Have you ever turned up at a restaurant whose
cuisine you are not familiar with, looked at one of the dishes and thought, “Are you
kidding?” They eat that! Well, as they say in the UK, it’s horses
for courses. And no, that expression has nothing to do
with the French people’s penchant for eating horse meat, but a term that comes from horse
racing. It holds truth, though, what is strange to
you might not be so strange for another, and vice versa. Elvis Presley may have thought a bacon, peanut
butter, and grape jelly sandwich was a culinary treat to admire, but in other nations it would
sound disgusting. People have also eaten some strange things
in times of famine, scavenging for anything remotely edible, but today we’ll focus mostly
on foods with a price tag, in this episode of the Infographics Show; Weird Food People
Eat Around The World. Don’t forget to subscribe and click the
bell button so that you can be part of our Notification Squad. If you think Elvis’s calorific concoction
is strange, head over to Scotland and you’ll find things you won’t believe people sometimes
eat. A Scot after a night out and a few pints at
the pub might make his or her way to the chippy, aka the fish and chip shop, but forgo the
usual dish and order a deep fried pizza, or perhaps go for the deep fried Mars Bar or
another deep fried chocolate bar. Head over to England and try one of their
traditional English breakfasts and you’ll find a black patty on your plate with white
dots on it. That’s called black pudding, which is a
mix of congealed pig’s blood, lard, and oatmeal. In the north of England, a dish that is dying
out but is still eaten these days is tripe. It’s basically the insides of a cow’s
stomach, and in the north of England it was, and still is in some places, just pickled
in vinegar, and so looks, and has a texture, that you can only imagine. One English chef trying to bring it back told
The Guardian in 2011, “When you kill a cow, its guts probably weigh 75 to 100 kilos. It's wrong that it all goes into dog food.” Across the channel in France, we know a specialty
dish is snails, but horse meat is also common. Another favorite in France is “Pieds de
porc”, or pig’s trotters. They are common in many countries but apparently
the French love chowing down on these feet. The French are also partial to a bit of “Tête
de veau” which is basically a cooked cow’s head. It’s the brain that is the best part, and
in France some people say it’s really good for your skin and bones. Over in Spain, cow brain is also considered
quite the treat. Like France, Italy is known as a culinary
country, where it is doubtful a deep fried Mars Bar would go down well with the locals. Our favorite dish we found in Italy is dormouse. Apparently dormouse was such a specialty that
a word developed for dormouse hunters (agglzjiraru). While we found some sources that stated that
dormouse is still eaten today in a village near the Southern Italian region of Calabria,
other sources say the only country that still enjoys a bit of mouse is Slovenia, although
it’s very rare. But the winner in Italy is a dish that was
actually banned for a while, and you might not be surprised why. This is called “Casu Marzu” or rotten
cheese. This is a cheese that was left outside to
allow flies to lay eggs in it, after which the larvae broke down the fats and fermented
it. Apparently some people left the maggots in
when they consumed it, but others would take the worms out. One American blogger that tasted what she
called “maggot cheese” said, “I raised my slice, only to see that it was actually
writhing with squirmy little worms.” She also said it wasn’t too bad. Moving across to Scandinavia, one of the strangest,
and for some people stomach churning, delicacies is the Norwegian dish of Smalahove. This is popular at Christmas time and nothing
gets left, so if you miss out on the eyeballs, nose or ears, you can always scoop out the
brain. As one Norwegian put it on TripAdvisor, “Does
not look delicate perhaps, but taste is fine.” We must mention that some Norwegians don’t
eat the whole head. In Sweden they have a specialty which is basically
rotten herring. The BBC explains, “It is herring that has
been fermented for six months then crammed into a can that bulges dangerously with putrid
gases.” It apparently smells like a rotten corpse. The Japanese, according to the BBC, classified
it as the very worst food smell in the world. Sticking with herring, the Russian’s have
a popular dish called “Seledka pod shuboi” which translates as herring under a fur coat. It doesn’t look that bad actually, and is
just herring under a bunch of vegetables and mayo that looks a bit like a coat. Let’s leave Europe for now and go over to
South America. One thing that was once seen as weird in Peru
has actually recently taken off in the USA, too. That’s deep fried Guinea pig. Nearby in Brazil, they have something very
similar to the Scottish delicacy called haggis. This is called “Buchada” and consists
of a goat’s stomach opened up and then filled with all sorts of things we usually don’t
eat, such as heart, lungs, and intestines. It’s all sewn back up and cooked, and like
haggis, may sound a tad weird but it is supposed to be supremely tasteful. Up in Mexico, they have a dish that looks
like a nutty piece of chocolate, but it’s actually what is called “Escamoles”. This is actually ant larvae and is apparently
really good. Another dish in Mexico is “Huitlacoche”,
which is basically rotten corn cobs covered in fungus. The name translated is “sleeping excrement”. In the USA, they also have strange eating
habits in some places, and we are not talking about deep fried Twinkies or corn dogs, which
are stomach churning to most folks around the world. More natural strange foods still eaten in
the US are Alligator and Rattlesnake. Apparently the rattlesnake at Tim Love's Lonesome
Dove Western Bistro in Fort Worth, TX, is particularly good. Other US dishes include smoked Louisiana alligator
ribs, while turtle soup is popular in Pennsylvania and Louisiana. No list of strange foods could be complete
without mentioning Asia, but where do we start? One thing we won’t mention is the controversial
consumption of cats and dogs, we already did that in another show. Vacationers in Thailand will soon find if
they walk around Bangkok, fried insects are for sale in the street. This includes locusts, scorpions, giant water
beetles, bamboo-worms, moth chrysalis, and crickets. In Cambodia, you can perhaps go a step further
and eat a deep-fried giant tarantula. Maybe one of the most revolting things you’ll
ever see all across South East Asia is chicken or duck embryo, sometimes a few of them on
a stick. This almost formed creature looks as you’d
imagine it to look, a soft embryo with a slimy beak. Not surprisingly, locals often wash this down
with whisky and beer as perhaps even to them it’s a little off-putting. You can also find rats eaten in most Southeast
Asian countries, but this is dying out and in some countries was merely survival food
for the very poor. Although, in Cameroon, the BBC reports that
rats are still eaten and the reporter tried them. His verdict: “It was the most delicious
meat I ever had in my life.” He also travelled to the Indian state of Bihar
where he said very poor people ate rats. He said the meat was delicious, but the burning
hair was a bit repugnant while cooking the rats. He also ate rats in other parts of Africa
and India, and each time said it wasn’t too bad at all. So, there you go, rats are a decent meal. The Japanese are no slouches when it comes
to strange food, either. One of the worst things to look at is the
massive slimy tuna eyeball, which looks as if it’s been plucked out of the live fish
and ended up on your plate. One blogger tasted one on his travels and
remarked, “The wall of the eyeball was rubbery and I couldn’t even get a piece off. Gag factor was minimal unless you let it get
in your head.” The Koreans also have a liking for the very
strange, and sometimes it’s still moving when you eat it. One of those dishes is the Spoon worm, nicknamed
penis fish as that is exactly what it looks like. If eaten live, the things are wriggling around
on your plate before you put them in your mouth. Live octopus is also eaten, which is known
in Korea as Sannakji. Apparently this is quite daring, too, as the
tentacles still work when consumed so you have to make sure to chew them very well lest
you get those things sticking in your throat. China could be a list unto itself, but we’ll
pick out some of the best treats for you. You can basically add most of those other
Asian dishes to the Chinese menu. But you could also include sheep penis on
a stick served at a street side vendor, or maybe a bowl of boiled chicken testicles. One of the worst things the Chinese have been
accused of eating is monkey brains, sometimes depicted as being eaten while the monkey is
alive. This is urban legend, and there is no sufficient
evidence it has ever happened, as a norm anyway. Nonetheless, the Guardian did report that
“raw and cooked brain of dead monkey is widely consumed in the far east.” Have you tried any of these foods? What’s the strangest food you’ve ever
eaten? Let us know in the comments! Also, be sure to check out our other video
called Loudest Things a Person Can Hear?! Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
forget to like, share, and subscribe. See you next time!
