8 Strangest Foods from around the World ...

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I was scared when I first tried this food when I visited Scotland, but was very surprised at how good it tasted. I think the idea of it being stored inside of a sheep’s stomach was the big turn-off for me, but it turns out that it doesn’t look as gross as it sounds. It consists of a sheep’s liver, heart, and lungs that has been ground up and mixed with oatmeal, onion, salt, and other spices. Most Scots eat it with a side of mashed potatoes and a side of mashed turnips. It looked and tasted a lot like corned beef and hash to me.

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There were so many kinds of bugs eaten around the world that I had to lump many of them together. I just can’t limit this strange food to one specific bug! Scorpions are eaten in Vietnam, baby bees in Japan, Huhu grubs in New Zealand, ants in Belize, tarantulas in Cambodia, Mopane caterpillars in Africa, water bugs in Thailand, crickets in the Philippines, and grasshoppers in Mexico. Some are eaten right off the ground, while others are added to some interesting recipes for bread. There was also a recipe I came across that included adding roasted bugs to gelatin and then cutting them into blocks. This might make the bugs easier to slide down when eating them.

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This dish comes from Newfoundland and consists of not only seal flippers, but also pork fat and chopped onions. It isn’t very common anymore, due to the decline of seal hunting. To make one of these pies, the flippers are soaked in water and baking soda for 30 minutes, then dipped in flour and fried until they are brown. The flippers are placed in a baking dish and 2 onions are added. A gravy is made from Worcester sauce, flour, and water and then poured over the flippers and onions. This is then baked for 2 to 3 hours. A pie crust is placed over the top of this concoction and baked for 30 minutes at a higher temperature. Many communities have flipper pie dinners in April.

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This is Swedish for ham (Skink) and cheese (Ost), but the cool thing is that it comes in a metal tube that looks like it should contain toothpaste. When I lived in Norway, we would have a basket in the fridge filled with tubes of Skink Ost, salted caviar, unsalted caviar, and various crackers to put it all on. The cheese in the tubes is more of a cream cheese and seems to be the base for containing the meat product. There was also a jar of pickled fish to go with the Skink Ost and a slab of brown cheese.

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I think this would be a hard one to eat, unless I was starving to death. It is popular in the Philippines and consists of a half-formed chicken still in the egg. The chick is about 16 days old, which means it already has feathers, feet, etc. Typically, the eggs are boiled and then the contents eaten. It is a common street food in the Philippines and most people drink beer when eating them.

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This is similar to Vegemite, which I’d heard people from Australia talk about. I found Marmite on the shelf in a grocery store in London and it is used the same was as Vegemite. Marmite actually came before Vegemite. The Australians liked the stuff so much that they decided to come up with a different name for it. Both substances smell like feet and are very salty. People who eat it like to make sandwiches with it and eat it with the same enthusiasm as Americans eat a peanut butter sandwich. I had a hard time eating a bit of it on a cracker, so I think it might be an acquired taste.

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Koreans will eat these sea creatures with a yellow sauce on top. The slugs are cut into slices and de-gutted before they are served to the customer. Most people like the taste of them and compare the crunchiness to that of a radish. Even the eggs of the sea slug are edible. They look a bit like a pile of pasta. The pictures I’ve seen of sea slugs show that most of them are very brightly colored, but I’m not certain which kinds are the most popular to eat.

Photo Credit: redsummer

This is a fruit that comes from Southeast Asia and is as large as an American football. There are spikes on the outside and the inside looks like something used for pretend brains in zombie movies. If you can get past the smell, then you’ll find it tastes amazing. However, the initial smell is similar to sewage or a laundry basket full of sweaty socks. It can be eaten raw, baked into cookies or candies, or topped with cooked onions

The world is definitely an interesting place. Have you come across any of these 8 strangest foods from around the world? Are there any others that you’ve thought of trying? I’d love to hear about foods you think are unusual.