personally…
the stench of durian is something i’ve been long accustomed to, that aside, it is quite good. although i’ve been losing my taste for it, having the inclination for other very specific things. (i’m a pretty picky eater)
i’ve had bird’s nest soup before from my parents… even upon discovering its origins. its ‘health benefits’ granted, had been elaborated on… and although its not proven (being more inclined towards science myself), some of the ancient traditional medicinal herbs do work, miraculously, such as the bird’s nest. my beloved aunt is quite a good storyteller, and doesn’t exaggerate on too much -it was given to me as such, no negotiations or contradiction to your elders: its expensive and composed of the saliva of birds, its good for you, so eat it.

balut -something very common in phillipino culture. my friend spoke of how she heard of its properties granting temporary intellectual abilities and how she had it regularly as a snack whilst still living in the phillipines prior to exams. i found that a bit disgusting at the time but shortly after, had a recollection of my parents or some other explaining a similar circumstance. interesting…

live octopus, common in korea… -as a child, i liked seafood. therefore, i ate octopus. cooked. i no longer enjoy seafood and least of all, octopus. but it was pretty good before my food discrimation stage :]

duck blood -my friend had it for breakfast recently… (say maybe 3 days ago) well, or blood pudding? something congealed in that sense.

snail caviar -my mother had a whole lot ordered at some point. two binfuls i must say? i never set foot inside my kitchen for the slightest purpose for that entire week. ;[

that's it for my half asian experience :]

#7. My mother, sister, and brother LOVE DURIAN. They think it’s the most delicious thing ever. To me the taste is almost as bad as the smell. I was surprised to see it on Fear Factor once.

#3. I think I’ve had BALUT EGGS when I was younger but I can’t remember.

Some other things I used to eat quite regularly growing up in a Vietnamese household were: CONGELATED PORK BLOOD, PORK EARS, and COW TONGUE. I used to love all three.

In Peru, I ate some ALPACA. It wasn’t that good.

I also had some GUINEA PIG, also known as CUY. It was deep-fried, tasted like fried chicken, and smelled like a pet store.

You can see a picture of the FRIED GUINEA PIG HERE: http://bradnguyen.com

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1117_051117_sharkmeat_ video.html

i couldn’t really stomach balut so i just let my friend eat it… some of the baluts are just a few days old from birth so the fetus resembles more like an egg yolk.. while some older ones already have feathers.

No but I’ve EATEN one.

Re: Comment #2 — I hung out with Andrew Zimmern for a couple of days when they shot their show in Korea, and he adamantly doesn’t like durian, though he’s tried. I personally like it. He said that with so many other great fruits to eat in southeast Asia, why would anyone want to eat THAT??

Bird’s nest is not too bad also.It’s sweet. As for balut.. an aunt forced us to have a spoonful when i was a kid and i gagged.. i can’t even remember the taste

I have had buffulo brains (in coconut milk sauce), cow hoofs (soup), stomach (soup).

A friend of mine has eaten cow skin. The skin is smoked and dried to preserve it. Its cooked in a kind of soup. Bull penis soup is also availible, called “torpedo soup”.

Some people are willing to try anything, and others aren’t picky when there’s not a wide selection of things to eat.

Personally I’d love to try Live Baby Octopus … maybe next year when I head out to Asia on Honeymoon =0)

And another: Sheep’s Head Soup
http://www.instructables.com/id/Kaleh_Pacheh_Sheep_head_soup/

(my dad used to eat this. there’s nothing quite like coming home from school to find a sheep skull in the sink…)

1) It is subject to debate whether or not fois gras is torturous to the geese or ducks. Some believe that, as they don’t have gag reflexes and do not shy away from their feeders, that it does not hurt them. Other believe that forcing feeding at rates at which they normally only eat when getting ready to migrate obviously/must hurt them. The answer is not clear.

2) Anyone who says that “Canard à la Rouennaise (Duck in Blood Sauce)” can cost up to $1000 a plate is being ridiculous. That’s like saying thar houses can cost up to $50 million, cars can cost up to $200,000 or Americans have net worts as high as $50 billion (they can, but those are not any where near typical cases). This dish, at the restaurant cited as the source, is less than 1/10 that. It’s less than $100 (depending on the exchange rate). I know because I’ve had it there. And I also know that a main reason why the dish is so expensive there is that everything is expensive there — because the entire restaurant has this amazing view of the Notre Dame (the Cathedral in Paris). Tour D’Argent.

3) You claim that pressed duck can cost $1000, and then are impressed with a $30-$100 soup? On that same trip to France, (by the way my wife and I went to to France to spend too much money on food) we went to Chez Bocuse — one of the great restaurants in the world. There, we saw a $80 (80 euro?) bowl of soup, a specality of the restaurant. “Truffle soup V.G.E.” Excellent soup, but not crazy exotic or anything. (And we wouldn’t order it again, at that price.)

The shark thing is called Karal I think. It looks foul.

Agreed. Why 1000$ a plate? We’re missing something here.

Honestly, I don’t know how you’d get the stuff in the post above down the hatch… I nearly got sick looking at some of the pix!

Although I’d guess if you don’t like the smell (the first sense you get) I wonder why some have gone on to actually eat it?

Sea cucumber is weird…and i ate some things in Korea that i couldn’t even identify except that they came out of the ocean.

I have had the corn fungus. That was great. The flavor and texture reminded me of maybe grits prepared with truffle oil.

The octopus I had was cut up and served with a light sesame oil sauce. It was nice, but nothing to write home about and certainly not worrying. While the suckers do stick to your mouth slightly, the only time it’s really dangerous is if you’re utterly drunk. Of course, that’s exactly when someone is likely to think eating live octopus is a good idea. I would eat it again if offered, but I think it tastes better cooked.

The duck eggs were rather foul. I had mine served with salt and lime juice. The lime was reasonably effective at covering up the nasty flavor and I managed a few of them, but I still needed quite a bit of drink to wash the taste away.

Durian shouldn’t even be on this list in my opinion. It smells awful, yes, but the taste is incredible.

Not on the list, but worth nominating:

Thousand year eggs or century eggs from all over China and southeast Asia. They’re duck eggs preserved in salt, lime and ash. It turns the eggs black and leaves them with a pungent greasy eggy sulphury taste. I thought it was terrible, but I think I can see how they’d be an acquired taste.

I tried pig fetus soup in Laos that tasted quite good, actually, but you have to get past the fact that you have half a pig fetus dangling out of your mouth.

Basically, the problem with most of these things is psychological. If you actually stop and think about many of the foods we eat, some of them are pretty odd. We’re just used to them and not these.

http://blog.hotelclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/monkey_brains.jpg