There is a whimsical little column in the Sunday Dark Side by Sir Terry Wogan and this week he is on about eating strange stuff. Snails and stuff Sir Tel’s wallet is way heftier than mine so he can afford the chi-chi French restaurants where you can get escargots and haute cuisine, but my budget and tastes are somewhat more humble, though no less exotic, and it got me thinking.
Esteemed Charioteers are spread across the globe and have an immense depth of experience, so what’s the weirdest dish you’ve ever eaten?
OZ
Boadicea's Chariot 
It was somewhere in Spanish territory, Balaerics or the Canaries, can’t remember which. We went out to dinner with some business people. They insisted we went to a restaurant that were serving a local seasonal delicacy. It turned out to be a starter of elvers, little transparent eels with tiny black eyes, sauteed with odds and sods.
Yes, one thought one could cope until they arrived, fried alive and not dead, still wriggling.
I only just made it to the bathroom and upchucked for the next half hour.
That was one of the defining moments one just knew no 2 had to go, not only did he eat his portion but mine too!!!!!
It still gives me the heaves to even think about it 30 years later. I seriously draw the line at eating things whilst they are wriggling.
(Yeah and that too!)
Well it was in Ghana, but they told me not to ask. So i didn’t ask. No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t cat. Nor was it a giant snail.
PS Mrs O – “sauteed with odds and sods”. Ha ha.
I had big anus in Shanghai, likely had dog in Korea. I’ve eaten sea slugs and sea cucumbers, jelly fish, sea urchins, and snails.
Crocodile.
Nuggets or steaklets, grilled or fried, very tasty.
A white meat with the texture of calamari perhaps, tastes a bit like a cross between chicken and fish.
Black pudding, certainly not something freely available down here, I think it was standard breakfast fare while we were at a UK B&B, could never develop the taste for it.
Soutie: I have also eaten crocodile. It’s different, but not bad.
A good start. Elvers are a great delicacy here in the spring to the extent that the Maritime Police are kept busy at night hunting down illegal fishermen. The snails here are not just sea-snails but also the roadside variety which are particularly tasty. As for the pig, nothing is wasted. I lunched only the other day on “bochechas” – pigs cheeks, the jaw muscle. They had the consistency, colour and taste of braised lamb and were delicious.
PapaG – Have you been on the road from Accra to Takoradi? Vendors holding up dried lizards for sale and little plastic bags of water with larvae wriggling around in them. I did draw the line at the latter and asked for someone to fetch a fresh coconut instead in order to beat off dehydration.
Christopher – I am intrigued by your Shanghai episode. Presumably it was a mistranslation on the menu, I hope.
As for myself, I particularly remember having casserole of giant fruit bat (the subject of the photograph above) in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. Dessert was sago bashed out from the pulp of a sago palm served in one of those white, chipped enamel bowls with the blue rim. It looked like a spitoon in a bronchial-pneumonia ward to be honest, but tasted fine.
OZ
Excuse me? Big anus?
OZ: no, there was no mistranslation. It was pork anus. it tasted like excreta, too. Literally.
My hosts ordered it as part of lunch and I did not feel I could reject their hospitality, so I managed to
eat two before I couldn’t stomach it any more.
Parts of horses and frogs are common in France and taste pretty good. Kolokasi in the Med doesn’t – it’s root veg which tends to sliminess.
Soutie – I always found crocodile remined me of a well-done tuna steak. I’m from Lancashire where black pud for breakfast is an absolute must. Bloody lovely on toast with a fried egg.
OZ
Referring to Christopher’s big anus (tehehehe) I have tried tripe a few times and reacted similarly.
Anyone know the Portuguese for pig’s arse? In culinary terms that is.
OZ
OH, and tapioca pudding – the infamous school ‘frogs’ spawn’.
Isn’t it ‘espertalhona porco’? 😉
Dunno, Janus. According to my dictionary, ‘espertalhona’ is literally a cunning woman. That’s not to say that there isn’t some idiomatic phrase. For example, a rack of spare ribs is often sold here as a ‘piano’, for obvious reasons.
OZ
Live termites, battered fish eyes, frogs legs, crocodile, but not yet have I ever eaten the Zimbabwean delicacy, mopani worms.
http://www.melvister.com/2011/01/makanan-jijik-di-afrika.html
I never had the opportunity to try witchety grubs when I lived in Oz. Wouldn’t say no though.
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/7-most-disgusting-insect-delicacies-on-earth/13723
OZ
Chocolate covered grasshopper and alligator steaks is all I can offer to this conversation. Both surprisingly tasty, but the texture of the insects, yuck!
ARE not IS. I will have the thought police after me 🙂
Patés de grives is an dish my husband ordered in France once. I did warn him, but he was a bit disconcerted to find the little beak and legs on top as a sort of garnish.
FYI. Sunday lunch today includes spuds roast in goose fat. Now that is REAL food!
Araminta – During the hunting season they turn up at The Bar with sacks full of tiny birds, rabbits, partridge and whatever else they have shot. Mrs Machiavelli (owner of The Bar and she who persuaded me in my cups to adopt Das Fürballen) preps the catch and cooks it for them. I have been invited several times, but the weirdest food here is at a pig-kill where, when it’s all over, you are given a dish of congealed blood mixed with onoins. It tastes of liver actually.
FEEG @22 – Yeah, well there is that too. Please tell me they aren’t Aunt Bessie’s frozen jobbies but what are you having with them? Do tell. Forerib of beef? Shoulder of lamb? Leg of pork. A goose? Oh drool!
OZ
Oh no, not Aunt Bessie’s, Best King Edwards! Roast gammon and home-made pease pudding plus assorted flavoured cellulose items.. Yummy.
Glad to hear they weren’t Aunt Bessie’s as a result of which my hackles are lowering back to ‘standby’ (default setting). You can’t buy proper gammon here (any spare joints go for air-dried ham), so I have to do my own. Trust you enjoyed your lunch.
OZ
Mrs. Osborne for shame. First I must leap to the defence of the humble elver, this was a staple springtime breakfast food when i was growing up in the esturine wilderness of the Wye. Caught on a spring evening at the height of the tide, ours were always blanched in boiling water and pressed into a “cheese” , portions could then be fried in a little bacon fat and made a great accompaniment to the egss with bacon. Not seen
on Welsh tables for lo these many years, I am told yhey are still locally caught for the “live” trade and bring up to £400 per Kg.
I did sample some on a recent (working) visit to Donastia, a little different (Angulas ) but just as tasty and almost as expensive, while there I was warned that the demand for them is very high and there are artificial versions made from shredded and pressed fish protein (Gulas) which are OK but nothing like as good as the real thing.
Moving on to the really weird, back in the eighties on a visit to Japan with my then boss (the owner of the company) we were royally entertained to a traditional Japanese meal. The number of dishes were uncountable and having never eaten anything in Japan that ever gave me even a hint of indigestion, I ate everthing offered never asking the makeup of the meal. My boss, normally a steak or hamburger eater could not resist asking about the contents of some the dishes, I had just finished my small portion of a delicately fish flavored pink material, when my boss with his second mouthful of the same still suspended from his chopsticks, addresseed our host with a question “Saito-san this is delicious, what is it?” Poor Saito, ever the perfect gentleman replied ” Ah, is very difficult to describe,……. it is the raw sperm of the Sea Bass fish” So I turned to my boss and said ” Well Marc, you will realy enjoy it now you know what it is, right?”
Good point, LW. Nobody who invites you to a meal is trying to kill you. What you eat is partly in the mind, a question of accepting what, to you, is different. When abroad eat what is put in front of you and worry (if you feel it necessary) afterwards. I was only told about the fruit bat afterwards and I rationalised, ok it’s a rabbit the size of a fox terrier, with wings and no paws, and the meat was tasty. There was no problem on successive occasions either.
OZ
Great lunch, thank you. Finished off with a healthy yogurt and black cherry followed by an even healthier large cognac!
Unless your hostess is called Lucretia Borgia 🙂
I’ll try anything as long as it is dead!
It was the wriggling I objected to.
Interesting LW about the elvers in E Wales.
Snake is often deep fried in Mississippi, it is very good, excellent with hushpuppies and slaw. Good way to get rid of a few of them, eat’em. Nothing like a good rednecked eatin’ house.
Oysters?
And what the hell are hushpuppies? In Blighty they are/used to be a brand of shoe
OZ
Don’t eat fresh oysters, prefer them shallow fried in fresh crumbs. We have them here regularly they are local and incredibly cheap, less than 50 cents each! I BBQ them too, regularly, howzat for a culinary solecism? Use them to stuff turkey and all sorts of dishes.
Hushpuppies are a deep South dish. A deep fried 2″ diameter savoury doughnut made of corn meal with a hint of onion. It all depends on the cornmeal, it needs to be medium ground and fresh which gives them an incredible nutty, gritty flavour. Well made they are beyond compare as a side dish to deep fried fish, much better than chips which I find incredibly boring.
We used to go to a place in Alabama that served the best fried catfish, freshwater crayfish, garlic slaw and hushpuppies. It was heaving with people, real swamp people, the overalls and wild beards brigade.
The food was to die for, probably literally, but at least you had earned your heart attack. and the entertainment people watching was incomparable.
Southern food in the USA is far better than that further North, up here it is as boring as hell, (so are the PC liberals) Pity the climate is as bad as it is otherwise I would much prefer to live in the South, far more amusing all round except in hurricane season!!
OZ just thought, I’d sell my soul for a New Orleans beignet, tiny pillow shaped doughnut, semi sweet, always given free on the saucer of a cup of coffee in N.O.
Death to Starbucks, bet they haven’t got too many outlets down there peddling their dishwater!
Good post Oz, must go and garden, sun has come out!
I could have written that myself about a local restaurant up in the hills. Leave the Cascais and Vilamoura rip-off joints to the tourists, says I and thanks for the info on hushpuppies. If I can source cornmeal here I’ll definitely give them a try.
Do try fresh oysters. A Zangada and I used to frequent a bar in central Brisbane that sold a dozen live ones on ice with a red wine vinegar dip for next to nothing.
Any, and I do mean any Portuguese café or restaurant will give you a better coffee than Starbucks. Happy gardening and then jump on a plane to Faro for your coffee and biccies.
OZ
OZ: convenience stores in Denmark sell better coffee than bloody Scarbullocks.
Christopher – I would no more buy a coffee from Starbucks than a bucket of flame-grilled McNuggets.
OZ
I have had yabbies, crocodile and kangaroo, all in Australia. I was offered deep fried locusts in Ugnada, but turned them down!
Ooooh yabbies! How could I forget them? And Moreton Bay bugs. Tastier than lobster or langoustine.
Drool!
OZ
My mum always called that “Snotty globules”.
OZ I don’t think I’ve been on that track thank God. I have eaten bushmeat which is sold at the side of the road. They (whatever they are) are splat out like a cartoon cats, as if flattened by a truck, and hung out at arms length to attract passing motorists.
I can’t believe what you lot have eaten here! Its disgusting!
PS OZ – it is only fitting that you live in a cave.
PapaG – I too have eaten Ghanaian smoked roadkill. Gawd knows what it was, but I did draw the line at the plastic bags of water. Funnily enough I came back from one trip to West Africa, felt horrible for a few days and then collapsed unconscious, ending up for a week in a hospital isolation room attended by experts from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (true story). During my internment I dined on Dover sole and pancakes – the only dishes they could push under the door (not quite true :-)).
Anyhooo, that so-called main road to Takoradi is worse than the track up to The Cave. At least on the latter you don’t have a petrol tanker two feet off your rear bumper with ‘Jesus saves’ painted on the front by a driver with little imagination.
OZ
Janus: well, it was pig’s anus and it was also big…
OZ: 😀
Christina: panko-covered oysters are delicious. I had some in Hiroshima, very fresh and expertly prepared.
It’s a local specialty there — I’m looking forward to having more next spring when I go back to Korea and Japan again. (Getting ready to move there for work) Agree with you about the food and the people. Saucy, raunchy, and straightforward. Californians are bores in comparison, except in their own minds, of course.