Until now!

http://www.recipesource.com/side-dis...eese/cup1.html

Trust me...it shouldn't even be allowed to have cheese in it's name. If you ever find yourself in Lancaster, Pennsylvania...Amish Country, you can find it at our very old downtown market or the grocery stores.
Foul, foul, foul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And now should I tell you what I really think of it.