Strange Foodstuffs
Please, everyone, take 10-20 minutes to respond to this, I'd really appreciate it! It's a little survey about "weird food." I've left this post public, and I encourage anyone and everyone who stumbles across it to respond (or to pass on the link!). I've left anonymous commenting open as well
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I'd like to be able to say that it's a personal taboo of mine to eat animals raised under inhumane conditions (or foods produced where the human workers were subject to inhumane conditions), but I'm afraid I do it all the time. I try to steer clear of endangered animals like shark. A growing percentage of my diet consists of foods transported from less than 100 miles away.
Eating small insects, worms, and arthropods seems a little strange to me, particularly if they're consumed live (hissing cockroaches, live scorpions). I'm pretty sure this is a cultural thing--lobsters are basically sea cockroaches and I eat them all the time.
I like to think I'm pretty adventurous in trying new foods. I remember eating squid at age 5 because I wanted to gross out my sister, who was afraid to try it. I'll eat tripe in soups (menudo, pho) with no problem. I am fond of bragging about the wide variety of raw seafood I stuff my face with at every opportunity.
The strangest thing I ate in recent memory was a fried cricket (apparently a common Mexican snack food). It was all right. I think I would still find it weird if I saw someone with a plate of them out at a party. But I'd still eat one.
I like to shop at international groceries and try to come home each time with at least one thing I've never tried before, but I admit that I'll usually research its preparation on the internet first. I wouldn't touch fugu with a ten foot pole myself, but I'd happily order it from a reputable sushi bar.
The most disgusting food I've ever heard of? I'd say the aforementioned live scorpion, or some of the bizarre concoctions they came up with on Fear Factor like Rocky Mountain oyster shakes (I think I'd eat testicles deep-fried, but doubt I could handle drinking a pint of them without yarfing--but then again, I don't think the aforementioned shake is a common dish outside of television). If one was put in front of me, I'd probably try a spoonful.
Favorite foods? Fresh seafood, fresh cheese, and fresh bread. Any kind.
Least favorite foods? Canned spinach, boiled cabbage, sour candies, and "chocolate" bars where the cocoa butter has been mysteriously replaced with corn syrup.
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Sea urchin, fried eel, raw oysters and scallops, snails, crickets, goat, rabbit, beef tripe, pork tongue, fish heads (eh, the eyeballs weren't great), fish eggs, emu, ostrich, beef marrow, alligator, duck cracklings (and foie gras, although I wouldn't consider it "weird" so much as "expensive"), buffalo, quail eggs, crab fat, and elk venison.
And for as long as I remember, I've always sucked the marrow out of chicken bones when I thought I could get away with it in polite company.
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My older sister once cooked dinner for me and my family. I was about 4. I didn't like some of the rainbow pasta she served and would eat the lighter colors while leaving the dark green and brown ones on my plate. She bet me that I couldn't really taste the difference blindfolded, and to her surprise and embarrassment I correctly identified all 5 shades of noodle at the dinner table by taste alone.
That's the last time I remember anyone in my family trying to force me to eat something I didn't like.
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