I was out having dinner last night with some friends (westerners and Chinese) and we got talking (as we quite often do) about some of the batshit crazy things we have eaten whilst in China.
Some of the stuff is really common, back home I'd go buy a packet of crisps, a similar snack here would be any of:
Ducks necks (actually really nice)
Chickens feet (way too much hard work)
Various heads (you literally suck the brains out through the skull)
Food gets even weirder when it comes to dinner time, when you can get served up any of the following.
Pigs brains (really good)
Duck/snake blood
All types of penis (only tried pig myself, I was tricked into it)
Entire frogs
Entire chickens, inc head, feet, all the innards.
Snake
100 year old eggs (they are literally rotten, have a black/green colour to them)
I've not been to Guanzhou, yet, but I've heard up there they eat monkey brain and human abortions, pretty bloody grim if you ask me.
The main problem I have is that I have a lot of Chinese friends, who love to invite the Mrs and I for dinner, in China the custom is you invite you pay, it's then seen as very bloody rude to not eat something that has been ordered. I've tried pretty much everything that has been put in front of me, it's often quite surprising how "not bad" some stuff is.
It's also pretty cool how Chinese people don't waste any of an animal that they kill for food.
What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
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It really is the most vile stuff I've ever come across, it smells exactly how it smells, which I thought would be impossible.
100% true, I know people who have eaten it.
Tried ... and couldn't eat ... lambs brains in Tunisia.
Chicken feet take way too long to eat and not that good anyway.
No idea what it was but was served a small bird in Tokyo, whole including head. It was about sparrow size - the 'crunch' it produced when biting was a little off-putting ... but it tasted ok.
All the meat/veg you can imagine BBQ'd on the side of the street and covered in Chilli, can stuff yourself for about £2, good times.
Am sure I read the Chinese don't eat cheese as they consider it to be rotten milk.
(I agree)
Both are super expensive too.
I was very drunk me and a mate picked what we thought were the worse things on the menu. He had the groopers lips.
It was bloody vile. I'm a veggie so I must have totally shit faced to let him talk me into that.
Elk and Reindeer (awww) in Sweden
I've eaten Camel, but it wasn't that great - bit chewy
Boiled goat wasn't that great either
Frogs legs are really nice
I was really looking forward to trying them in Beijing last year, sadly it was just before my mum fell ill and I had to return to the UK.
I might be coming to Thailand in feb, although it's looking a lot cheaper to go to 'Nam.
Crocodile tastes like tough chicken
Guineapig tastes fine, but is all bone.
Big grazing mammals tend to be nice, e.g. alpaca, antelope, reindeer, kangaroo
Horse is nice (who could resist 'strips of foal') but horse tartare was a step too far
Eaten whale in Norway (morally dubious, but it was everywhere in Bergen while I was there)
Most unusual would probably be bear in Romania. Bear casserole I recall, they have too many bears there, so sell culling rights to rich Russians who pay a fortune for the right to shoot a bear...