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Holiday Food – Yuk!
Holiday time is a particularly interesting time when it comes to food. Many cultures have interesting special foods at holiday time. As I was enjoying the Christmas eve marathon repast (Italian style), a niece said on the first of 7 or so courses, “how can you eat that stuff?” She was referring to the calamari, scungilli and bacala that I was enjoying.
This morning there was an article in the NYT about lutefisk, a lye soaked cod that is a delicacy and an integral part of a Norwegian Christmas. The story described an American of Norwegian descent to went alone to a restaurant that serves this special food because his wife couldn’t tolerate the smell and refused to join him in enjoying his childhood tradition.
These events made me realize, especially at this time of year, that one person's treat can be another’s disgust. So I did a search for unusual foods/recipes and uncovered some strange things. From a website that outlines a series of nutritional bugs to unusual cakes, 3 of which are describes as ‘almost as good as sex’ or ‘better than sex.’
There are collections of news stories about unusual food from the around the globe. A few that give unusual food recipes from around the world (1)(2)(3) There are also wine and food pairings wth unusual wines. Some sites took a look at food in history and looks back at historical cultures and foods from Roman to Medieval times.
And finally, my 3 favorites, a site, complete with aboriginal music, on Australian bush food from the University of Melbourne, another weird food site that even includes monkey brains and finally, one of my favorites is Ray’s list of disgusting foods. He describes a number of strange things from kvass, a russian beer-like beverage to honey ants, haggis, banana worm bread to prairie oysters (i won’t tell you what they are)and much more. At times, my reaction was the same as my niece’s - ‘how can they eat that stuff - yuk’
3:06:56 PM 
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