Posted on 03/28/2012 12:58:08 PM PDT by nickcarraway
I'M sitting at a sushi bar in Sapporo, the main city on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and staring at a strange, small, raw and salmon-coloured object on my plate.
"Er, is it the brain of a fish?", I asked my dining companion, who happens to be Tetsuya Wakuda, the celebrated Sydney-based Japanese-Australian chef with whom I’m travelling for a magazine article.
“No,” he replies. “It’s fish’s semen sac.”
Sometimes it’s best not to ask. But there were ever weirder dishes to come (see below) at this lunch. There are the adventurous types who actively seek out weird food on their travels. Me? I’m entirely a victim of circumstance.
I’m hardly a fussy eater and rarely seek out the odd and challenging dish when I’m overseas - they come to me. As a guest in another country no one wants to offend their hosts by rejecting their food, something which plays an integral part, and a subject of immense pride, in many cultures. Somehow I’ve managed to escape weird food in China (for which it’s notorious), having visited there on a number occasions. But I do draw a line at rats on a skewer (India), dog meat (Vietnam), fried tarantulas (Cambodia), guinea pigs (Peru) and Starbuck’s coffee (US).
Here’s my menu of the weird world dishes that I have succumbed to on my travels (and, yes, I’m sure on some of your wandering you’ve eaten a lot worse, so let me know).
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Well, if my choice is to eat a seasoned sac of salmon semen or die, the answer is not obvious to me....
I definitely think that would be one of the defining moments in life where I would try to trace back the poor decisions I made that lead to my current plight.
I think rule #1 of guy code is the equation --
semen ≠ food.
Years ago, 1973, I worked on an abalone boat. The two guys for whom I worked were breaking me in with the main anchor. This was in Santa Barbara near Santa Catalina Island.
Lo and behold, I messed up the wrapping of the main anchor, and we started our descent into the Pacific. The Captain put out a MAY DAY and threw me into the cabin.
The First Mate pulled the anchor up with his brute strength. Someone answered our MAY DAY and water in the haul was taken out.
Want to go fishing with me in ALASKA? LOL!
Durian, oh my the experience was not pleasant. The taste was like eating rotten mushy onions. Just bloody awful and I would not want to wish that experience on anyone.
Durian, oh my the experience was not pleasant. The taste was like eating rotten mushy onions. Just bloody awful and I would not want to wish that experience on anyone.
Don't take long to cook either!
You overcooked it.
This guy is a major whiner!
I had some weird Lao dipping sauce that was made with bile and semi digested contents of the cows stomach.
In order to become a tender on a boat in Newport Beach, CA, you have to eat the beating heart out of a fish. I couldn’t. The other tenders threw me over the boat in the harbour, and gave me the title of Honarary Tender.
Never had to pay to fish again, nor eating a live heart of one.
I know that area pretty well having spent 1971-73 on albacore boats out of San Pedro, we may have crossed paths. One greenhorn skipper I worked for ran us aground in a 65 footer right in front of a busy restaurant in Santa Barbara harbor. Luckily it was sandy and we backed out all right.
We hit all the hot spots - Oxnard, Morro Bay, Avila Beach, Pismo, San Simeon, Eureka, Fort Bragg, Moss Landing and more.
We got into a huge drunken brawl with some abalone divers at the Harbor Hut in Morro Bay one fine evening - pretty tough bunch. The lone Morro Bay cop car showed up and it was a 63 Ford. No one was seriously harmed or arrested, if I recall correctly. That would have been 1972 - youth is wasted on the young :>)
Yum indeed, I've been eating ground chuck & steak since I was a little kid. No sandwich though, just meat & a little salt. Real good stuff.
No, not food: more like "entertainment"...
Cheers!
I lived in Green Bay WI as a kid 1958-62. The cannibal sandwich began in Milwaukee if I recall correctly. My Dad was an ROTC department head at St. Norbert College. There was a faculty dinner one night where steak tartare was on the buffet table and there were three priests in line in front of him and each one blessed the raw ground sirloin before taking a portion and he figured by the time he got there it was safe to eat!
Also, consult the 1958 atomic thriller “Alas Babylon” about a USAF vet whose girlfriend doesn’t care for his liking “cannibal sandwiches” as a quick lunch.
Me, I make them with pump rye each slice smeared with horseradish and Texas Pete. 97% ground beef works well if the butcher department is reliable.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10922289-urine-soaked-virgin-boy-eggs-are-a-springtime-taste-treat-in-china
Steak Tar Tar is not weird. It is just a hamburger without the heat.
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