Best Buy Food :
Let’s start with a comment. The following dishes are especially considered to best buy & rancid by westerners. In other cultures it is quite normal to eat insects or sheep heads. Non-westerners are probably disgusted by our herring or mussels (or licorice!). The big difference is that abroad you often see what you eat (carcasses at the butcher), in the West the ingredients are hidden, but if you only knew what is in a frikandel or a Chicken McNugget …
10. Wine from Baby Mice:
Wine made from baby mice is a health drink in Korea and China. The mice are taken away from the mother and put alive in the rice wine. After they have fermented, the drink is ready. And yes, the mice are also eventually best buy and eaten.
9. Escamoles:
Escamoles are the eggs of the large black Liometopum ant. Escamoles are popular in Mexico, they taste buttery and a bit like nuts. It seems to be delicious in a taco with Guacamole.
8. Pacha:
Pacha is a traditional Iraqi dish. It is made from the belly, legs and head of a sheep. In Norway, sheep’s head is also a delicacy, here it is called “Smalahove”.
7. Balut:
Balut is a popular dish in the Philippines. Balut is a boiled duck egg, but in the egg you will find the embryo of a duck.
6. Case Marzu:
A delicacy on Sardinia, a cheese made from sheep’s milk. However, this cheese is aged so long that it is full of cheese fly larvae! The cheese should be eaten with the live maggots (8mm long!) still in it. This is not entirely without danger, because the larvae sometimes survive in the stomach … The cheese is therefore illegal in most countries, but a lot of it is still eaten in Sardinia.
5. Haggis:
We ourselves are a big fan of intestines (liver, kidneys), but we have to mention Haggis in the list because it is known by many people as the rancid dish. Haggis is popular in Scotland, and consists mainly of sheep’s entrails, packed in the sheep’s stomach.
4. Hakarli:
Hákarl is shark meat, a popular dish in Iceland. However, you can’t just eat the shark from that region because it contains toxic substances. That is why the shark is first kept under the sand for six to twelve weeks to ferment. The poison is gone after this, but a putrefactive smell has taken its place.
3. Kiviak:
Another delicious dish from Iceland and Greenland is Kiviak, popular with the Eskimos. About 500 little birds (Auks) are put in the hollowed-out body of a seal. The body is sewn up and sealed with grease. After a few months of waiting, the birds are fermented enough to eat.
2. Criadillas:
It’s still a dirty idea, eating a bull’s balls. Especially popular in Spain, Argentina and Mexico. In North America they are known as “Rocky Mountain oyster”.
1. Hasma:
Finish with a delicious dessert from China. The Franzen love a frog’s leg, in China they like the genitals more. Hasma is made from the fatty tissue around frogs’ oviducts.
