Worked for a Japanese company and visited the head office in Tokyo. One of the more senior managers took us to his favorite local sea food restaurant.
I hate seafood. Especially when it’s fancy and you get baby squid that looks like they were just fresh out of the water with no preparation etc (part of the “fancy”). However, culturally I had absolutely no possibility to do anything but eat, smile and praise. The courses just kept coming, each one being more disgusting than the last.
Someone on lemmy posted this recently: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_pineapple
My mother in law is Korean so out of curiosity I had her pick up the Korean dish made from it (meonggae) after seeing the lemmy post. It taste like the smell of a dank metal spiral stair case at Seaworld. Even through all the (imo) tasty spices and seasoning. I asked my MIL what she likes about it and she said, “it tastes so fresh because one bite and your transported to the sea”. Especially with the older generation, the context can make the food way more than the taste
That’s like the one seafood I don’t like, specifically because of the metal taste. You can be “transported to the sea” without needing to lick spoons while you’re underwater.
Durian fruit. That is the most vile thing I have ever tasted and the after taste lasted for like 5 hours.
That shit is fucking evil.
Once took durian chocolate home from a trip to Malaysia. Had to open it on the balcony. Tasted like someone vomited right into my mouth. Had to leave the chocolate on the balcony for a few days because I could not stomach the smell.
0/0 never again.
It’s not bad as long as you don’t think about baby poo while you eat it
“It’s not bad as long as you don’t breathe.”
I have that same mantra about life
I think the most famous description of Durian is “like eating custard in a sewer”. I’ve never tried it, since we don’t get it in the UK, but I’m curious. I had a Malaysian friend who loved it, but said many businesses and public transport would have signs up saying no Durian due to the smell.
It’s honestly not bad after a few tries. For me, the texture and overwhelming smell was a surprise at first but the actual taste isn’t that bad.
I am not a picky eater and enjoy many exotic, strong smelling/tasting foods.
But not durian.
I’ve eaten chicken feet, haggis, blood pudding, sisig, century egg, durian, dinuguan, tripe and tongue tacos, frog legs, snails, alligator, whole softshell crab, and probably a few more delights that I ought to remember. The only one I absolutely cannot stomach is the century egg.
How was the century egg prepared? I knew some guys in high school that decided to buy random stuff at the asian grocery store and they ate the century egg as if it was a regular boiled egg then threw up. I’ve had it in small pieces with congee and that was pretty good though.
I’d used it in a recipe to try and make congee, inspired by a pop-up in Seattle called Secret Congee. Theirs is good as hell, but my first try deterred me entirely from that questline.
Sisig mentioned rahhh 🇵🇭🔥💯
We’re a “barrel man on the mantle” type of family, you know?
I dunno what that means but I’m guessing it’s not good. You also did mention Dinuguan which I like also.
Matter of taste I guess - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_man_(novelty)
I like dinuguan and sisig, but I’ve definitely had plates of sisig I’ve regretted.
Oh, that 😂 I’m so ashamed I didn’t get it straight away even though I’m Filipino 😅
What type of sisig did you have? It’s traditionally made with pig’s head but if you don’t want that, you can’t go wrong with pork belly or chicken cut into small chunks 👍🏽
It was pig’s ear and other head stuff, but the real problem was that it was about half as fresh as it should have been. I only mentioned sisig in this post as a way of listing all the gnarly stuff I’ve liked over the years to compare it to the one thing I just can’t handle (except as an ingredient in one dish ever apparently). Little quiet karaoke place with no customers that used to be in Seattle, back when I lived stateside. Not surprised to find out that it’s gone, they needed a different crowd.
I had a hunch it’s the way it’s cooked, should always be fresh.
Aspic
If you warm it up, it becomes soup!
Never had aspic but I had some unflavoured gelatin one time for a temporary restricted diet and I swear it tasted like licking the armpits and feet of a pig that had freshly been smeared with sheep shit.
That’s about accurate :3… honestly aspic doesn’t taste that bad? I mean it’s just meat and vegetables essentially, but the texture is horrible. It’s not like commercial gelatin you buy in packets, it’s more firm and grainy, while still having that wobble, and it just makes me gag
I actually just googled the unflavoured gelatin to see if other people agreed with me and it seems to be the specific “knox” brand I got. They must scrape it off the floor of a pig processing factory or something, I even tried mixing it with some gatorade and it tasted like eating solidified sweat right out lebron’s ass crack midgame
Thanks for painting that beautiful picture with your words
I’ve been called the lovechild of Picasso and shakespeare. Not by others, just myself. And not often, just once. Like 20 seconds ago.
Nettle stew. Yes, it’s good for you. It tastes like cow shit to me.
I’ve eaten a lot of pretty crazy stuff by western standards. The most challenging thing I have eaten was a giant water bug. The most challenging thing I haven’t been able to bring myself to eat was balut.
The water bug was definitely not the worst thing I’ve eaten though; it was unbelievably fragrant. Practically like eating perfume.
Esters I bet it’s rich in esters
Probably. I know it’s a pheromone and is much more concentrated in males making them more valuable/desired
My question for folks, though…:
When faced with eating a giant water bug for the first time, would you bite the head side first or the butt side first?I struggled with this decision…
ETA: (for reference)
Ok…it’s not a competition…but you win…
Is that someone people actually eat?
Probably, entomophagy is not that uncommon outside of western countries.
It is popular in a lot of Southeast Asia. You can even buy commercial chili pastes with the essence of water bug in them.
Balut actually tastes pretty good chicken and egg. Even though it was a duck egg. But yah I could never do it again.
Preface: All seafood makes me violently ill. I wish it weren’t so, but here we are.
While living in Switzerland we went to an ikea and found what I thought to be spreadable cheese in a toothpaste type tube. For reference lots of stuff over there comes in those types of tubes. Why not cheese?
I was so excited to get home and immediately tore the cap off and squeezed a giant dollop of what my mouth expected to be something like cheez whiz.
NOPE. NOPE FUCKING NOPE. It was some kind of fish paste with roe…
I puked for like 30 minutes straight and couldn’t get that taste out of my mouth until we found some kirsch liqueur that I also hate, but whose taste will overpower anything.
Picture related: The culprit
In their defense, it literally says “kaviar.”
Oh they have none of the blame! I am a big stupid man who didn’t bother to read it at all.
I had that in Norway, and it is the best shit ever. I’d eat that in such vast quantities if it was as cheap and available here as it is in the Nordics.
Witloof, its this variant of cabbage that is long thin and completely white. And it has one of the most pungent bitter tastes ive ever had the misfortune to discover. The taste is hard to describe, but it’s similar to bee spit,also known as honey, except replace all the love and care that the bees spat with, with pure malice and wasp hatred. It is incredibly sweet, ungodly bitter and has after cooking the texture of overcooked pasta
My mother used to serve it without sauce, ham, or anything else to hide it. Vile.
Lentil soup. One kid in the entire school ate it.
How the hell do you wreck lentil soup that bad? Heck, there are lots of different cultures around the world that make tasty lentil soup. There’s German lentil soup with potato, carrot, and ham; there’s Indian dal in a range of flavors and colors; there’s Turkish Ezogelin soup with bulgur and paprika …
I have no clue. This was a school lunch 25 years ago, and we usually had really good lunch.
100% agree. Lentil soup is like the one dish that I have found very pleasent in all countries I’ve been to
I don’t know about THE worst, but every single thing I are while at Disney land was pretty fucking bad. I had some barbeque skewers with my dad that were extremely bland, dry, and flavourless. I also had some sort of pink sugary drink that tasted kind of weird. My brother said his hotel burger had a really bad musk to it
My brother said his hotel burger had a really bad musk to it
So that’s where my ballsack burger went!
I once went to an Ethiopian restaurant with my family. Never again.
I can’t even describe it, but whatever evil concoction they call their version of bread is easily the worst thing I ever attempted to eat.
You don’t enjoy the unholy union of packing wrap and kitchen sponge?
Too accurate 😭
How about tripe, the other kitchen sponge?
I dunno, I think the Ethiopian food itself more than makes up for it. Unseasoned polenta on the other hand…
Zil Zil Tibs.
It’s been like 20 years since I’ve had Ethiopian food and I still remember exactly what I will get next time.
Whaaaat injera bread is really good. Not even an acquired taste.
Fermented teff flour? I’ve always wanted to try it with raw kitfo out of curiosity
You can get close by way overfermenting regular sourdough. It’s very lactic.
Does it get that same floppy texture?
Yeah, almost rubbery.
It’s like a sourdough pancake. Absolutely delicious, and even more so when it soaks up the juices from the rest of the platter.
Properly prepared or improperly prepared?
I had a chicken sandwich once that was still pink in the middle… Disgusting!
Chicken sashimi is a thing in Japan, so consider yourself cultured
They also vaccinate their chickens against salmonella and don’t wash them with chlorine in Japan, unlike in the US.
bitter melon
I have never wanted to go back in time and prevent myself from doing something more than in the moment of tasting that wretched vegetableit took every shred of my willpower to get it down and not spit it out dramatically (was in polite company)
It is delicious if you make it right - sweet curry or dry spicy fries.
you can have all of my share, all yours 😫
I literally had it today.
I used to hate it like most people, then I understood that most people don’t cook it the right way.
AhEhEhm, AcKsHuAlLy…issa fruit
I’m a fruit, and I say that dastardly curse of a produce doesn’t deserve to share a label with me lol
Just be happy you’re not a vegetable
this is a good point haha
Camel fat. It tastes like how a camel smells.
Never smelt one but I assume really sweaty?
Musky and hairy, like a slightly damp dog that’s been out in the hot sun, but muskier.
Surströmming with mämmi
Would it have been better with papi?
