What’s the weirdest thing you ever ate while traveling?
One way to explore a destination is through the food, each dish providing insight into local culture and heritage. That being said, some dishes are more out there than others. To learn more about the world’s most bizarre delicacies we asked top travel bloggers to share their unusual eats from around the world.
Anthony Bianco of The Travel Tart: I've eaten all sorts of weird stuff. I've had a plate of Mopani worms in South Africa. Looked like caterpillars in tomato sauce and tasted like rubber. Probably the most unusual was cow's nose in satay sauce in Indonesia. Think of it as being crunchy and meaty at the same time, and being covered in peanut butter. Yummy, up until my mouth was sore from chewing!
Anna Kate of the Legendary Adventures of Anna: The weirdest, and most disgusting, thing I have ever eaten was “Hákarl," which is shark that has been fermented for five months in Iceland. I had it during a snowy picnic in the mountains. The Icelanders I was with snacked on the shark as if it were potato chips. It essentially tastes like rotten fish, which is as gross as it sounds. I gagged on the first tiny piece I had and couldn't swallow it, the putrid taste lingered in my mouth. Iceland is a beautiful country to visit, but do yourself a favor and don't try the Hákarl.
Drew Binsky of The Hungry Partier: After living in Asia for the last three years, I have eaten some bizarre foods. Some of the most insane ones that come to mind are balut (a developing duck embryo) in the Philippines, snake blood in Vietnam and a duck head in Taiwan. But if I had to choose the craziest, it would be live octopus in Korea. I stuck the whole thing in my mouth and it took 20 minutes to chew as it made its way down my throat.
Deb & Dave of ThePlanetD: When visiting Greenland, we wanted to understand the culture of the Inuit community and had the opportunity to taste one of their staple foods, whale. Eating whale is a controversial topic. Most people in the world are against hunting whale, and rightfully so, but as we learned about the isolation of Greenland, we understood the whale's place in their diet. Whale is an essential source of vitamin C. People can't grow fruit or just run to the corner store to stock up on oranges in the remote villages of Greenland. One whale will feed much of the community over the long winter and nothing is wasted. We tried Minke whale — the most abundant in population of all baleen whales. It was terrible tasting and not something we would ever choose to eat. It was oily and blubbery, yet the skin was tough and chewy. We don't believe in mass hunting or killing of whales, but after visiting Greenland we understood the importance of hunting in the Inuit community. They don't kill countless whales for sport, they kill one for food.
Alyssa Ramos of My Life’s A Movie: As a vegetarian and a very picky eater, I'm not much of a foodie when I travel. So my diet usually consists of bread, cheese and granola bars. But this one time I found myself in the middle of the freezing Arctic archipelago, Svalbard, on a Northern Lights chase that included a hot meal and drinks inside of an insulated yurt. Guess what the hot meal was? Reindeer soup. There was a 0% chance I was going to eat Rudolph, but I was so freezing and hungry that I did drink the broth. It tasted like oily beef broth with a little bit of children's tears.