On my recent stopover in Seoul, South Korea, i had occasion to sample silkworm larvae. they had a kind of woody texture and weren't too bad, although i don't think i'd go out of my way to sample them again. Has anyone else tried some unusual food ('unusual' for me means from the point of view of an Australian of Anglo-European background, but define it to suit yourself...)
I was at a chinese buffet last month and I tried some "walnut shrimp." They were pretty good; nice and crunchy. I had several before I realized what they were. They take the whole shrimp; heads and shells and tails and all, and fry them. Pretty crazy, but I can't say they weren't tasty...
When in China last year, I met a guy in Ghuanzhou, and he offered to bring me and my friends on a city tour cos he wanted to practice his english. This tour included a trip to qing ping animal market, where, it turned out, SARS had originated the previous week. Obviously, we didn't know about that, but anyway at the end of our tour we went to a restaurant and we let him order for us.
So out came 2 dishes, 1 a very white meat, and one dish which looked like sweet and sour chicken. When we asked what they were, we were told it was a chinese delicacy, the ying and yang, dark meat and white. Namely snake and 'baby duck'. So we sampled the snake (which had a very unusual texture, very soft) and scoffed down the 'baby duck', commenting how delicious it was.
It was only at the end when Jin (our chinese guide for the day) asked us how we enjoyed our baby dog, that alarm bells started ringing. We asked, baby duck yeah? yes baby dog. Quack quack? no, no, woof woof. Turns out it was a labrador pup, and we were sickened but had to see the funny side of things cos Jin looked like he'd done his whole family a dishonor or something, when we told him we don't eat dog in our country. Trying to get him to understand pet medical insurance was priceless.
Other unusual foods encountered along the way were rat in Cambodia (only field rats, cos city rats are dirty), deep fried spider, locust and cockroach in Thailand, cat in Vietnam (only at the end of the month) and guinea pig in Peru.
To be honest I'm not very adventurous food wise, so didn't sample any of those, and probably wouldn't have tried the dog or snake either apart from in the circumstances in which I did. Even though I enjoyed the dog, I wouldn't eat it again.
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Originally posted by dfm65When I was younger I was on holiday with my parents in Greece. The family who owned the apartments came home one day with sea urchins, the black, spiky ones, which they asked my family if we wanted to try.
On my recent stopover in Seoul, South Korea, i had occasion to sample silkworm larvae. they had a kind of woody texture and weren't too bad, although i don't think i'd go out of my way to sample them again. Has anyone else tried some unusual food ('unusual' for me means from the point of view of an Australian of Anglo-European background, but define it to suit yourself...)
My mother and sister refused immediately but my father and I accepted.
They cracked open the urchins with a knife, scraped out the eggs with a piece of bread, and ate it!
It was like roe, or caviar or whatever. Not bad, actually.
And I once ate kangaroo pie, which is probably not too exotic if you are Australian, but I bought it in a chip shop in Sheffield...
I went raw vegan this summer and made some "raw pizza" just last week. The crust is dehydrated at a temp low enough not to kill the enzyme content and consists of mostly barley (soaked for a day) and wheat (sprouted) ground up in a juicer using a homogenizing blank. Other ingredients in the crust included organic bell pepper, organic juiced tomato, organic lemon juice, and Italian seasonings, fresh thyme, etc.
Instead of cheese I make a cheese substitute from raw cashews (well, as raw as cashews normally get) and rejuvelac (lightly fermented water using soft wheat or rye berries, tastes lemony) and garlic and shallots and other herbs like thyme and basil and oregano.
A layer of raw vegan seaweed (dulce, spirulina, and kelp with braggs and soaked/juiced raw walnuts and almonds and sunflower seeds etc) makes a pesto-style paté that goes between the cheese layer and the crust. ' Top the mini dehydrated pizzas with onion and sun-dried tomato. Add some slices of fresh crimini mushrooms or whatever on the top too. It's yum.
I would say that's pretty unusual. And tens of times more nutritious than any kind of meat. I'm realizing that most meats are microbial worm infested cesspools of bad bacteria and saturated fat. Even if it's kosher, it's still a dead animal. In order to get complete nutrition in one's diet, meat may be necessary, but as I see things now I know for a fact that the 4 basic food groups are mostly a fallacy.
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... And while I'm at it, a balanced diet requires not only enough protein and carbohydrates to refuel and re-energize the body, but you also need regular consumption of necessary vitamins and minerals as well and, not to mention, the nutrients necessary for good hormone production and a healthy electrolyte balance. Health is highly individual. What is healthy for one person isn't necessarily healthy for the next.... except maybe daily getting enough water and exercise.
Proteins (of which there are many different kinds) can be obtained from any number of sources other than meat. Carbs, despite what an uneducated Low Carb dieter may tell you, are very necessary in producing energy for the body. An active lifestyle is the the healthiest way to stay slim. Just don't gain the excess weight in the first place. Far as I know, the only muscle in the body that burns fat for fuel is the heart. So walk, or run, or hop on your bike and go places instead of driving.
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In Scotland they deep fry mars bars and pizzas. That's pretty bizarre.
I've eaten crocodile tail, snails, frogs legs, dog kebab (which was, as you would expect, not told to me until afterwards), haggis (sheeps stomach filled with all sorts of rubbish) and raw herring with onions (A Dutch delicacy).