Top 10 Weird Foods

December 5th, 2009 by Kelly Serjeantson

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  1. Hákarl (Fermented/Rotten Shark) – Iceland
    Made from basking shark, it has a ammonia smell and fishy taste, similar to Jewish deli whitefish or very strong cheese. Normally basking shark meat is poisonous when fresh. However, it’s made edible during the curing process.
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  2. Rocky Mountain Oysters -USA/Canada
    Also known as prairie oysters or cowboy caviar, rocky mountain oysters are fried buffalo or bull testicles.
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  3. 1000-year-old eggs or Pidan – China
    Made by preserving duck eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice hull for several months. The yolk becomes a dark green and egg whites become a brown transparent jelly. 1000-year-old eggs smell of sulphur and ammonia. Yum.
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  4. Fried Grasshoppers – China
    Grasshoppers are fried and served on skewers in Chinese food markets.
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  5. Fugu (Pufferfish) – Japan
    Featured in a Simpson’s episode, Fugu is pufferfish and is lethally poisonous if prepared incorrectly.
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  6. Surströmming – Sweden
    Fermented Baltic herring that is canned while it’s still fermenting. The cans often bulge due to the fermentation process and can explode.
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  7. Live Octopus – Korea
    Live octopus is sliced up and the legs are eaten while they are still moving. The tentacles often stick to chopsticks and even to the diner’s mouth, which makes the octopus difficult to eat.
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  8. Bird’s Nest Soup – China
    Bird’s nest soup is a delicacy made from swift bird’s nest. A swift is a bird that lives in a cave and it makes its bird nest from saliva.
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  9. Balut – Philippines
    Balut is a fertilized duck or chicken egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell.
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  10. Casu Marzu – Italy
    Casu marzu means “rotten cheese” in Sardinian. The cheese is riddled with insect larvae and the larvae can jump if they are disturbed.
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