Unusual food in different countries of the world - bat soup, live octopus, tincture on snakes, cheese with larvae, etc. Some people grimace contemptuously when they hear such names of dishes, others lick their lips, anticipating a meal with delicacies. Culinary traditions in different parts of the world are sometimes confused. Find out what gourmets love in the other half of the world.
Bat soup, China and Thailand
The bat-based brew is infamous all over the world. It was rumored to be the cause of the coronavirus in Wuhan.
Also, this soup is highly revered in Thailand. The way to prepare it is simple:
- a winged mouse is thrown into hot water;
- add coconut milk;
- season with spices to taste.
Bat soup is served even in reputable restaurants. Each plate will necessarily contain the head of an animal.
Durian, Southeast Asia
Actually, durian is not a dish, but a fruit, but very unusual for tourists from our latitudes. This is a huge thorny fruit that, when falling from a tree, can easily kill a person. It has a strong unpleasant odor, reminiscent of either rotting meat or rotten eggs. Due to this intense amber, durian is prohibited from entering some Asian hotels, as advertised at the entrance.
Inside the durian there is a yellowish pulp, into which it is better not to stain your clothes, for the smell of this fruit will haunt you for several days.
Opinions about the taste of this fruit vary. Tourists who dare to try it talk about a soft, exquisite aftertaste. Locals call durian the king of fruits and equate its consumption with tasting the best wines.
Fried tarantulas and cicadas, Cambodia
Dangerous tarantulas and cicadas appeared on the tables of Cambodians during the dictatorship, when famine came to the country. Currently, tarantulas and cicadas are prepared mainly for tourists who come to the city of Sukon for these delicacies. Here travelers are even offered to get spiders with their own hands in the nearby jungle. And this "hunt" is very popular, it has long turned into an interesting attraction.
Spiders are pan-fried whole until crispy, seasoned with garlic and sprinkled with salt. They can be left in soy sauce for a while before cooking.
Tarantulas and cicadas taste like crickets. You've tasted crickets, haven't you?
Kopi Luwak, Indonesia
How regular coffee is made is known: coffee beans are harvested, dried, cleaned, roasted and brewed. Kopi Luwak coffee is prepared differently.
First, the grains are eaten by musangs - small predators living in the jungle and resembling cats in their appearance. In their stomachs, only the pulp of coffee fruits is processed, the grains themselves remain intact, but still slightly fermented. As a result, the grains lose their bitterness and acquire a wonderful aroma. People collect musang droppings, isolate grains from it, which can be brewed.
The drink is considered very expensive: for 1 kg of these grains, they ask for $ 700. This is due to the fact that local residents can collect only 200-300 kg of such "raw materials" per year. However, now there are farms where the production of Kopi Luwak is put on stream.
Sanaki, South Korea
Sanaki is a dish of live little octopuses served with sesame oil. Their tentacles wriggle on the plate as the client starts their meal. To many tourists who have tasted this curiosity, it seems that the tentacles live their own lives in the stomach.
Sanaki is a real challenge to health, because it is not safe to eat living sea reptiles: a piece of a tentacle can stick to the wall of the esophagus or cause suffocation.
Snake tinctures, Thailand
It is not the snake itself that is appreciated, but its blood, which is considered the strongest aphrodisiac in the world. Connoisseurs in Thailand drink it in one gulp while still fresh. For tourists, rice wine is made, in which a snake is placed. Alcohol neutralizes snake venom. The wine turns a slightly pinkish color due to the blood of a snake. The healing properties of blood are preserved.
Puffin Heart, Iceland
Lovely birds with red beaks, reminiscent of both seagulls and penguins, have long been used by northerners from the island of Iceland for food. It is considered special chic to cut the heart of a puffin and eat it raw.
The famous chef Gordon Ramsay, in one of the issues of his culinary and tourist program, caught a dead end and ate his heart, which caused a flurry of indignation from the shocked spectators.
Haggis, Scotland
Previously, the Scottish haggis was considered the food of the shepherds. Now it is served to tourists in restaurants and is even released in the form of semi-finished products for the microwave oven.
Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish that allows almost all sheep to be eaten. The offal of this animal is crushed, onions, oats, fat, spices are added to them and this mixture is placed in the intestine. Then all this is cooked and served with mashed root vegetables.
Balut, Philippines and Vietnam
The national dish of the Filipinos resembles a kinder surprise, only instead of a toy there is a chicken or duck embryo. The embryo is from 17 to 21 days old. Those embryos that are older have already formed bones and light plumage.
Balut is eaten whole with a pinch of salt, coriander and a drop of lemon juice. Some foodies prefer to eat these chili eggs. They say that in this combination, they acquire the properties of an aphrodisiac.
Casu marzu cheese, Sardinia
Another product whose ingredients run off the plate was invented by Italians. This is a cheese made from sheep's milk and stuffed with cheese fly larvae. The worms start the process of fermenting the fats in the cheese, making the product softer and tastier, according to some experts.
Some people remove the larvae from the cheese before eating cheese, as these creatures can jump a few centimeters and get into the gourmet's eyes. Other consumers eat cheese directly with worms and endanger their stomachs.
The sale of casu marz in Italy was banned a few years ago, but it is still for sale in Sardinia.
