Food is interesting, in many different ways. Depending on where we live, we all have different ideas about food, and what is and is not acceptable. As you know, I am very interested in all kinds of food and food facts. Food is so much more than sustenance. Curious foods from exotic cultures have always fascinated us, and I am no different. Unfamiliar foods can be delicious, or they can be more of an acquired taste, or they can be outright disgusting. While cultural differences often separate us and create boundaries, food can also connect us. Sharing a meal is the best way to turn strangers into friends, or to turn friends into strangers.
Today, I thought I would highlight some of the world’s weirdest and most disgusting foods, at least to those of us in the western world. The evolutionary function of disgust is to help us avoid disease and unsafe food. Disgust is one of the six fundamental human emotions. While the emotion is universal, the foods that we find disgusting are not. What is delicious to one person can be revolting to another. Disgusting Food Museum invites visitors to explore the world of food and challenge their notions of what is and what isn’t edible. Could changing our ideas of disgust help us embrace the environmentally sustainable foods of the future? Today’s weird and disgusting food facts are brought to you by Yuck, Disgusting food Museum located in Malmo, Sweden.
Gomutra from India – Gomutra is cow urine from India. Drinking Gomutra has been practiced for thousands of years, and it is usually consumed for therapeutic purposes as Ayurvedic medicine with claimed health benefits. While all cow urine is considered beneficial, the urine of a pregnant cow is considered especially potent in hormones and minerals. Gomutra is claimed to treat psoriasis, leprosy, fevers, liver ailments, and cancer.
Baby Mouse Wine, Guangzhou, China – At least a dozen baby mice are drowned in rice wine. The mice used must be still blind and hairless. The brew is matured for at least a year before drinking. Mouse wine is drunk as a health tonic for asthma and liver diseases, rather than as an apéritif. The claimed health benefits have, as far as we know, not been verified by double-blind testing.
Monkey Brain from Ancient China – In the book Born Red, A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution author Gao Yuan describes looking inside restaurant windows of Guangzhou that “offered the famous monkey brains, served at a special table that locked the monkey’s head in place; the waiter would open the skull and the diners would eat while the body wriggled under the table.” There have been mentions of monkey brains during the Manchu Han Imperial banquet of the Qing empire. There is however dispute whether this indeed means actual monkey brains, or the hericium mushroom. It’s known as hóu tóu gū (simplified: 猴头菇; traditional: 猴頭菇; lit. “monkey head mushroom”) in Chinese and there is a possibility that this is what was referred to. Monkey brain is referred to specifically though. Many other dishes that today would be considered strange such as bear claw, bean curd simmered in chicken, duck & cuckoo brains, Monkey king and shark/goat brain, and birds nest soup are also mentioned as some of the 300 dishes. There are no authentic, verified photographs or videos of live or raw monkey brains being eaten as food; such images do not exist because the practice is largely an urban legend, a cultural myth, or staged media.
Virgin boy eggs, Dongyang city, China – Young boy’s urine is collected in schools and markets around the city in buckets placed there by street vendors. Eggs are boiled in the urine until hard. The eggs are then cracked and continue to boil for several hours to let the urine soak into the egg. The golden eggs smell strongly of urine but the taste has been described as delicate, salty, and addictive. The eggs boiled in the urine of young boys, mostly peasants, under the age of ten. It’s named “tong zi dan” (Chinese: 童子蛋; pinyin: Tóngzǐdàn), translated to boy eggs. The preparation is a spring tradition and is listed as part of the Dongyang, Zhejiang local intangible cultural heritage.
Casu Marzu, Sardinia, Italy – A block of pecorino cheese is cut open and left outside to attract cheese flies, Piophila casei, that lay up to 500 eggs in it. The larvae of cheese flies then feast on the cheese, and their enzymes break down the fats in the Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese. The larvae excrement is a partially digested soft cheese, almost liquid. Casu Marzu means “Rotten or putrid cheese” A similar worm cheese exists in Corsica, Casgiu Merzu, and in Egypt, there is a version called Mish. The Disgusting Food Museum director was lucky enough to get to try Mish in the summer of 2019. The maggots can jump up to 15 cm and can attach to your eyeballs when you try to eat them, causing retinal detachment. The worm cheese should only be eaten when the larvae are still alive, dead maggots are considered a sign the worm cheese has gone bad. Exceptions can be made if the cheese has been refrigerated since that can kill the maggots. Some choose to not eat the larvae in the worm cheese, placing the cheese in a sealed paper bag where the larvae are starved for oxygen, moving and jumping around in the bag trying to survive causing a popping sound. When the sound has stopped, the larvae are dead and can be removed before eating the creamy substance. The maggot cheese (also known as casu modde, casu cundídu, and casu fràzigu) is eaten with the living larvae, so diners need to protect their eyes from the jumping larvae. Eating live maggots is risky as they can survive inside their new host and can bore through intestinal walls. The worm cheese has a pungent smell and it burns your tongue, and it leaves a strong aftertaste that lasts for hours. Casu Marzu is banned in the EU and carries a fine of €40 000 for both the seller and the buyer. The local Sardinian government has along with the local worm cheese producers tried to get an exemption from the laws since it’s been made the same way for over 25 years.
So ……. I don’t know about you, but I AM DEFINITELTY NOT going to eat any of these foods. EVER!!!!!!!!! UUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!!! At least we know what not to eat when traveling abroad though. Had I known about these foods earlier, this would have been a perfect Halloween post. 🙂
Life is definitely an adventure, and apparently it is in the food world too. I am all for adventures and trying new things, but even I draw the line on these foods! But despite this weird and creepy post, have a good weekend and live life to the fullest. Til next time.
