Honestly, this isn't the best place for this thread =P But it seemed the best fit. What sort of strange foods do you feed your characters? Do your characters visit places with strange foods? Are there any strange foods you've eaten in real life that you'd like to incorporate into a novel?

Andrew

Lampreys....


(Its true!)

That would be interesting. Have you eaten lamprey, or do you just want to put it in a novel?

Anyone familiar with Heston Blumenthal?

I'm not. What is his connection to strange historical foods?

Nope, me neither. =P What's his claim to strange foodiness fame?

@Joe: Lampreys would be interesting; have you eaten them?

I have never eaten a lamprey. I mentioned them because they were considered a delicacy during the medieval period.

Blackbird Pie.

He's a chef who goes about recreating historical foods... accurately. Whether it's animal organs stuffed with bread and herbs, or an actual blackbird pie, he's pretty much done it all. It can be quite to see what they actually ate back in the ages!

1) frozen mammoth (scientists )
2) fried tarantula (my dad had an experience in Cambodia where someone offered him a 'fresh' one... )
3) shark fin soup (China)
4) chicken blood jelly (China)
5) pig brain soup (China/Singapore)
6) dried seahorse tea (China/Singapore)
7) boiled reindeer eyeballs (Mongolia)
8) poisonous 1-inch-long wasp sushi (Japan)

In desperate times, people will eat anything. And after the hardship is over, that food often become part of the people's heritage.

@Joe: Huh, interesting.

@Bush: Cool! *would like to try some*

@Sienna: Tarantula would be too much for me =P
My dad tried some blood jelly in Brazil; he didn't like it
I've heard eyeballs are a delicacy in many places....that's on my list of something try one day.
Poisonous sushi?

That's a good point. Their hardship becomes their culture =D

Here's a couple of strange(ish) foods I've had that I want to incorporate into my writing one of these days

- Chicken hearts (Brazil; these are actually like all the flavor of the chicken compressed - we eat them on pizza sometimes )
- Shredded horse meat and noodles (Uzbekistan; they call it norin- it's very flavorful Since they don't have good beef their "good" meat for special occasions is always horse; norin is served at weddings and such =))
- Kimchi (Korea; OK, so not that strange, but one of my all-time favorite foods, especially when it's extra spicy I really want to put this into a story one of these days)

Andrew

I've heard of snake hearts still beating, but not chicken hearts.

*is grossed out by the chicken hearts, for some reason *

Well, if you get to put kimchi, Herman, then I'll put nori.

Nori~ Japanese seaweed. Often has a spicy taste to it. Dry. (as opposed to Korean seaweed, which is purely salty--crusted with salt--and practically dripping with the oils it's fried in)

I remember chicken hearts being good, but I'm afraid I've lost my taste for them in the years it's been since I've had any...

Lots of...interesting...foods here... Some I'd like to try, others not...

We eat chicken hearts over here all the time. Also, chicken liver. And we don't actually eat beef and pork liver, but we know a lot of people who do.

The organs are actually the most nutritious part of an animal to eat. Among more primitive cultures the innards of an animal were saved for pregnant women and young children, since they needed it the most.

Did you know that chicken feet make the best soup broth in the world? But we won't let my dad try making broth with chicken heads. I draw the line there.

But eyeballs are an incredible source of vitamin A. There was a story about a guy who went blind from Vitamin A deficiency. (It was a ship wreck story, I think, my dad loves those.) Some Indian found him and recognized his problem. He took him down to the beach and started catching fish. He tossed them to the blind man and instructed him to eat just the eyes. Within a few days his sight came back completely.

Food used to be very hard to obtain, so settlers wouldn't let any of it go to waste. My brother can tell you exactly what they'd do with every last part of a pig. Have you ever heard of head cheese? It's literally a pig head, brain and all, cooked until it's tender and sliced up like cheese.

I suspect is the most common smiley that's going to be used on this thread....

That's my random input on this subject.

Interesting facts, Katie.

My characters travel a lot, so I suppose they would enounter pretty weird stuff, but I've never really thought about it.
How about squid boiled in its own ink? My friend had that once in China.

Seaweed tastes like fishfood smells. I don't like it much.

I get asked to eat chicken gizzards every time I visit my great-grandma's house. But I haven't broken down and eaten them yet. They smell bad.

Squid is good, but the texture isn't my favorite.

*grins* Has anyone ever eaten whole, baby octopi? I had them at a Chinese restaurant and it was SO freaky to see them sitting on top of my rice! But they aren't actually bad.

One of my charries is at a peasant's home and she has to eat whatever she's given, because if she didn't it would be offensive. They serve her "balut". What it is, is an egg old enough to have a developed chick inside but taken away a few days before the skeleton is developed. And then it's boiled and scooped out of the shell like jelly.

She...has a very hard time. *evil smile*

They also serve her horse meat which is horrifying to her because in her tribe horses are sacred and protected animals. But that isn't really an ick factor.

The horse is a creative fantasy spin.

Some people eat tarantulas deep fat fried.

isn't that rather dangerous?

Yick! Hope the deepfrying gets rid of the fuzziness! *tongue squirms at the thought*

Supposedly they are very healthy for you.