The world is full of curious people, and it’s the only explanation for all the exotic dishes you are about to read. How else would they discover that these things tasted wonderful or horrible? And the curiosity didn’t stop with these discoverers, it continued to people who are brave enough to try something foreign. So if you’re curious if you’re one of the bravehearts out there, read on!
1. Tarantula burger
Imagine going to a restaurant and ordering a full-grown toasted tarantula. Oh, and a side of fries to go with it. It’s every arachnophobia sufferer’s nightmare, well, that and getting rained on with spiders. A North Carolina restaurant bravely offers exotic tarantula burger but not everyone can eat it. Diners must join a raffle and whoever gets picked every other day has 48 hours to respond so he/she can claim the burger. Customers have likened the taste of the tarantulas to potato chips.
In Asia, Cambodia has their abundance of fried tarantulas as big as your hand. These are found everywhere from street vendors to restaurants!
2. Tamilok
Tamilok are giant mollusks that look like worms, they live inside mangroves found in Palawan and Aklan. Locals say they taste like oysters and love eating them raw and dipped in vinegar, but you can also have them cooked in restaurants in Palawan. The long, slimy, and milky looking worms are exotic delicacies and are sought after by foreigners!
3. Rats on a stick
Fancy a rat kebab? Thailand’s got you covered! There are people who shudder at the thought of rats in their homes and there are people who are perfectly fine with eating one. Of course the rats offered in Thailand restaurants aren’t your regular, dirty house rats, they’re rats which have been feeding in clean fields, safe to consume, stripped of fur, and roasted. But it still doesn’t change the fact that they’re rats and were once hairy!
4. Casu Marzu
This Italian dish takes exotic to a different level, one that involves live insect larvae. Casu Marzu is a type of sheep milk cheese which contains live insect larvae that would even jump 6 inches! These maggots make the cheese softer and better to the taste, although ‘better to the taste’ is largely subjective. But if you don’t want to consume the maggots (which have the tendency to live in your intestines, by the way), you can put the cheese in a sealed paper bag and wait for the maggots to die.
5. Digger Wasp rice crackers
How about a box of crackers with a twist? These Japanese wasp rice crackers filled with digger wasps are the result of the ingenious of the Japanese fan club for wasps. And yes, the previous sentence was not made up. The crackers are made in Omachi town and are a bit on the expensive side as the wasps are caught in the wild for optimum flavor.
6. Live Cobra Heart
This dish sounds like something only Jackie Chan is worthy of consuming, but it’s actually a well-known exotic delicacy in Vietnam. Vietnamese takes the cobra heart, all raw and fresh, and bathes it with the cobra’s blood. They then proceed to eat it while it’s still beating. They say eating the dish will give you the strengths and powers of a cobra. You might want to consume one before confessing your feelings to your crush.
7. Bat Paste
This dish is another Thailand specialty; it’s also cooked in China and Guam. Locals catch the bat, and while still alive, drop it in boiling milk with spices. When the bat is soft enough, you mash it until it turns into paste. Only the brave of heart can try this!
8. Haggis
Scotland has their own exotic dish to wow other countries and its none other than Haggis, the national dish of Scotland. It’s made with sheep’s liver, heart, and lungs, mixed with spices, all stuck in the sheep’s stomach and then boiled for a few hours. It doesn’t sound so bad, but would you eat it?
Would you try these dishes? Share your answer with us below!
