Let's set the record straight: I am far from being an adventurous eater. Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say I'm picky. I don't eat a lot of meat and it's usually the meat products that will stops me from taking a bite. Fruits, vegetables, smelly cheese, funny spice combinations, I'll try those.
But meat, not so much. It's rare that I go for something I'm not familiar with (and even those, not all the time). That is why my list of weird foods would be about...well, animals. So here are the dishes that I did taste in my travels (to my knowledge). And I say tasted, because eaten is too strong of a word. Some of these I just took a small bite out of, chewed and *maybe* washed down with a shot of whatever alcohol was available. And while these might be regular for locals, it's just weird in my white-European-girl book (except for no.5, where I'm the local).
1. Squirming octopus/ Sannakji (South Korea)
There are some places in South Korea where they bring you a living baby octopus, you roll it around your chopsticks and try to chew it into dying and hope it won't suffocate you on the way down by sticking to your throat. That I would never try, for many reasons. This is a tiny bit different, even though just as controversial. They do take the live octopus, but chop it first and then serve it raw on a plate, with spicy dip or hot sauce. You grab the small pieces of writhing tentacles and you chew as they move around in your mouth, like they're trying to escape. Strangest feeling ever.
2. Dog meat (Vietnam) OK, this one is even more screwed up; people say in some places the dogs are beaten up first, supposedly to make the meat tender. So don't eat dog meat. I love dogs a lot and I really prefer them alive than in a bowl, but I happened to eat this because my team mate and I thought it's pork barbecue. It was marinated with a lot of spices and all I could taste was the lemongrass, really. After the meal we were told what the meat actually was. *Some of us* did not take the update too well. Others had a good laugh at the first ones.
3. Blood with rice (Vietnam)
For this one, I had to get drunk first. I was still in Vietnam, shooting a documentary film, and I was invited to a special, traditional lunch with a lot of people. My teammate and I were the only foreigners there and we were offered a special dish. They had just killed a pig for the feast and fresh blood was mixed with rice and some spices. It is a great honour to be offered this and, also, a great disrespect to refuse it. The raw blood was congealing, the texture was like pudding and people were expecting me to start eating with them. So I got 1 or 2 shots of whatever was alcoholic in front of me, swallowed a spoonful and forced myself to push it down. As soon as people were satisfied with this image, I had 2 more shots and ate plain rice and fruit from then on.
4. Camel burger (Morocco)
We were in Marrakesh and my boyfriend, who is a fan of burgers, wanted to taste a camel burger - a specialty item in the Cafe Clock menu. The burger looked good and it didn't taste very different from a regular beef burger. Maybe the patty is a little less juicy, a little harder to chew (I had to take a bite). Now the burger itself is not necessarily so weird and camel meat is pretty regular in many parts of the world. The weird part was seeing the huge carcasses in the market, on the way to the restaurant. I had never seen a camel carcass before, let alone a hanging camel head with the tongue sticking out.
5. Pork fat (Romania)
I had to end this list with something from my home country. In Romania, as in many Balkan and Slavic countries, fatback is salt cured and smoked and eaten as such (also known as salo), or fried until it becomes crunchy (kinda like cracklings, see photo), or cooked with other ingredients. Not everyone is a fan, but it is pretty popular. Works great with onion. I eat it too, especially in winter, and it never really struck me as weird until I had to tell foreigners about it. The look on their faces when I described a literal chunk of fat with which you stuff your mouth made me realize how it sounds.
