Bizarre Foods Part 4

•  Clam Jerky:  If you hate clams this will take you to another level. Think of all the salty seafood chewing goodness next time you need a snack.  We are going to hit new bizarre levels in this one.

•  Musk Lifesavers:  Suposeably they taste like soap and insense.  Well what is musk?  Musk is defined as a penetrating odor obtained from a gland of the male musk deer, which is situated between its stomach and genitals. So what we are talking about is deer sweat lifesavers.

•  Canned Whole Chicken:  A whole chicken in a thick gew stuffed in a can.  I can’t think of anything else to say.  But you can eat it without heating it.

•  Canned Brains in Milk:  Brains in all their creamy goodness in a rich milk gravy.  Toss them up with some eggs.

•  Cherimoya: Mark Twain called the cherimoya “the most delicious fruit known to men.”  The taste is a combination of pear, banana and a little strawberry flavor.  It has a sherbert like texture sometimes refered to as “apple custard”.  Some people say it taste like bubblegum.  But here is the bizarre part…The seeds are poisonous if crushed open and can be used as an insecticide. One should also avoid eating the skin as it may cause paralysis from 4 to 5 hours. When ripe the skin is green and gives slightly to pressure, similar to the avocado.

•  Sugar Apple (Noi-na): One of Thailand’s most popular fruits the Sugar Apple has a white, creamy flesh covered by a lumpy green crust that makes it look like a giant, green raspberry.There are variations in shape and size. The fruit flesh is sweet, white to light yellow, and resembles and tastes like custard. The edible portion coats the seeds generously; a bit like the gooey portion of a tomato seed. Sugar-apple has a very distinct, sweet-smelling fragrance.

•  Chunos:  After harvest, potatoes are selected for the production of chuño, typically small ones for ease of processing. These small potatoes are spread closely on flat ground, and allowed to freeze with low night temperatures, for approximately three nights. Between the freezing nights, they are exposed to the sun, and they are trampled by foot. This eliminates what little water is still retained by the potatoes, and removes the skins, enabling subsequent freezing. After this, they are exposed to the cold for two additional nights. Once dried, and with minimal care in storage, the product can last for a long time, even years.

•  Saumagen is a German dish popular in the Palatinate. The name means “sow’s stomach,” the stomach is integral to the dish and is not like a typical sausage casing. Rather it is meat-like, being a strong muscular organ, and when the dish is finished by being pan fried or roasted in the oven, it becomes crispy and delectable. It is like a sausage, and is also rather similar to the Scottish haggis. All the ingredients are stuffed into the stomach.  Saumagen consists of potatoes, carrots and pork, usually spiced with onions, marjoram, nutmeg and white pepper, in addition to which, various recipes also mention cloves, coriander, thyme, garlic, bay leaf  cardamom, basil, caraway, allspice, and parsley. Sometimes beef is used as well. The larger ingredients are diced finely. After that, the saumagen is cooked in hot water and either served directly with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes or stored in the refrigerator for later use. To warm it again, the saumagen is cut into slices approximately 1 – 2 centimeter(s) thick, which are then fried in an open pan.

•   Chitterlings: are the intestines and rectum of a pig that have been prepared as food.  Care must be taken when preparing chitterlings, due to the possibility of disease being spread when they have not been cleaned or cooked properly. These diseases/bacteria include E. Coli and Yersinia enterocolitica, as well as Salmonella. Chitterlings must be soaked and rinsed thoroughly in several different cycles of cool water, and repeatedly picked clean by hand, removing extra fat and specks of fecal matter because the part of the pig the ‘chitlins’ come from includes intestinal polyps and the last few inches before the pig’s rectum. The chitterlings are then boiled and simmered until tender.

•  Walnut Ketchup: Yes an English condiment, ketchup made from walnuts.  Want the recipe?
  • 24 green walnuts
    3/4 cup (175 ml) salt
    5 cups (1 1/4 liter) water
    2 quarts (2 liters) vinegar
    2 teaspoons (10 ml) ground cloves
    2 teaspoons (10 ml) ground mace
    12 garlic cloves
    Put the walnuts and salt into the water and leave them for nine days.  Remove
    the walnuts from the brine and pound them in a mortar.  Combine the walnuts
    and vinegar and leave them for a week, stirring every day.
    Strain the mixture through a muslin bag, squeezing to extract all the liquor.
    To this add the cloves, mace and garlic; boil for 15 to 20 minutes, strain
    and then bottle it.  Cover and process.  Makes about 3 pints

•  Myrmelachista schumanni: also known as the lemon ant, is a species of ant that is notable for the creation of Devil’s gardens. Using its own herbicide, it is able to shape its surroundings.  They have a taste very similiar to lemons hense the name lemon ant.

•  Jumiles: are small stink bugs of the species Atizies taxcoensis  native to the Taxco region of the state of Guerrero in Mexico. Jumiles are collected for making sauce and for use as a taco filling. They may be and usually are eaten alive because jumiles can live up to one week after the cooking process, which includes beheadeding and toasting. The beginning of the jumil season on November 1st is the occasion of a large fiesta in Taxco. Fiesta-goers gather in the mountain park of Huisteco to collect jumiles and to crown a Jumil Queen.  In the Globe Trekker TV travelogue episode Ultimate Mexico, Justine Shapiro is shown eating a live jumil. Andrew Zimmern can also be seen eating jumiles on his television show Bizarre Foods, where he claims they taste just like tutti-frutti chewing gum.

•  Muktuk: is the English word for the traditional Inuit/Eskimo meal of frozen whale and blubber. However, in some dialects, such as Inuinnaqtun, the word may refer only to the edible parts of the whales skin and not to the blubber. It is most often made from the skin and blubber of the Bowhead Whale, although the beluga and the narwhal are also used. Usually eaten raw, it is occasionally finely diced, breaded, deep fried and served with soy sauce. It is also sometimes pickled.

•  Lassi: is a popular and traditional Indian drink originating from the Punjab region. It is made by blending yogurt with water, salt, pepper, ice and spices until frothy. Traditional lassi is sometimes flavored with ground roasted cumin . Lassi is also available as sweet with sugar.

For more bizarre foods check out previous posts:

1. http://learnsomethingnewtoday.us/2008/02/01/top-17-bizarre-foods/
2. http://learnsomethingnewtoday.us/2008/06/16/bizarre-foods-part-2/
3. http://learnsomethingnewtoday.us/2008/07/28/bizarre-foods-part-3/