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Okay, what are some weird things that you have eaten? I've gone down that road of "anything with four legs that isn't the table or commonly kept as a pet" (exempting guinea pig, which was served to me by a friend from Bolivia. Wasn't bad, but I wouldn't go out of my way to have it again. Not big on eating rodents in the first place.) I think that we humans have done a pretty fair job of figuring out which other critters are good to eat and reasonably obtainable. Sure, there's stuff that looks good but isn't readily available in my part of the world that pushes the "available but too expensive" button like sturgeon, lobster, puffin, grouper. sea bass, etc.

I've eaten tiger shark based on the concept that if the situation were reversed... And frankly, I can't tell the difference of one species of shark from another and it isn't really good enough to bother with. I'll eat if served to me, but if I'm ordering from a menu with other seafood choices, shark is not what's for dinner.

Hippopotamus steak and someone else is picking up the tab? Sure, why not.  Overly marbled to my taste and way too expensive to go that route again, but like I said, I wasn't the one paying for it. 

Rattlesnake and gator: Forget the "just like chicken" crap unless you like your chicken thoroughly dried out and boney as hell. Edible, but just barely...

So whatcha got?

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I've eaten camel.  Really the only "weird" thing I've ever bothered with.  It was...gamey.  Not too bad, though, as I've had bison (many moons ago) that was gamier, and bison burgers nowadays are common enough that they're not gamey at all.  Otherwise, you apparently can't cook camel too much or it becomes a hockey puck.  I should probably go back to Abbey and see what the Meat of the Month is; haven't been there in nearly 2 years anyway.

What I've realized in my old age is precisely three things about food:

1. If it's meat that you can't make into a burger, I probably don't want it.  This seems like a fine defense against ever trying worms or insects, no matter how much other people say they're edible.

2. If I can identify the animal I'm eating (such as a whole lobster - noooo thank you), I'm also not interested.

3. If I can picture 5-year-old Me shedding a tear about the cute animal I'm consuming (like a rabbit), I'll also pass.

 

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My grandfather on my dad's side was an avid subsistence hunter so if you name a forest varmint, I have probably eaten it in a stew as a child.  To this day, I still sneak rabbit and venison to our dinner table and I cannot tell my daughter what she's eaten until after the meal for fear that she will hate me for killing Bambi or Thumper.

I've had roasted bison, but that's no longer weird now that lean meats are all the rage.  You can find that shit in a grocery store now.

My boo's sister's husband always wants to try to get me to eat gator whenever we visit.  My palate is brave, but not THAT brave.  I can eat seafood (including weird shellfish dishes like Conch Salad) or a land mammal without batting an eyelash, but reptiles and amphibians give me pause.

When I was in Kuwait as a LAR, I had Farwaregh aka what Haggis might be if it were stuffed with rice and peppers rather than barley.  I remember it being really tasty but incredibly spicy (pungent, not burning) and also that you need to eat whatever you put on your plate in order to avoid insulting your host, so I made sure I got small portions and drank plenty of goat milk to keep the heat at bay.

Pro-Tip:  If you are eating food spiced with peppers or curry and the burn kicks in, do not drink cold water.  It just distributes the spice around your mouth and throat and makes things worse.  Drink milk because it neutralizes the spice and also coats your mouth, esophagus, and stomach.

When my dad served in Nam, he said he routinely ate sugar ants as a snack and that they were pretty good..  Fuck that shit.

 

Edited by J.T.
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I used to try unusual things just for the hell of it, but I'm not much of a meat eater these days.

Alligator, ostrich and (I think) Kangaroo - all tasted like chicken.

Had chicken feet at a Chinese restaurant. Little to no meat on them, it was literally just gnawing away at toe bones. Have also had chicken hearts at a Brazilian BBQ.

I've had bison and elk, but they're not unusual these days and especially not around these parts.

Goat curry, but again not unusual given my in-laws are Indian.

Are frog legs (also tastes like chicken) and escargot considered unusual? Baby octopus and squid? Seeing tentacles on your plate is a little offputting. I presume mussels and other shellfish are standard?

I tried sea urchin and shark tail at a sushi place. Easily the worst things I've tasted.

I'm from the old world, so some of the things I consider fairly normal are considered strange over here in NA. Black pudding (you guys call it blood sausage I guess) is awesome, haggis is pretty good, liver is ok and I haven't had tripe (lining of a sheep's stomach) in years but I remember it as quite rubbery.

 

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I don't consider it strange but I can have kalamari (squid) and grilled octopus all day if possible.  That shit is the fucking best but that's also my Greek side coming through.  And with Greek Easter we're going to have lamb on the spit which is the absolute best.  Years ago they had that and goat on another spit and while I liked goat the lamb was more fatty and flavorful.  If those aren't considered weird then boy you really don't wanna know about later that night when we picked apart the lamb's head.  Damn that was weird yet surprisingly good.  Speaking of Greece I had rabbit there in '97 and remembered it having a gamey vibe but it was neat to say I tried it.

Much like @Contentious C it's been awhile since I went to Abby but man was that great.  I did try camel which I liked and kangaroo burger which I liked even more.  I consider wild boar to be not that uncommon around here but when I'm up for it it's good to have.

As for other stuff I did try alligator a time or two and didn't mind it.  I'm blanking on other ones I may have had but am always up for anything.

Edited by NikoBaltimore
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Don't have anything too weird. 

Had squirrel a couple times as a child when my family visited one of my uncles. It is similar to chicken and good, but also annoyingly boney.

Had a camel burger from one of the burger joints in the area I'm around currently. It was actually bit disappointing. Nothing standout flavor wise. Don't think it was seasoned well.

Does gator and frog legs count as weird? I see both on restaurant menus enough that they seem kind of normal to me. The gator I've had is  usually ground up and fried. I like it well enough though it always feels just a bit too expensive for the amount. Frog legs taste like some weird fish/chicken combo and are generally good, but like gator is a bit too expensive.

26 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I don't consider it strange but I can have kalamari (squid) and grilled octopus all day if possible.

I don't really think squid and octopus are in the weird category at this point. Way too many cultures use them for food. 

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3 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I don't really think squid and octopus are in the weird category at this point. Way too many cultures use them for food. 

That is true but I guess chalk that up to years of non-Greeks being repulsed by it (until they try it then they change their tune to various degrees)  Then again I was surprised to see lobster mentioned in here which I find completely normal so I guess it's all a matter of what one considers weird.

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Just now, NikoBaltimore said:

That is true but I guess chalk that up to years of non-Greeks being repulsed by it (until they try it then they change their tune to various degrees)  Then again I was surprised to see lobster mentioned in here which I find completely normal so I guess it's all a matter of what one considers weird.

I didn't realize people were turned off by it. I see fried calamari on seafood menus regularly enough that its pretty normal. Don't find Octopus as often, but it is there. Also see it for other dishes like takoyaki, grilled for Mediterranean places, sushi, etc.

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7 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

That is true but I guess chalk that up to years of non-Greeks being repulsed by it (until they try it then they change their tune to various degrees)  Then again I was surprised to see lobster mentioned in here which I find completely normal so I guess it's all a matter of what one considers weird.

 

4 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I didn't realize people were turned off by it. I see fried calamari on seafood menus regularly enough that its pretty normal. Don't find Octopus as often, but it is there. Also see it for other dishes like takoyaki, grilled for Mediterranean places, sushi, etc.

I love calamari. I never tried octopus, but I imagine it can't be that much different from squid. I've seen people repulsed by scallops, but I think they're delicious. 

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1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I don't consider it strange but I can have kalamari (squid) and grilled octopus all day if possible.  That shit is the fucking best but that's also my Greek side coming through.  And with Greek Easter we're going to have lamb on the spit which is the absolute best.  Years ago they had that and goat on another spit and while I liked goat the lamb was more fatty and flavorful.  If those aren't considered weird then boy you really don't wanna know about later that night when we picked apart the lamb's head.  Damn that was weird yet surprisingly good.  Speaking of Greece I had rabbit there in '97 and remembered it having a gamey vibe but it was neat to say I tried it.

Much like @Contentious C it's been awhile since I went to Abby but man was that great.  I did try camel which I liked and kangaroo burger which I liked even more.  I consider wild boar to be not that uncommon around here but when I'm up for it it's good to have.

As for other stuff I did try alligator a time or two and didn't mind it.  I'm blanking on other ones I may have had but am always up for anything.

Lamb on a spit, that goes with saying for us. I don't think I'd want to try goat. I don't care how good rabbit may or may not be, I couldn't bring myself to eat a rabbit. As much as I enjoy lamb, I feel guilty about eating it. Morally, I know I should be a vegan or stick to seafood, but I like beef, pork, chicken, and lamb too much. I had a bison burger once. It was a little gamey, but I still thought it was pretty good. My yia yia doesn't eat chicken because it triggers childhood memories of watching her mother killing the chicken to prepare it.

@NikoBaltimore, did you get the lamb's eye or the brain?

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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I feel like That Scene from Oldboy - which I would not shitpost into a thread even if my worst enemy started the thread - put me off ever, ever, ever eating octopus.  I've had calamari a lot and even then, it's usually too rubbery.  And on top of that, it goes back to the Identifiable Animal rule I have.

But I suppose that reminds me there is another rule: no willingly eating something that's as smart as I am (hi octopi, hi dolphins).

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2 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

I guess I eat everything because I can't bear the thought of not knowing what it tastes like. The beauty of it all is that things usually taste good. I need to get around to doing the uterus taco deal.

OMG, that's a real thing. 

Sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know cause I won't eat the filthy motherfuckers.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

, did you get the lamb's eye or the brain

I had both though my wife wouldn't have the eye. We did have brain which was like a pate of sorts. We absolutely loved the cheek and tongue.

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9 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

 

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I had both though my wife wouldn't have the eye. We did have brain which was like a pate of sorts. We absolutely loved the cheek and tongue.

 

You're a braver than I am when it comes to that.                                 

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Oh I forgot I've had tongue tacos before. They were decent.

17 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

 

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I had both though my wife wouldn't have the eye. We did have brain which was like a pate of sorts. We absolutely loved the cheek and tongue.

 

Those actually might go too far for me yet at the same time I can't help but be curious.

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Brain is literally gobs of cholesterol. Sans the electrons that make up our soul or whatever. Fries up fine - fat is flavor, like they say. But I never go out of my way for brain (except in the rap lyrics sense).

Lengua tacos are weird cause some places keep the skin around the tongue on before they slow-cook it and some don't. I'm a skin-off guy. My favorite cut of taco meat is cabeza - when they slow cook the head and pull all the good meat from the cheeks. Props to Real Mexico Restaurant y Tienda in Columbia, SC for having the best cabeza I've had on the east coast. 

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Nothing particularly weird. Like a lot of you, I've had alligator. It was in a taco, a little chewy, but alright. I'm sure the fact that it was in a taco made it better than it actually was.

Tried shark when I was a kid, but I don't remember anything at all about it. My dad ordered it in a restaurant and I had a bite or two.

Horse is a weird meat. Super sweet. Tastes like sugar has been pumped into it, but with a super musky smell. The smell and the taste don't match at all. Probably wouldn't eat again.

I've had head cheese a lot. If it's done well, it is absolutely delicious. If it's done wrong it becomes one of those gelatin nightmares you see in cookbooks from the 50s. Blood sausage is similar. A good blood sausage is some tasty shit.

I don't consider bison, goat, elk, deer etc. to be weird. You haven't lived until you've had venison.

Nor do I consider octopus weird, chirashi ain't chirashi without a couple pieces, but I have eaten whole bbq'd octopus. Only thing removed was the beak (or whatever you call their mouths). I liked it a lot. Octopus with some grill marks and a nice bbq sauce smoky marinade is some good shit.

There's a restaurant here that does deer penis soup. Maybe one day...

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I'm gonna also give some love to cheek meat. Guanciale (you bet I had to google the spelling) is one of my favourite cured meats. I not normally a charcuterie guy, but that and lomo are quite good. Give me all the pates and rillettes you can though.

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16 hours ago, Swiftian said:

Goat curry, but again not unusual given my in-laws are Indian.

Curry Goat is the fucking bomb.  The one thing I love about the B'more area is the wealth of Jamaican and Indian restaurants that serve it.

I went to a Chinese Seafood restaurant in the 804 that served jellyfish. I think the name of the place is Full Kee 

I tried it because I am brave and was a bit disappointed.  It had no flavor at all.

Edited by J.T.
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Kangaroo burger, ostrich burger and shark's fin soup (in Beijing!) is about as weird as I've gotten unless you count homemade venison jerky from one of my college buddies.

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