BootsnAll Travel Community

So I am a big fan of cracked.com. Today, while browsing I came upon this:
The Six Most Terrifying Foods in the World

Sadly, #2, Pacha (boiled goat head) is something I've eaten many, many times. I've even prepared it. And I had no idea it was that disgusting. Sure I figured it was a little weird when, as I was preparing it (i.e. cracking the skull), my friend's face turned a new shade of pale. But I sorta figured it's because she'd never seen real food prepared before AND she still ate it. I knew it was sorta odd but never thought it was terrifying!
Man.

Any gross, nasty, and perhaps on the list foods you've eaten and didn't realize how 'gross' it was considered until someone pointed it out?

Yeah, I don't see how Pacha is any different from other food that still looks like an animal. I wouldn't be able to eat it - I can't even eat fish that stare back at me - but not really on the same level as cheese with larvae that will eat through your stomach.

I grew up on a perfectly timid Canadian diet. Sashimi's about as adventurous as I've gotten, and at that only once. Of course, I've had plenty of kebab's simply described as "meat," so who knows, really.

So, with Pacha are you just eating the facial muscles off of the skull? Cause I could do that. I'm just not a big brains person. I don't think I've ever had brains and I'd no doubt try it if offered but I don't know how excited I'd be about the opportunity. Also, I've never eaten eyeballs but I've dissected quite alot and they are rubbery little buggers even before they're cooked. Edible, with a nice juicy center maybe but I'd prefer the skeletal muscle.

The food items most likely to turn my stomach: maggots and or parasitic insects/worms and anything seriously decaying.

I'm willing to try ALMOST anything and if I'm starving then I'll try anything but maggots and decaying food items trip the evolutionary 'save yourself' switch in my head.

Are you kidding me??? Lutefisk is a traditional Christmas food here in Norway

But I guess I'm not one to judge what's most disgusting... After all I'm from a country where people eat such "exotic" foods as boiled sheep heads, blood dumplings, ground innards, boiled tongue and black pudding on a regual basis...

I thought we had a boring Northern/Midwestern diet until I moved west. A Japanese girl thought I was delightfully 'ethnic' when I made a braunschweiger sandwich, and other friends were horrified when I served lamb on Easter. I still don't understand what's wrong with lamb; it was a normal holiday food growing up, and I'm still surprised how many Americans consider it exotic.

We were spared lutefisk, though: my mother refused to have it in the house.

And the first time I had boiled pigs head I wasn't disgusted at all, which completely surprised me. When I read about it I thought it sounded nasty. Ditto that Turkish soup that has the sheep brains in it. I ate it right up, then ordered it again the next night.

Yeah, Calli, you do eat the brains too. Allthough usually not right out of the skull. They are often served with eggs or some sort of 'mixer' in it. However, me no likey the brains part.
Allthough Ferett brains arn't so bad. Strange. But they are small and kinda salty and cooked right you can just pop them right in your mouth.

I suppose the pickled herring I had for breakfast might go on this list.

Prisa, what were you doing cooking a ferret? I need to hear the back-story on this! You weren't playing hunter-gatherer at the pet store, I hope.

I think I could handle brains 'n eggs, 'cause if you scramble something you can't tell what it is. In both Istanbul and Amman I came close to trying sheep brains as a meze, but backed out when I saw it: it was a tiny little brain, intact, on a tiny little plate. Tres cute, but I couldn't do it.

Now I'll be stuck with "hmmm .... brains" in my head. Anyone know where that comes from, anyways?

The backstory is horrible. But kinda funny if you know 'the family'.
So I'm living in the Arab world at the time (which scoffs at owning pets) and I see an animal in the cage at the local souq. I say "Hey I had one of those when I lived back home in Seatte". They laugh. Apparently it's a delecacy over there.

So I'm sitting at home, watching some silly Arab soap opera and one of the brother's calls me into the kitchen. He is holding a black bag and tells me to look into it.

It's a skinned ferrett.
I told him I wouldn't eat it unless it didnt look like my pet anymore. Again, I got laughter in return. It would be the equivalent of telling an American that unless their cooked fish didnt' look like fish they were not going to eat it. Just silly.

So they cook it and try to cut it up enough so that it dosent resemble ferett. Halfway through the meal Mustapha hands me a little marble sized peice of meat. "Eat it, it's so good" he tells me. I ask him what it is and he says "brains". I recoil. I get jeered. They peer pressured me I tells you! So I popped it in my mouth.
Suprisingly delicious.

----I asked for ferett (and offered to pay for it) about once a week after that.

Bloody savages.

quote:

It would be the equivalent of telling an American that unless their cooked fish didnt' look like fish they were not going to eat it.

Actually, I do tell people that. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The sheep's/goat's head wouldn't bother me at all for what it is. It just looks like it would be a pain in the ass to eat. As is much of authentic Chinese food.

balut! my friends eat them by the dozens.

i think the most disgusting thing i've ever eaten was this slab of raw.. something.. octopus? squid? seaslug?.. at a sushi bar in hong kong when i was 14 or 15. NOT FUN. but yeah, being chinese, i'm used to eating weird things. chicken feet for dim sum, cooked fish eyeballs, melted bird spit picked off of nests, etc..