Are you game enough to eat something exotic?

Are you game enough to try exotic food? Well, by exotic I mean any meat, fish, vegetable or fruit that is unfamiliar, you’ve heard nothing of and never tried eating before. Of course, broadly speaking “exotic” food refers to (sometimes) disgusting, bile inducing local foods which the locals love, of course – so it is rather unfair to rise eyebrows and wrinkle your nose at it.

My travels have taken me places I didn’t think I would go and brought me in touch with local food I didn’t think existed or was possible to eat. But with time and more experiences, I have come to realize that I might be disgusted, disturbed, shocked or charmed, but if it can be eaten, I will eat it.

Being experimental

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Right.

Fortunately for me, that chance to enjoy the local far comes pretty often, thanks to the frequent trips I am able to take. That way, I get to taste a lot of traditional dishes — some better than others. But, I’ll admit freely, there have been times I have looked at the country’s very popular dish and wondered, “What the heck?” I am NOT going to eat that” and despite these explosive opinions, I have eaten them.

Does that make me bold? I think not. Just experimental, I guess.

Question is, if I went back to the same country (and I often do), would I eat it again? Maybe yes, maybe no. But for sure I’d be more tolerant. I’m not the most adventurous when it comes to food – but I try. I have no qualms about eating from food stalls, but no matter the appearance of the food or the taste or soured, I have lived to tell the tale.

The freakiest of them all…

Barbequed snake: I did freak out a little when attempting to chew on a piece of barbecued snake in Cambodia but soon realized that there was nothing like a good bite of the snake to make you appreciate the slithery creatures.

Fried tarantula: Eating this in Cambodia was on my list for a long time.

Balut: I have been disgusted and I have been shocked at the sheer differences in cuisines of different countries, but nothing came close to eating balut with the baby chicken staring me in the eye. Plucking out the feathers is the hardest part but the worst is easily taking the first bite of the tender, sometimes partly alive chick. The crunching of the soft bones leaves a very bad aftertaste…same as the smelly, warm soup.

Scorpions: In China, almost everything that lives (except for humans) sooner or later ends up on someone’s dinner table, fried, grilled, steamed or barbecued. I was walking through the night food market in Beijing when I came upon rows and rows of stall selling noodles peppered with small scorpions and scorpions on a stick. I took the plunge when, after watching at least a dozen diners order noodles with scorpions and eating them quite unmindful of my discomfort. What was more disturbing than the scorpions was the heads of dogs hanging around. I cannot say what the scorpions on noodles tasted like, because I threw up with the first mouthful. Only few weeks later did I muster up the courage to attempt a fried scorpion – which, to say the least, was crunchy.

In reality, most of the foods that I’d considered disgusting didn’t taste so bad once I got used to the idea. In truth, most of them weren’t too bad once you got used to the idea.

The not so disgusting…

Century eggs: By far the most difficult food I have eaten till date is Century Eggs. Perhaps if it didn’t smell so much…but it does raise a stink. You can eat is whole (which happened to be what I did) or you could ask it to be added to tofu and soya (the soya sauce disguises the foul smell and errr…taste)

Mishkaki: A popular Tanzanian food consisting of marinated meat cooked over coals.

Babi Guling

Conclusion

The trick to get through these “meals” is to tell yourself the following –
1. Mopane worms taste just like Cheetos. Christian Bale ate them with gusto in the movie Rescue Dawn?
2. Balut was a little chick “alive” till a few minutes ago (anything that has been alive recently is OK)
3. Tarantulas, minus their squishy, runny tummies, were like crisp onion rings
4. Dogs and snakes were ‘everyday’ meals, full of goodness
5. Dragonflies, bushmeat, intestines, gut, kidneys or even sheep balls taste great after the fourth beer
6. I will never eat sea urchins again

Beer – that’s what you need. Go grab a beer.