Weird ethnic foods that make you question life as terrifying, meaningless and void of soul?

Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now often in an artificial casing instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour"

Yeah, I'll agree that it's description is not immediately appealing. A vast understatement.

I don't recall ever seeing this monstrosity before. Knew it's existence. Dreaded it's possible appearance on my plate. Glad I stayed away from this alleged nightmare of a delicacy.

I'm not sure where it was from; but, my grandmother used to cook tripe. Fortunately, I never ate that and was given the tasty beef tongue instead.

Oh, an occasional piece or two salty licorice isn't that bad.

French tripe in jelly. Tripe is the first or second stomach of a cow or another ruminant. Doesn't it look delicious? Despite Julia Child's recommendations, I wouldn't eat it.



On that note, the Mexicans make a soup called menudo made with tripe.
I've been in a kitchen where it was being cooked, and, believe me, if I was blindfolded I would have thought I was in the bathroom after a visit from a particularly malodorous person. I've never eaten menudo, and I don't think I ever will.

salmiakki is a favourite in our family

double salt licorice mmmmmmmmm is a step in the right direction

mmm kind of like it - it's a regular party feature at my BFF's parents

our fav Christmas bird stuffing is a knock-off version of Haggis from a Scottish chef friend of the family. fewer innards and no suet but otherwise the same. I eat it on sandwiches. It's a flavour cousin of scrapple which I worship (when I can find a good version)

Yeah, let's add scrapple to the list.

And I was never finicky when I was a kid. My mother would serve calf brains, pickled pigs feet, and all kinds of weird stuff, but I wouldn't eat calf liver.

There is nothing better than Menudo. Generally it is served as a soup and in my family was eaten on Sunday morning or special occasions with crusty bread.



I am traveling to Mexico next month.... I am looking forward to this dish.

I have also had tripe, along with tendon, in Vietnamese Pho. It's delicous.

While we are disparaging delicious Mexican food, let's add chapulines. I prefer them as a snack with chili and lime, but the tacos are good too.

P'cha, Pacha, P'tcha. Pronounced puh, chy.

Calf's foot jelly. A Russian delicacy. My grandmother made this. I stared in horror.

I was just ready to add menudo to the list. My sister in law, a transplant from Mexico, always cooked up a huge pot of it every week. She and her kids ate it with gusto, demolishing it in about a day and a half. Such dishes never appealed to me. Maybe 'cause I grew up eating potatoes, pinto beans, boiled rice, biscuits and cornbread almost exclusively. Just never developed an appetite for certain things.

It reminds me of an Archie Bunker episode.

I've eaten tongue. It doesn't taste bad. But after a few times being fed it, I couldn't get past the image of it any more.

I had eaten tongue in the US many times. It always came in little cut up pieces of deliciousness.

When I went to a market in Guadalajara I sat at a counter and ordered tongue taco. The guy reached into a cooler under the counter and pulled up a tongue; it was big, and fresh, and moist and clearly tongue shaped. He took a cleaver, cut off a few slices, threw them on the grill and then served then on a couple tortillas.

It was delicious. Seeing the tongue in its original form was a little strange.

I love tongue. I don't care what it looks like. It tastes good.

Limburger cheese is another one my mother would eat, but I couldn't get past the smell.

"In its first month, the cheese is firmer and crumblier, similar to the texture of feta cheese. After about six weeks, the cheese becomes softer along the edges but is still firm on the inside and can be described as salty and chalky. After two months of its life, it is mostly creamy and much smoother. Once it reaches three months, the cheese produces its notorious smell because of the bacterium used to ferment Limburger cheese and many other smear-ripened cheeses. This is Brevibacterium linens, the same one found on human skin that is partially responsible for body odor and particularly foot odor."

They cooked the whole tongue, before my mother cut slices off of it. As I say, the taste was fine, but the repulsive factor won in the end.

I ate beef heart and enjoyed it, at one time. I almost bought some for me and my wife shortly after we married. Her reaction made heart a no-no around here.