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June 26, 2004 3:50 PM   Subscribe

Weird Food from Around the World
posted by anastasiav (35 comments total)
 
I just got back from Canada were we tried dill pickle flavored potato chips. [gak]
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:13 PM on June 26, 2004


poutine's not weird at all--it's out of this world.

other than that, a great site...needs pics tho
posted by amberglow at 4:27 PM on June 26, 2004


Balut Eggs. Yeah :/
posted by ed\26h at 4:32 PM on June 26, 2004


I just got back from Canada were we tried dill pickle flavored potato chips. [gak]

Dill pickle chips are fuckin' nasty, anastasia. Fried mars bars are of course incredible. And I'm dying to try pickled watermelon (not watermelon rind mind you, but whole slices) from The Pickle Guys down on Essex Street but it seems to be seasonal.

The weirdest food I rew up seeing was watching my nonno chow down on pigfeet and my mom getting all agitated over how delicious chicken gizzards and livers tasted. Yecch.
posted by jonmc at 4:37 PM on June 26, 2004


Dill pickle chips are great! Kind of like salt and vinegar chips but even better. I don't know why they would be considered Canadian though, you can get them here in the US of A.

I'm wondering at why they include iced tea in this list though. Is it really "weird or disgusting to outsiders?" Nothing like a tall, cold glass of the stuff made from jasmine tea on a hot day.
posted by TungstenChef at 4:45 PM on June 26, 2004


Breen!

(I'll kiss the first person who gets it)

Weird food my family likes that turns my stomach: okra. Blech. The site describes it best: "Okra is a strong contender for Least Favorite Vegetable or Ropiest Mucus (vegetable division.)" BLECH!
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:52 PM on June 26, 2004


dill pickle flavored potato chips. [gak]

Aren't they the grossest chips?? Almost as bad as the ketchup flavour :P Deep fried mars bars seem, uhm, yah, Jonmc can have my share :D The most disgusting food I've ever been presented with at a dinner table was haggis, second worst, vegemite. What a terrible thing to do to a piece of toast!

I don't know why they would be considered Canadian though, you can get them here in the US of A.

I think it's just ketchup chips that are Canadian only.

I'm eating dinner at my desk and am guessing I should not peruse that site any further, lest I come across something that puts me off my fried chicken.
posted by zarah at 4:54 PM on June 26, 2004


I was amazed the McDonald's Fish Sandwich wasn't on the list. I guess it would be hard to classify though, since it doesn't appear to be made of fish.

...and since when is Miso Soup strange?
posted by fatbobsmith at 5:08 PM on June 26, 2004


I'm with ed\26h.... I've actually tried a baalut when I was in Cebu, breaking the cardinal rule of "Never buy food from street vendors in strange countries" They taste about as good as they look and smell: in other words the memory of taking a bite is enough to trigger a gag reflex for me. Another guy who I was travelling with eats them like candy though (then again he also ate a bowl of bees in China)
posted by nathan_teske at 5:14 PM on June 26, 2004


Lay's makes a dill pickle flavored potato chip. (I can get them in Richmond, at least; Richmond is often a test market city for such things.) They're not bad, though I do prefer my pickles fried.

Acorn squash and sweet potatoes (especially when they're mashed and whipped up to look like baby food) ought to be on that list. Blecch. But I do like sweet potato chips in hummus.
posted by emelenjr at 5:43 PM on June 26, 2004


Spruce Beer (Canada) This is made from the boiled boughs of black spruce. The beer is made with yeast, molasses and raisins and takes less than three days to brew.

This actually sounds pretty good. Anyone tried it? Where can you get it?
posted by PrinceValium at 5:57 PM on June 26, 2004


I've made spruce beer. It tastes surprisingly like Pepsi. Really.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:36 PM on June 26, 2004


Lay's makes a dill pickle flavored potato chip.

Lays was trying to do a regional-themed chip thing for a while. 2 years ago I blogged about it. The thing about chips is that the gourmet chips taste like ass whereas the ghetto chips are usually incredible since all we're really looking for from a chip is a salt'n'fat fix. I blogged about that too. I'm here to help.

And zarah, darling, fried mars bars rock. Don't knock it till ya try it, just ask the sarge.
posted by jonmc at 6:56 PM on June 26, 2004


I have to point out one glaring omission, the test of one's mettle known as handkase, found in Frankfurt. As a lover of really, really smelly cheeses, I have to say that the odor of this stuff transcends any notion of awful you may now possess. Think limburger stuffed into a durian stuffed into a rotting corpse stuffed down an outhouse and you might come somewhere near the bouquet of this foul substance.

It was served to me by the uncle of an ex-girlfriend of mine at a wonderful apfelwine restaurant where they consume regional specialties along with copious amounts of the local hard cider. He insisted that I finish off the (otherwise fantastic) meal with this "traditional delicacy." I suspected something was amiss when and all of the other locals at the table hooted and hollered when he ordered it.

What they brought me was a slice of pale, translucent stuff whose revolting aroma cannot be described with our limited language. The method of eating it was basically designed to cover up the taste as much as possible. You took a slice of dark brown bread, slathered it with butter, covered it in raw onions, added a tiny little bit of handkase, and sprinkled vinegar over the top. The taste was...like bread, onions, vinegar, and licking Satan's asshole all at once. In the end I decided that it was some sort of cruel joke they play on tourists (schadenfreude anyone?), as not a single Frankfurter would consent to even touch the stuff despite the many times I offered up the large piece of unfinished cheese.
posted by TungstenChef at 7:11 PM on June 26, 2004 [2 favorites]


When in Norway I was given the traditional brown cheese. Tastes like half-cheese-half-fudge. Revolting.
posted by ed\26h at 7:24 PM on June 26, 2004




Don't knock it till ya try it, just ask the sarge.

You mean to back yourself up with the word of a man whose people brought us haggis?? :D
posted by zarah at 8:37 PM on June 26, 2004


TungstenChef wins. Wins what I'm not sure, but wins.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:17 PM on June 26, 2004


Poutine really doesn't belong on that list. It's common enough for people to have fries and gravy (or chips and gravy if you're British), it's certainly no big deal to add a bit of "young" cheese onto it.

The American South has "chitlins" and Mexico has chicherrones (pork rinds), either of those is a great deal weirder than poutine.
posted by clevershark at 10:23 PM on June 26, 2004


Dude, the Bru does not belong on the list!
posted by Katemonkey at 1:45 AM on June 27, 2004


I've had snake before, and alligator (which they fail to include), and guess what - they both taste like fishy chicken! So, as you can see, I'm not too squeamish - but as long as I've been in Greece, I still cannot tolerate retsina. Pine flavored wine? That's just foul. Like drinking Lysol.
posted by taz at 2:17 AM on June 27, 2004


Definitely lacking such delicacies as mämmi, smoked lamprey and, of course, surströmming.
posted by ikalliom at 2:23 AM on June 27, 2004


The first part of the recipe for Gaesoju here in Korea is: (perhaps apocryphally: some people here try to freak me out, aware as they are of my eternal equanimity [*giggle*] while others try to play 'spare the foreigner from the gory details', so it's hard to triangulate reality sometimes)

Put a meat dog in a garbage bag, and tie off the opening tightly. Beat it to death. Collect the... juices.

It goes from there.

Makes your weiner rigid, though, they say, which is worryingly important to most of my Korean buddies.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:44 AM on June 27, 2004


Well you learn something every day, I never realised that my favourite breakfast spread - Vegemite, is made from brewery waste! I mean, I knew it was made from yeast, but I never made the connection.

Dude, the Bru does not belong on the list!

This was a real eye-opener for me! I have only ever seen IRN-BRU sold in bar form, i.e. a bright orange slab of hardened glucose about and inch wide and about eight inches long, chewy enough to pull your teeth from your gums.
posted by backOfYourMind at 4:58 AM on June 27, 2004


...chewy enough to pull your teeth from your gums.

Funny you should mention that -- it's how I lost a filling last September...
posted by Katemonkey at 7:22 AM on June 27, 2004


Weird food my family likes that turns my stomach: okra. Blech. The site describes it best: "Okra is a strong contender for Least Favorite Vegetable or Ropiest Mucus (vegetable division.)" BLECH!

Okra is delish. Fry it up, or toss it in some gumbo, and I'll eat that shit for days.

My ex's grandmother sucks chicken feet, though. That's just a bit much for me.

And I liked the dill potato chips.
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:40 AM on June 27, 2004


Handkase
posted by donovan at 9:00 AM on June 27, 2004


I can co-exist with okra so long as asshole nouvelle cuisine fucktards don't put one of those hairy fuckers in my Bloody Mary, where it clearly doesn't belong. Bleh.

By co-exist I mean avoid at all costs, but you knew that already.
posted by trondant at 10:55 AM on June 27, 2004


Spruce beer is not beer, but a soft drink. It used to be made on a more commercial basis in Montreal but is now made in small batches, turning up in the outdoor market shops and in occasional dépanneurs (corner stores). It's usually in old-style bottles with wire hinges holding the caps on. The only "brand" I see now is an obscure one called Mario.

One very cool place to know about is Chez Bertrand, at 1308 Notre-Dame West, corner de la Montagne, an old-style casse-croûte that makes its own spruce beer and serves up hot dogs, burgers and pretty good fries. Even has a couple of outdoor tables in the summer.

Old-timers will add a pinch of salt to their spruce beer - my mom showed me this. It changes the taste a surprising amount.

I am told spruce beer is a terrific hangover remedy.
posted by zadcat at 11:23 AM on June 27, 2004


Cuy, essentialy a kind of mouse or hamster, barbecued, you can buy cut neatly in half or a quarter from street stalls, with face, ears, etc., and grab one of its legs and munch happily away.
Tastes like mouse. They also serve it in real restaurants, with sauces and stuff.
Peru, natch.
Also, cheezewiz or whatever that yellow stuff people in the US put on crackers is called.
Much, much grosser than cuy.
posted by signal at 4:27 PM on June 27, 2004


WolfDaddy: Breen's not really all that wierd, is it? Spoo, now that's weird. I'd mention the whacking and sighing, but you've probably got the wrong idea about me already what with offering to kiss me and all.
posted by arto at 8:36 PM on June 27, 2004


Dill pickle potato chips are not gross! Geez, you people.

It used to be that I had to drive to Canada to stock up on good stuff like that. It also used to be that there was only one brand of salt & vinegar chips around here, too, but now they are all over the place.

Viva chip diversity, I say!

(Now if Nalley's "Merry Mix" would return, life would be great. Merry Mix was, essentially, what you would get if you swept the floor at the snack factory, put it in a bag, and covered it in garlic salt. Think of Chex Party Mix only 1000 times better.)
posted by litlnemo at 11:49 PM on June 27, 2004


I lived in the South most of my life, until moving to the DC area (which some people still consider the South). I never saw a fried pickle until I went to a county fair in Pennsylvania. I've still never tried one. I don't think it's a Southern thing.

One of the weirdest things I've had (possibly next to salted squid with guts) is a big ol' hunk of candied squash from Guatemala. Must've weighed a pound or more, dripping with syrup. Blech.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:45 AM on June 28, 2004


Pickled okra in a bloody mary is brilliant!

I am kind of hurt that scrapple isn't on the list, so I suggested it, because I am the champion of scrapple.

Now I want a scrapple and jelly sandwich and a bloody mary with pickled okra in it. Yum.
posted by jennyb at 7:46 AM on June 28, 2004


gives arto an on-the-down-low smackeroonie
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:13 PM on June 30, 2004


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