Every nation has its own dishes that they consider delicacies. These dishes are often referred to as the most delicious and prestigious of those that can be tasted. However, delicacies vary greatly from country to country. In many cases, one country’s favorite foods are disgusted and disliked in other countries. What to one person is filet mignon, to another looks like an unattractive smear. However, these delicacies may well be seen as horrors that have entered our plates straight from hell.
If you’re hungry now or are planning a snack in the near future, we urge you not to watch this post. Today we present to you the most disgusting dishes.
Copalham, aka the rotten deer
The absolute winner in our ranking of nasty food. Sometimes a whale, seal (kiviak), or walrus appears instead. Almost all Nordic peoples like to eat the decomposed corpses of animals. In Scandinavia, they eat the corpse of a shark.
Recipes for this wonderful dish do not vary much among the various peoples – the animal is buried in the ground and, after a few months, dig it up. By this time, the putrefactive bacteria have turned the soft tissue into a gray, slimy mass. Copalchem is deadly to Europeans because of the cadaverine, putrescine, and neurin cadaverine poisons.
Escamoles
Escamoles are the larvae of ants of the genus Liometopum found on agave roots. In Mexican cuisine, escamoles are considered a delicacy, sometimes also called “insect caviar. It is a dish with the consistency of cottage cheese that tastes like butter with a nutty flavor. To get the escamoles, you have to dig down to a depth of 8 meters, where there are ant nests full of larvae.
According to one of the larvae collectors, “Escamoles miners have a special person with a brush who sweeps the ants off them as they dig. I have heard that some are coated with pig fat, through which the ants cannot bite.” It should be noted that ant bites are extremely painful, so this kind of work may well qualify as truly extreme.
Surströmming
Surströmming is the Swedish national product, which is a canned sauerkraut herring that smells so bad that it is usually eaten outdoors because of the stench. The percentage of this nasty food is as follows. The gutted herring, but with the appendix, and caviar, is placed in vats of bracken to remove the blood and fat. The herring is then salted, placed in an open pot, and left to sour.
During this process, its own enzymes and bacteria form propionic, butyric, and acetic acids, among others, as well as hydrogen sulfide. The herring is then placed in canning jars. The fish continues to sour even after being jarred. Therefore, Swedish gourmets recommend opening the can underwater or outdoors because there is a risk of splashing the juice all around.
They usually make a sandwich with surströmming and other ingredients. It is served with boiled potatoes and chopped onions. Other common ingredients are gräddfil (sour milk fat or sour cream), green onions, and sometimes tomato.
Balut
Only a true connoisseur of the exotic would taste such a dish. Southeast Asia is especially popular for its nasty food. Foodies describe the taste as roasted chicken liver. The egg can be eaten raw and topped with soy sauce. Such a dish is considered very nutritious, quickly satiates, and satisfies the human body’s need for vitamins.
A duck egg is taken with the duck almost formed and then boiled. A hole is then made in the shell through which you can drink the cooked broth. Sometimes a street food vendor will serve salt and onion sauce with the balut. Despite the presence of the germ, balut tastes like a regular egg.
Centennial Eggs
Whipped, fried, or boiled eggs are everyday products, and many people enjoy eating them. But in China, there is another nasty food that has been sent to the stomach for thousands of years. Known by various names, such as “century eggs,” “century eggs,” or pidan, these eggs are especially loved in rural China.
A century egg is a quail, duck, or chicken egg that has been fermented and preserved using an atypical set of ingredients. A large vat filled with black tea, salt, lime, and fresh wood ash is added and left to warm overnight. After the contents of the vat have reached maximum potential, duck, quail, or chicken eggs are placed in it. The eggs are then soaked in this mixture for seven weeks to five months, ensuring that they are fermented and canned properly.
Once the “age-old eggs” are ready, they can be enjoyed to the fullest. At this point, the situation becomes grotesque. The egg becomes a creepy and horrible product. Imagine an egg with the consistency of jelly. The egg white becomes amber and even almost black.
The yolk turns into a hard dark gray or green ball. The shell shows patterns similar to those drawn by frost, and some find them beautiful. The egg smells like ammonia, which only adds to the disgust with the black egg mass. This nasty food is often sliced and served as a side dish or consumed alone.
Natto
Japan is home to everything strange about our world, from commercials and TV shows to national foods. For example, natto is fermented soybeans. Hay bacillus is added to the vat, and the fermentation process begins. In 24 hours, the soybeans are transformed from good, solid beans into a slimy, threadbare mass with a powerful smell of ammonia. The taste of the natto, for reasons unknown, does not match the smell – it is bitter and salty.
Blood Soup
This dish is called tiết canh in Vietnamese. This nasty food is made from the fresh blood of ducks, geese, or pigs with the addition of nuts and aromatic herbs. The soup is popular in North Vietnam, where it is consumed with alcoholic beverages. The blood soup has a very strange consistency and metallic taste. Tourists are usually discouraged from eating it because of the danger of contracting the H5N1 bird flu.
Tuna eye
An eye of gigantic proportions, disgusting in appearance and not at all conducive to eating, opens the rating of the most terrible delicacies that please the desires of gourmets. This marvel of culinary art can only be found in Japan, which is not a cause for grief at all. The only possible way to eat this slime-covered glassy thing is to swallow it immediately as soon as it enters your mouth and try not to think about it again. Otherwise, the consequences are very predictable.
The tuna eye is quite large and can be bought in almost every supermarket in Japan. What makes it so appealing to true gourmets, many people are unable to understand. The tuna eye is consumed in its raw form; it is almost swallowed whole. The Japanese say it is very healthy and improves the immune system. They are advised to eat this dish at least several times a week.
Seal stuffed with seagulls.
One of the most exquisite dishes of the subarctic peoples on the Christmas table. Kiwiak is the name of the seal carcass stuffed with seagulls, and here is the recipe for its preparation for those who wish to taste it.
You need a decapitated seal carcass, which is not cleaned, and its belly is filled with already plucked seagulls. The semi-finished product is placed in the permafrost for seven months. During this time, the enzymes of the decomposing bird corpses work on the seal intestines. The dish is ready to eat. It tastes like spicy, pungent old cheese with winged and pinniped symnekrosis.
“Three Squeaks of a Rat.”
Another exotic Chinese nasty food is a favorite of Chinese nobles called “Three Squeaky Rats.” This Chinese dish was created for the nobility and is rarely prepared.
It requires only a sauce and one live pregnant rat. The rat embryos are served alive on a plate. The baby rats make the first squeak when they are picked up with chopsticks and the second when they are dipped into the sauce. The third and final squeak is heard when the rat starts chewing. It is this dish that has inspired many great Chinese poets. And all Chinese emperors, without exception, indulged in this delicacy on particularly solemn occasions.
Kopi Luwak
Coffee, which has very unusual processing, is called – Kopi Luwak. What is the specialty? The thing is that this coffee is first eaten by a small animal Musang. Then the excrement, which contains the beans, is washed and dried in the sun. However, the pleasure of drinking such coffee does not come cheap. Gourmets say that after consuming such coffee, there is a great aftertaste in the mouth.
Howcarl
Ireland has an unusual traditional nasty food, hawkarl. The key ingredient of the dish is the polar shark.
To many of us, sharks look pretty intimidating: huge teeth, black, dilated pupils, and a mad thirst for blood. In Iceland, sharks are even scarier because the national delicacy is fermented, rotten, and drowned in a cloud of ammonia. Haukarl is a traditional Icelandic food whose history goes back to Viking times.
When the Vikings began settling in Iceland, they discovered that sharks, namely Greenland sharks, were very abundant in the waters near the island, so this shark became a major food source. The Vikings quickly learned that Greenland shark meat was toxic to humans, so to prepare it for consumption, they developed a way to purify it.
So, how does a shark become a favorite delicacy?
It’s a long and disgusting story. Once a shark is caught, it is quickly decapitated. To eliminate toxins, trimethylamine oxide, and uric acid, a hole is dug, and the shark is placed there. Stones are placed on top. The pressure of the stones causes the release of toxins.
The process takes 6 to 12 weeks. During this time, the shark’s meat begins to rot and ferment underground. When the shark is believed to be cleared of toxins, it is taken out of the ground, cut into long pieces, and dried. Drying takes even longer. Several months pass before this nasty food producer can be sure the delicacy is ready.
How do you know if a rotten shark is ready to eat?
When the smell of rot becomes very strong and a dry, hard, brown crust forms on the meat suspended for drying, the hawkarl is ready. Although the thought of eating haukarl seems disgusting to outsiders, the people of Iceland consider this dish a traditional national delicacy. During the Icelandic gastronomic festival Torrablot, this nasty food is consumed to honor old traditions.
Chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain once tasted haukarl during his trip to Iceland and claimed it was “the worst, worst, worst, worst thing” he had ever tasted, and chef Gordon Ramsay tasted the dish during a TV show and immediately threw up in a bucket. So next time you’re in Iceland, and you smell rotting in the air, don’t be scared. It’s not rotting flesh. It’s Iceland’s national delicacy.
The human placenta
The human placenta is eaten in many countries around the world – in Europe and the United States, Mexico, and in Hawaii. Many dishes and even cocktails are made from the human placenta. Foodies say that they like to eat this dish not only because of its taste but because it is very useful, helps with infertility, and helps to get out of depression.
Casu martzu
When you think of cheese, your mouth begins to fill with saliva, and your imagination paints an image of luscious cheddar. In Sardinia, however, cheese has taken on a horrible appearance. Casu Martzu is a highly prized delicacy for the people of Sardinia.
But what makes this cheese so special?
Casu marzu means “rotten cheese,” and this is just the beginning of its disgusting history. What makes it a delicacy is that it is simply teeming with live maggots. Casu martzu, or maggot cheese, begins its transformation into a disgusting product like a simple pecorino cheese that is smoked, dipped in brine, and left to mature in the cellar. Then maggots are introduced into it.
To do this, cheese makers take that piece of cheese that is supposed to become casu marzu and leave it open, breaking the skin so the flies can lay eggs in the cheese. These particular cheese flies lay many eggs; a few flies can fill the middle of a cheese head with thousands and thousands of eggs.
The larvae then hatch from the eggs and do what they do best: eating and emptying themselves. As a result, the enzymes secrete rot and decompose the inside of the cheese, so when it is cut open to eat, the inside is a sticky, sticky mass filled with countless living maggots.
There are certain dangers from eating such a delicacy. The maggots do not like to be disturbed. When the cheese is cut, scooped out with a spoon, or otherwise disturbed in order to eat it, the larvae begin to jump as high as 15 centimeters.
Since they do this close to your face, you better stock up on a pair of goggles to enjoy this rotten feast. In the past, this nasty food was banned by the European Union due to violations of food hygiene and safety regulations. The EU did not want people to eat rotten cheese and live insects. However, the ban was soon overturned because Europe considered cheese a traditional food of the people of Sardinia, and, therefore, the issue is not under the jurisdiction of the court.
Huitlacoche
Mexico is famous for its exquisite cuisine. From carne asada to the well-known taco, Mexican cuisine is loved by millions. There is, however, one dish that is considered a delicacy to local Mexicans but shocks the rest of us. Huitlacoche is often called “fungus” or “Mexican truffle,” but in reality, this delicacy is nothing more than a disease that affects the corn.
The disease results in round, gray globules on the plant that look like river rocks. Although most consider this fungal disease a scourge, in some parts of Mexico, the fungus is scraped off the leaves and placed inside the corn to promote its growth.
Huitlacoche has been known to indigenous tribes in Mexico for centuries, but in the second half of the 20th century, the fungus came to be considered a delicacy that gained popularity in Mexican cuisine. Many describe its taste as delicate, with notes of smoke reminiscent of morels. However, most of those who have tasted this unpalatable food agree that the texture, nature, and flavor of the mushroom affect its taste.
This nasty food can be prepared in many different ways: added to different dishes as a flavoring, or it can be used to make soups and sauces. Many people even consume the mushroom on its own, enjoying its delicate flavor and soft texture. When cooking with huitlacoche, keep in mind that when heated, the fungus turns from gray to black and is very reminiscent of squid ink. If you’re feeling adventurous the next time you’re in Mexico, forget the Portobello and order yourself some corn “sore.”
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