Gross-Sounding Foods That Taste Unexpectedly Delicious
What makes a food delicious in one culture and disgusting somewhere else? Sometimes, it all comes down to the bravery of people who dare try something so different than their usual fare. Then there is the matter of culture. What the people in one culture find delicious, people in other cultures find too gross to even consider eating. This blog post highlights five foods that could meet either description depending on the willingness of people to expand their palate.
Blood Pudding
This is one of those dishes with a name that makes it sound disgusting, but its ingredients do not live up to the yuck factor. Thousands of people in Great Britan start each day with blood pudding, which is actually a sausage made from oatmeal and pork. Eating blood pudding regularly provides several essential nutrients.
Chinese Century Egg
Although the egg used to prepare this dish does not actually sit for 100 years, it still has a long preparation time as far as eggs are concerned. An egg laid by a chicken, duck, or quail steeps for as long as five months in a unique type of broth. The broth contains black tea, lime, salt, and wood ash.
This combination produces a rather unpleasant smell, but those who can get past that have reported that the century egg is quite flavorful. As it turns out, the name century egg derives from how long the Chinese have enjoyed this dish, not how long it takes to prepare.
Fruit Bat Soup
This gross-sounding food is so popular in Guam that the country nearly ran out of fruit bats. Chefs prepare the soup by first boiling the bat until it produces an odor similar to urine. They then cut the bat into small pieces and add it to soup broth. People living in Guam who eat this soup regularly insist that it tastes like sweet chicken.
Ostrich Burger
People living in Cape Town, South Africa, eat ostrich burgers as frequently as Westerners eat hamburgers. Anyone looking to change up their diet on this side of the world should consider replacing cow’s beef with ostrich, buffalo, or even going full vegan with their burgers. Regardless of the type of meat used, people can garnish their burger with topping such as ketchup, mustard, cheese, pickles, or whatever else suits their fancy.
Mao Xue Wang
Westerns love many Chinese dishes, such as chow mein and Kung Pao Chicken. However, Mao Xue Wang is one of several gross-sounding foods that few people outside of China are willing to try. Considering that the primary ingredients are blood curd from a tripe and a duck, along with chicken gizzards and other animal organs, it is easy to understand the hesitation.
Chefs prepare this dish by simmering it in a broth and adding peppercorns. Those who have looked past the description and decided to taste it to see if they liked it report that the blood curd has a pleasant silky taste, while the tripe and chicken gizzards taste crunchy.
Although Mao Xue Wang is slowly catching on in Western nations, it will likely always hold a higher appeal in China due to stories that families have passed down through the generations about it. That is likely true of the other featured foods as well.