kalena

Interesting one, Gary. Haven't seen tree bark as a side But kim-chee cucumbers are great, as well as all kinds of seaweed dry or fresh. <BR><BR>I have only had tree-bark as tea. <BR>Aloha,<BR>k

patty

cmt - re the lotus root (balsa wood-like substance) - you can try it sliced thin and fried or marinated in vinegar (maybe rice vinegar with some sugar, soy sauce?) or pickled. It's called renkon in Japanese if you want to look up recipes.<BR><BR>And Kalena, do you mean umeboshi for cmt's salted plums? Or are you talking about something different?<BR><BR>I don't know if it's adventurous but the most heinous thing I ever tasted was natto, fermented soy beans which stunk up our refrigerator. I still shudder to remember when I would innocently open the fridge, especially in the morning, and that odor would escape. Yuck!

[email protected]

I passed on Cuy in Quito ( I had pet Guinea pigs ). I didn't pass on honey abdomened ants in Bogota. I bought a bag back for my work colleagues and ended up eating them myself.<BR>

bud

No need to travel far,come to Chicago and try a "encased meat" called Head CHEESE! Once you get past the smell,it's quite good.<BR><BR>

jim

1)"Calf fries" at the Fort Worth, TX stockyards. (Also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters). Took a deep breath but found them quite pleasant in taste.<BR>2) The first taste of steak tartare -- raw scraped steak with capers and sometimes pickles. Defitinitely an acquired taste. I acquired the taste!<BR>3)Rubber chicken meal on Aeroflot. The only word is disgusting.

Scott

Had shark fin soup in Hong Kong. It is very delicious, and said very nutritious.<BR><BR>Tried pigeon in China. Didn't like it.

Bill

Did the Haggis thing in Scotland. Really quite edible, but I had it at a nice restaurant. I understand there is a pretty wide range of haggis flavors. I have had American haggis here in the US. You can get it from Lamb etc. Not bad but you wouldn't want to eat it everyday. It has quite an odor when you cut it open. Be sure to douse it liberally with Scotch.<BR><BR>By the way, buffalo is wonderful and is VERY low in fat. You can find it fairly easily in Colorado though it is usually pretty high priced. Healthy stuff.<BR><BR>Bill

kalena

You're quite right Patty, I meant umeboshi. I must have been thinking about Clyde Umebayashi, and not about those little red salted plums. <BR><BR>Along those lines, could someone speak of *true* adventure? As in the perfect picnic in a hot air ballon, a squeeze-tube of power mix while rappelling off El Capitan, or maybe that eel you wrassled with before it became sushi? <BR><BR>Now, *that's* adventure. I can do without the fried rats and blood sausage, thank you.

Ah Seng

OK I'm chinese so please excuse my diet. I've eaten dog in China, deep fried grasshoppers in Thailand,deep fried cockroach (on a dare), baby bird still in its egg, all parts of a pig (brains, intestines, ears), seahorse, roast bat in Malaysia, termites, snakes blood, monitor lizard, raw cow's liver sashimi in Tokyo, bulls testicles and saw people eating monkey's brain in a maeket in Aceh, Indonesia. I balked when I saw the cruel way they were eating the brain (raw while still alive). Ulp!

Jim

Didn't think I would take the time to read this thread, let alone contribute, but it started me reminiscing. In addition to my earlier posting I would add:<BR>1) Warm Blutwurst in Germany. This is blood sausage in which animal blood is mixed with cereal (I believe the Brits call it Black Pudding). It can be eaten cold, I had mine cooked. This means that when you cut into the casing with knife and fork the contents come roiling out. Truly disgusting scene. 2)An unkown something in a restaurant outside of Tokyo. It was ordered for me by my Japanese hosts and when I had finished my small portion asked if they were having any. The reply "oh, we don't eat THAT" let me know that I didn't want to know any more. 3) For the vegetarians: what can be less pleasant than rutabaga, kale, turnips?

wes fowler

Not adventurous, but not mentioned previously is chamois, an Alpine antelope found frequently on menus in gasthofs in Upper Bavaria; much like venison. Also not adventurous but little referred to above, although becoming increasingly trendish, sashimi.<BR><BR>Offbeat, due to budget constraints during a trip to Paris many, many years ago - horse steak (for about 85 cents including two vegetables!).<BR><BR>Adventurous - lamb's eyes wrapped in grape leaves in a Greek restaurant on 29th Street, Manhattan a good many years ago.

chris

While I was living in Southeast Alaska, my Tlinget boyfriend introduced me to the native american specialities of Ooligan grease, salmon eyeballs, seaweed with herring roe, and halibut cheeks. <BR><BR>Ooligan grease is absolutely disgusting! It is the essence of ooligan fish (a small very fatty smelt like fish but very nutritious) that is first dried then boiled down in a complicated process. In the past it was highly prized and traded along the BC/Alaska coast. It is still worth a fortune. The seawood with the herring roe on it (yes, as in excatly how the herring laid their eggs and harvested from the sea) is quite benign tasting, a unique crunchy texture. Reindeer sausage was good.

Karen

Duck tongue and fried chicken feet in China. Also, little dried goldfish in the bowl of peanuts in China.<BR><BR>Fava beans in Egypt. Couldn't stop thinking about 'Silence of the Lambs'!<BR><BR>My mother always cooked vegetables until they were mush, and that was an adventure to eat them!

survivor

RAW pork sausage in a little Sicilian restaurant in Milano. It tasted good, but the texture was a bit odd, just as you'd expect lean chopped pork to feel. It had bits of fresh cheese and herbs in it. Under the circumstances I felt I had to accept it and eat it, but when I got home I asked my doctor whether I needed to do something to prevent tichinosis. I thought maybe there was some pill that might kill the larvae before they got big--similar to the monthy heartworm pills that dogs take. He said that trichinosis is much less prevalent in Europe than in the US, where we have much more disgusting feeding practices, ie. forcing the poor pigs to be cannibals by feeding them pork scraps, while a good quality pig in Italy is fed nuts.

Therese

Not icky in an obvious way (but pretty darn weird once you taste it) is natto, a dish made from fermented soybeans. Brown and slimy. If you order these in a Japanese restaurant in the U.S. the server will either assume that you are insane, or have lived in Japan.<BR><BR>Reported anticoagulant properties, by the way.

buzz

<BR>American bison, deer (regularly) sheep, burro (in Mexico) various treats from the sea, guinea fowl, peafowl, tallow dumplings (made from the fat from around the critter’s pancreas, or so I’m told, an English treat) 'gator, ostrich.<BR><BR>My dad was born and raised in Arkansas in the depression. A great deal of the meat on our table was…um “hand gathered” and some of it seems “exotic” now to my friends. This would include mourning dove, quail, pigeon, wild duck, wild goose, squirrel, rabbit, (squirrel and rabbit were weekly staples), frog’s legs, poke weed, crawdads (crayfish), rabbit tobacco (a wild herb), paw-paws and persimmons, opossum, raccoon, chicken’s feet (fried), pickled okra, snapping turtle (a little like chicken, better, actually), pickled eggs, pigs feet, pig’s “knuckles,” ox-tail soup, blood cheese, souse (a sausage type mess of pig snouts, ears, tongue, etc. jellied in aspic), the egg sacks from freshly caught bass and perch, rolled in flower and fried in oil), cracklin’s (think modern day pork rinds) pickled eels, mountain oysters (pig testicles, deep fried. Some prefer bull fries, others, believe it or not, turkey testicles), etc. <BR><BR>Of course when you say “adventurous” it’s hard to not include most sausages, including hot dogs, and cold-cuts.<BR>

hospital

The special of the day in the cafeteria last week - salmon cheddaroni. Think about it.

Topsie

Tops

farmgirl

Where I grew up in the Midwest, everyone ate Rocky Mountain oysters, I remember them and always thought they were wonderful. When the steers were castrated, we usually had a Rocky Mt. feed and invited all the neighbors. I remember the Lions Club having one too. While living in Oregon...sea cucumbers, you strip the long thin muscles from the inside and fry them. Very good, delicate taste. Sea urchin roe, limpets, dogfish, elk, jellied moose nose, ferns. While living in LA. Racoon, squirrel, alligator, turtle, robin breast, those Cajuns will eat anything. In general, snails, eels, souse, brains (my grandma loved'em) pickled pigs feet.

DAVE

Many years ago in Llubjana (then known as Yugoslavia!) it was recomended that I order the Special #2 since a few of my friends had ordered that the day before.......Only wish I had known that the special changed each day,,,,and that on this particular day it was going to be: blutworst.....or blood sausage.....!! Not very good, bad texture, and not worth doing again.....