Foreign Food Horrors

[That Jekka Gal]

Yes, ladies and gennlemen, it’s that time of year again where we head to far flung corners of the world to be confronted with a smorgasbord of things you wouldn’t normally dream of putting in your mouth from fried cockroaches in Thailand to sheeps eyeballs in Morocco.

I think I’ve already spoken in detail about my rat taco but another experience that makes me chuckle comes from a rather strait laced girl with whom I used to work.

Imagine one of those squeaky clean couples who are obsessed with hygiene to an OCD level.

Well, that's this couple.

So they go to India (!). On their first day in Calcutta(!) they
spot a chai wallah and decide to have a cuppa. Declining the paper cups into which he's about to decant their hot beverages, they delve into their backpacks and produce 2 plastic cups that they'd brought with them, giving each a good wipe with alcohol gel first.

They then hand the cups over to the wallah who then proceeds to strain the tea from the urn strapped to his back through the filthy vest that he was wearing into their 2 mugs.

ISTR they stayed in India for 24 hours before heading off to New Zealand.

 

[That Jekka Gal]

Andouillette - take it from a man who likes offal and finds haggis delicious, don’t try this unless you’ve been born and raised on it.

I’ve been served it, smelled it and sent it back. Vile.

However, in the same way that the worse French cheese smells, the better it tastes - I may have missed out.

 

[That Jekka Gal]

I’ve tried the Icelandic delicacy “bits of shark that have been allowed to rot until their toxicity has dropped to a level that humans can survive” mixed with dehydrated cod (Icelandic bread) and washed down with the local vodka.

The vodka is required to cleanse both the palette and the digestive system.

My recommendation: Avoid.

Isn’t there a dish called 1000 year old egg there too? It’s not quite 1000 yrs old but might as well be.

Then, of course, there’s the Chinese dish bird’s nest soup. Which isn’t quite as gross as I’d imagined. It’s made from the nests of swifts which , in turn, are made from solidified saliva. I’d always imagined a good helping of guano was included too but they are, apparently, thoroughly cleaned before preparation.

 

[That Jekka Gal]

African tap water. Possibly the worst 24 hours of my entire life.

Yes, I ordered Pernod and water in Senegal and they brought the little jug of water as they do in France. It took less than an hour....