What I won’t eat
October 22nd, 2007I was just thinking of what I won’t eat. I’m not talking about gross out competitions, but real food that you can buy at a market somewhere in the world.
brains - very bitter, yuck! Tried pig brains once at a Filipino party. Just take my word for it, brains don’t taste good.
jellyfish - was at a Chinese restaurant with my older brother and we ordered jellyfish just to try. They actually were kind of sweet, but took forever to chew, like chewing on a tire. Next time, I’ll pass.
gonads - I don’t care if they taste good or not, I’m not eating the gonads of an animal.
sea cucumber - I was at a Vietnamese wedding and they had sea cucumber as an appetizer. The rest of the food was delicious and there were some hot Vietnamese babes dancing. However, sea cucumber is horrible.
eyeballs (except for fish eyeballs which are quite good) - I don’t want to eat something that is looking at me.
liver - I hate the taste of liver. I know a lot of Germans swear by it and try to convince me to try their liver, but I kindly refuse. Maybe if I’m intoxicated enough and they have heavy gravy smeared on it, I might try it.
earthworms are gross. They were another thing at a Chinese restaurant just to try. Now that that’s out of the way, I won’t ever do that again.
human, monkey, dolphin, whale, or dog. I refuse to eat these out of sheer principle. Other than that, I’ll probably eat it.
You’re probably wondering about the human reference. One of my friends was an anthropologist studying stone age tribes and he actually lived with some for sometimes up to six months. One of the tribes he lived with practiced ritual cannibalism, i.e., eating of their dead relatives to have their bodies join with theirs, literally. No, nobody died when he was living with them, so he never ate human meat.
Humans in my lifetime were eaten in parts of Africa, and during famine in China during WWII, some ate the dead because there was nothing else to eat. I actually know someone’s grandmother who did it for survival purposes. Not at all singling out the Chinese, Americans have eaten human flesh for survival purposes (the Donner Party, for example), and that one soccer team (I think they were Chilean or Argentinian) in the Andes when their plane crashed.
Also, during the Cultural Revolution in China, 270 people were known to have been killed and eaten as enemies of the state. Well, that’s just communism for you. Communists do strange things like that.
Monkeys are eaten to this day in Africa and some parts of Asia. Dogs in many parts of Asia. Dolphins are slaughtered and eaten in some parts of Japan. Screw cultural relativity, this is WRONG. Dolphins shouldn’t be eaten by people. Screw cultural tolerance.
UPDATE - I told Badman about this post, so he sent me an email from that he won’t eat tripe, bile, or beef tongue. I happen to like tripe in Vietnamese Pho. Bile is ok, not something I like, but if done right, I’ll eat it to be polite. I love beef tongue, only having it once at a Jewish restaurant in L.A. I’d definitely have it again.
Even as a non-vegan I wouldn’t eat any of this stuff. Especially not brains…not after “Hannibal”.
um, yeah i’d have to agree with mostly all the items on this list. i’m willing to try monkey and dog. not saying i want to but i could do that just to be polite. add to my list kidney and anything that does not have a backbone, except crab. i just can’t do it. ok, i can gag down lobster and shrimp to be polite, but scallops, clams, oysters…fergit it..no way.
I know waaaaay too much biology to even try that stuff.
Hmm.. your list pretty much covers what I wouldn’t eat. I don’t think I could manage tongue - isn’t it bumpy? I also wouldn’t eat pig feet.
SME - You’re not missing anything not trying any of that stuff. That’s for sure.
Lime - You don’t like shrimp? I love shrimp. There’s so much you can do with shrimp.
Bridget - That’s another reason why ignorance could sometimes be bliss.
Notta - They shave off the bumpy parts.
Being a vegetarian those were all a given, but heck, even if I still ate meat, I wouldn’t eat any of that. I’m a little nauseous just thinking about it.
Liver was a fairly regular dinner entree in my house growing up. Disgusting. I would smother it in fried onions and bacon (we were only allowed two pieces per slab of liver) in order to make it as palatable as possible. It still wasn’t. And whoever thought that eating the organ that filters out the bad stuff from our body is a good idea???
being vegan i never have to worry about 99.9% of your list.
some people swear natto is THE nastiest (it is vegan too) food on this goddess’ earth. i happen to enjoy it now and again
it’s brussel sprouts and cantelope for me. NEVER
Kathleen - See, that’s what I say. The liver is the poison filter. Why are we eating it? It definitely tastes like the poison filter. Yuck!
Rose - I like cantelope but hate brussel sprouts. Mom always made brussel sprouts and I ate them as fast as possible so I wouldn’t have to taste them. I don’t know what natto is though.
Tried pig’s brains once at a pig roast, can’t remember what they actually called it. It wasn’t too bad but I never went out of my way to try it again. I did try rattlesnake and gator once at two different events enjoyed both. And the gator did taste like chicken.
I have to say no thanks to most of that. If I cant say it or if I it doesnt look appetizing I wont eat it. And I am sitting here trying to think how all this food would look but I just lost my appetite for lunch today. LOL…I am not a big person on trying new things. I dont even cook fish here in our home. Neither of us like it.
Filters. I won’t eat filters. No livers, no kidneys, no filters.
I’ve eaten natto and it was disgusting. I happen to love brussel sprouts.
I’d eat any of it in the right circumstances. Yes, that includes human. If the choice is starvation or your dead body, you just became groceries.
That being said, tripe is pretty low on my list of things I’d eat again given a choice.
Beach - I’d love to try rattlesnake and alligator. Just never did.
Tweety - No fish? I love fishing, eating fish, and even eating sushi.
Scott - No argument there, although I think I’ve eaten kidney and didn’t like it. Now that I know what a kidney does, I won’t eat them now.
Kathleen - Really? I hate them. But they’re small enough that you can wolf them down with some milk or beer and they’re not too bad.
Exmi - Ever had Vietnamese Pho? The tripe is very tasteless, but then again, it’s been cooked all day.
NO fishing or fish here.Yuckie. Jeff says it tastes like strong chicken to him. I used to eat fish when I lived at home but now as an adult I wont eat it.
My mother loved beef tongue and no one in our family would make it for her. My sweet spouse knew where to buy it and how to cook it and she loved, loved to have us visit her in the retirement home and bring her beef tongue, horseradish and crackers! (When we were kids she would cook it and tell us we were having beef sandwiches when she sliced tongue, and I guess we really were.)
Tweety - Oh well. I guess when we come up to Wisconsin, we won’t be going out for sushi.
Granny - I’d learn to make it if I had someone else who would want to eat it. I loved it, but like I said, only had it once at that one Jewish restaurant in L.A.
natto info:
http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000169.php
http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/food/natto/
“sea cucumber - I was at a Vietnamese wedding and they had sea cucumber as an appetizer. The rest of the food was delicious and there were some hot Vietnamese babes dancing. However, sea cucumber is horrible.”
I love how this is associated with the hot babes, however, they could not make the sea cucumber taste better. Senses are fun that way.
Clothosfate - I could be having my kidney removed and I’d find some hot babe reference.
Speaking of filipino food…did you ever eat any Balut? Hehehe. Once I ordered a fish in the Philippines; Lapu-Lapu or something like that. Anyway they brought it to me with the head still on. I politely asked them to cut the head off because I couldn’t eat something while it was looking at me. The restuarant staff had a good laugh.
Brussel sprouts!
chicken liver
purple cabbage
and the things you mentioned. They’re just too weird. I’m so American.
Moni - Yeah. I completely forgot Balut. I’ll never eat Balut. That stuff is disgusting. Just the smell is horrendous.
At their parties, I’ll eat their fish with it still on and even eat the eyeballs from their fish. They’re good. But other things with the head still on, I’ll pass.
Kate - I hate brussel sprouts but I’ll eat them to be polite. Chicken liver is nasty and purple cabbage isn’t good, but not that bad as long as it’s with something else.
At least you’re willing to try new things. Up until about two years ago, I’d barely tried shrimp and man I’d been missing out. But, then I tried a shrimp cocktail and I had that horrid taste in my mouth all day. I thought about shooting myself in the foot just to forget about the tast.
And it was about two days ago when my son said “try this” shoving a fork of liver and onions in my mouth. Not too bad, but it wasn’t anything special.
Ever try zombie? I hear they’re yummy!
Jenn - Zombie is highly toxic. You might want to pick up a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Eating the flesh of a zombie is fatal.
I love shrimp. You can do so much with it. I like it breaded, fried, on sushi, etc. You probably had a bad shrimp cocktail.
I’ll pass on liver.
I dunno… I think my friend said it was fine. I’m too scared to try again!
Zombie Survival Guide is added to my to do list.
Come visit me! I blog again.
Jenn - I didn’t recognize you until I noticed your email address. So glad to see you!
I don’t think I could bring myself to try eyeballs of any kind. I just asked Dan about them (he’s tried them) and my stomach began heaving at the word ’squishy’.
Beef tongue is underrated: We had a roommate who made it in a pressure cooker all the time and it was flavourful and oh so tender!
Courtney - I hope you stayed in touch. And if so, please send me their address.
Brussels sprouts. Hmmm. Bad man does enjoy a hefty portion of Brussels sprouts now and again.
As to all these animal byproduct references - yikes, get me te hell out of here. If you aren’t willing and able to walk up to a cow, sledge hammer in hand, and bash its brains in, dodging the hurtling eye as it pops from its skull-perch before splattering against the far wall, then maybe you shouldn’t be chowing down that greasy fast-food burger. Okay, just back away from the smorgasbord and nobody gets hurt…
I could never give up sushi, but red meat, especially steak (other than filet mignon) is so disgusting I won’t eat it - chewing on chunks of fat just doesn’t whet my appetite.
And yes, I have bashed a fish or two’s head in, so I can eat that.
To those that play the “well I’m eeeeevolved; I can eat whatever I want and I can pay someone else to kill it” card, good luck when the zombie plague ensues - I have a distinct feeling you’ll be partaking of the sautéed brain flambé in sizzling dog urine hash.