When most people go on holiday, they look forward to enjoying a few cocktails by the pool and some delicious meals each night. For the more adventurous among us, a holiday abroad is a chance to try new specialities from around the world, tasting even the strangest of foods. Here are the top 15 weird foods from across the globe:
- Balut: While they may seem like normal eggs at first, this delicacy from the Philippines is actually the nearly fully developed foetus of a chicken–feathers, feet and all!
- Casu Marzu: You might not realize that this Sardinian Cheese is anything spectacular. Pungent, yes, but aren’t all the best cheeses? Casu Marzu is actually filled with maggots, which jump at unsuspecting diners. While technically banned for health reasons, it is still found in Sardinia.
- Snake Wine: Be careful when accepting wine in Vietnam. You might be offered, “Red? White? Or snake?” at the next dinner! A poisonous snake is left in rice wine for long enough for the poison to become harmless, but it certainly looks impressive.
- Puffin Heart: In Icelandic tradition, the heart of these birds is eaten warm and raw, just after death. Especially in the Westman Island, where hunting them is steeped in tradition.
- Kopi Luwak: This special coffee in Indonesia has actually been enjoyed once before. An indigenous animal called the Luwak eats the coffee beans and digests them whole, to be enjoyed by gourmet coffee drinkers around the world.
- Live Octopus: While octopus is enjoyed around the world, eating the wriggling tentacles on your plate while in Korea can be a challenge!
- Puffer Fish: This fish is popular in Japan, despite its poison under the skin that can kill a human, and for which there is no antidote. Only licensed chefs can prepare it.
- Pork Brains: When you think of American food, you might think of hot dogs and hamburgers. But if you fly to the south of the USA, pork brains are sold canned in many grocery stores, and served as a breakfast item.
- Fried Tarantulas: In war torn Cambodia, necessity meant villagers turned to eating giant spiders. Today tourists can enjoy them from vendors, fried in garlic and spices, and complete with fangs and legs!
- Surstromming: This unsuspecting Swedish canned food is actually fermented Baltic herring, which is accompanied by one of the most horrific smells around.
- Pig’s Blood: In traditional villages in Hungary, where no food gets wasted, slaughtering a pig is a chance to collect all the blood, which then gets heated up and served over eggs for breakfast.
- Reindeer Blood Dumplings: After killing reindeer in Sweden, the blood is mixed with flour and salt to make dumplings, and then fried.
- Hakarl: In Iceland, sharks are caught and then fermented and hung up to dry for months before consumption. The result is a beef jerky texture that tastes of fish and ammonia.
- Cow Brain Tacos: This Mexican speciality uses spiced cow brains as the filling for the traditional Mexican tacos.
- Bird’s Nest Soup: There are no leaves or twigs in this Chinese speciality. Instead, certain birds make nests out of their saliva, which is harvested to make this gelatinous mixture.
This guest post was provided by Roxanne Bridger, A travel blogger that writes about anything ranging from where to get the best deal on your internal Thailand flights to where to enjoy the best Tapas in Barcelona.
