[traveldoc1]

Crocodile steak in China; rooster’s testicles in Taiwan (NOT to be repeated!!!)

[nevereconomy]

canucklad 3) I believe I recognize as hot dog.

I think of all the bizarre delicacies I have been offered, eel intestine barbecued on a stick might be the most memorable, together with the reproductive organs of some other sea creature the name of which I do not remember.
I always tried to inform Chinese contacts in advance that i preferred not to eat anything I might consider a household pet..
Over the years I learned to swallow things before I asked what they were !

[LuganoPirate]

I should add, I now feel I am of an age where I do not have to eat food i do not like and usually make it clear to my hosts that I eat Pork/Beef/Lamb/Fish/Chicken and that is it. When signing up to attend a function where i know the menu is fixed, I call the hotel or restaurant in advance to check and if it’s something I do not like inform them so they can provide an alternative.

[K1ngston]

I was in a factory in Taiwan many years ago and we were invited to the canteen to eat with our hosts and without thinking I started to tuck into what was on my plate …. OMG it was the most revolting thing I have ever put in my mouth and I started to heave and didnt know what I could do as I thought I would throw up on the table in front of my hosts…

I smiled and looked around for a suitable moment to get the food out of my mouth and then I realised that my hosts were smiling and laughing at me and then offered me a cloth to remove the food from my mouth….. Writing this brings back the memory and I can still taste the food ( I dont even know what it was but it was disgusting)

Now I am renowned for my steely insides ( I am ex military and probably ate lots of shit in my time) but that was by far the worst, and I have done the dog thing, the snake thing etc living here in Asia!

[canucklad]

Morning LP & Derek, you’re spot on with the first 2, but the clue to the 3rd was New York.

Nevereconomy, you’re right, When they talk about junk food, this is the crème de la crème of junk food. Especially when you add mustard, onions and ketchup into the bun…… You can’t beat a proper ol’ fashioned Coney Island Hot Dog.

However, I’d much rather choose to tuck into a couple of slices of Stornoway black pudding. , But the king of black puddings has got to be the humble Aultbea black pudding,, served up in hotels all along the Moray Firth…..Sensational !

Back on topic, I’ve travelled far and wide and come across stuff I’ve turned my nose up, particularly in Asia, and stuff I’ve eaten, not knowing what it was beforehand.

And, I need to admit that I’m a coward, I don’t want to know, it’s easier that way, and as such less difficult to offend, especially as I suffer from facial Tourette’s.
Just think about dissecting a menu in a rural French establishment, or a Lithuanian cafe..

Then again, and without doubt, the meal moment from hell that is seared, or rather BOILED forever into my mind as a living reminder that we should never look down on other cultures bizarre eating habits happened on a visit to the old country (Granny and Edinburgh) from a McDonald’s modern city called Vancouver!!

Like yesterday, I recall walking in to that tenement house in Stockbridge, to be nasally skelped with the absolute gut wrenching stench of something or another, and will stay with me until I breathe my last breath.
And worst of all, to be then told it was our dinner that was assaulting my senses, made it seem like some sort of teenage punishment that only a tribe of Calvinism loving kilted masochistic folk could invent.

And that invention to torture Canadian teenagers ……… Scrubbed Tripe and Onions boiled in milk ……..Yuk -Yuk –Yuk

[GivingupBA]

Sea cucumber in South Korea. Not my favourite. When I bit into it a lot of liquid squirted into my mouth which was not to my taste. Never again, personally.

On the other side of the fence, a South Korean I know found, when in the UK, [1] Yorkshire pudding and [2] Toad-In-The-Hole to be inedible – and expressed surprise that we British ever eat them.

[GivingupBA]

[quote quote=838603]I should add, I now feel I am of an age where I do not have to eat food i do not like…
[/quote]

I am the same, LuganoPirate. At more than one banquet in China I have not eaten certain stuff (not even very strange stuff). I have always found my Chinese hosts to seem very relaxed and understanding about this.

[TiredOldHack2]

Gin and brandy, both made in Calcutta. Utterly, sublimely, awful. Both of them. Great Wall Chinese wine earns a dishonourable mention, as well.

[capetonianm]

I have avoided most awkward situations of this type by pretending to be vegan, since most of the real nasties are made from components of, or fluids from, dead animals.

[DavidGordon10]

1. Stratocruiser, I don’t count bull’s balls as exotic. I have had them in Greece and elsewhere and very good they are too. I have never had ram’s nuts, but they are sold in mid-Wales as “mountain oysters”. How coy.
2. Canuck, I am sorry, but I have to dissent on the subject of the finest black pudding. As an honorary Mancunian, the best is from Bury. No contest.
3. The most bizarre was in reverse, at a meeting in a French hotel. The first course was some rather good beef carpaccio. Delegates from a certain country said “Its raw!! We can’t eat it!! It will make us ill!!” I forbore from pointing out that some cooked meat from their country had once made me very ill indeed.

[Author]

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