I was teaching English in a school in China, and the normal english teacher took me out for lunch. We were in a pretty suburban area between two big cities, so people weren’t used to seeing any foreigners and stared the moment we walked in. It was a beautiful restaurant with ornate details.
We sat down, and she ordered many dishes. One was a delicious lamb and cumin dish that came with thin pancakes, that was my favourite. Another was a plate piled high with sticky sweet chicken feet, again absolutely delicious. Another was greens and broccoli, maybe my favourite, that was in a deep smoky garlic sauce.
Everything had been absolutely delicious, so I happily took a forkful (well, a chopstick full) of this beautiful looking vegetable. It looked like a flower, maybe made of cucumber, with a brown paste inside. I took a huge bite, expecting something savoury.
It was bigger melon stuffed with some type of sugary paste. It was bitter, crunchy, watery, sweet and I could. Not. Swallow. It.
It just kept going. It was the absolute worst flavour and texture combination, and I really didn’t think it was going to taste like that. I tried to smile at my lovely new friend, and she just burst out laughing and said “maybe that dish is for local tastes”. It definitely was.
She also boxed up the rest of the delicious lamb and some pancakes and let me take it home. I was hopeless as a teacher, but she was so lovely and helpful and welcoming.
I’ll never eat bitter melon again!!!
The liver of an Arctic char. Raw. Eaten while the char itself was still alive. I was an honored guest of an Inuit elder in Nunavut and this was a cultural tradition. Tasted fishier than rancid fish!
However you don't want to eat polar bear liver. Vitamin A is fat soluble and it accumulates in higher quantities in the liver. After eating a steady diet of seals (and *their* livers), the polar bear can get even higher levels to the point where it becomes toxic to humans.
This was the most unusual item I ate. I couldn't face seal meat. What truly engaged my interest was how the Inuit found food everywhere. I visited in August and I was shown one type of vegetable...a very thin but long root from a plant that looked like a dusty little weed...but the root was tender and sweet, something like a carrot.
Stinky tofu and bitter melon are acquired tastes, but I actually get cravings for them now.
In a case of cultural whiplash, I once had a meal in Japan that featured raw chicken sashimi (tasty), followed a couple of dishes later with bitter melon fried with spam and eggs (also good). I had horse sashimi on a later visit. Cod sperm one at a seafood restaurant (creamy), which also featured raw shrimp sashimi (like eating butter) and deep fried shrimp heads with pepper salt (very good). Snake tastes a lot like chicken, but more boney.
Ate a cockroach once by accident - 0/10, would not recommend. Also, if you're eating sunflower seeds, seal the bag carefully between uses.
I was offered what I thought were hard boiled eggs at a party. I bit into it and discovered I was eating a fertilised turtle egg. Yes, I was disgusted.
Sea cucumber. It wasn't bad, at all. As its taste is somewhat neutral, it takes on the flavors of the dish ingredients. What's different is its texture. Its interior is a little gelatinous. As I recall, it almost had a soft gummy bear type bite. I've only had it once, and in China. I suppose I'd try it again someday.
What I wouldn't want again is chòu dòufu 臭豆腐 (stinky tofu). It's fermented tofu, and it does stink. I recall thinking it tasted and smelled like long unwashed sweaty gym socks. I tried it in Taiwan.
I love stinky tofu. There's a few different kinds and they're all addicting but smell absolutely disgusting. Wang Zhihe stinky tofu smells like a mixture of cat piss and week old unwashed balls and it looks like it needs to be thrown away but I love it. Changsha stinky tofu is smelly but pretty mild in the same vein as Taiwanese stinky tofu and also delicious.
I think it likely falls under the category of liking things you're brought up with or just "an acquired taste". Or, I know there are just people who experience some ripe type Western cheeses differently, like Limburger cheese or where I now live, beer cheese (pivní sýr) or Olomouc cheese (Olomoucký syrečky).
Once I was in Yueyang in China and the stinky tofu smell combined with drying fish on the streets made my eyes tear up. I had the dried fish and it was good, but I could not get myself to try the stinky tofu. The thought alone of downing something that smells like a hot garbage bag in a Florida summer gave me the shivers.
I once had fire roast guinea pig in Peru. They call it cuy there.
In Peru I don’t think guinea pigs are really ever kept as pets, they’re pretty much exclusively used as a meat source (at least according to our translator). The restaurant we ate at even had their own personal guinea pig farm which they let us see. It was basically a chicken coop looking building with a main shed and an outdoor run area. The entire 30 square foot area seemed to have what appeared to be a living carpet, but it was actually just 100s of furry guinea pigs running around each other.
Now for the important part, the actually cooking and taste of the cuy! Like I said above, they were roasted with a spit over an open flame. Once put on the plate they laid it on its back, opened it from neck to waist, took out the internals, and then served it to us just like that head, paws, and all. The meat was surprisingly tender and fell right off the bone. I’d describe the whole thing as the dark meat of a chicken but even fattier. They served it with fries and a sauce that reminded me of tartar sauce (might of just been tartar sauce now that I think about it haha) regardless, it went great with the fries and the cuy. Needless to say, the whole plate given to my group was gone empty within minutes.
The idea of eating guinea pig was a little horrifying at first but it quickly came to be one of my favorite dishes while staying in Peru.
All in one day at the Safari Park hotel in Nairobi. It was a buffet that included wildebeest (soft beef), ostrich (tough chicken when fried but amazingly moist when grilled), crocodile (chicken fish hybrid, like a very meaty fish), rabbit (amazing and not chewy like hare/bush rabbits...unlike any meat ive had since), camel (honestly cant remember but it was very fatty), impala gazelle venison (tasted like very lean goat meat, and looked like tongue).... all that on top of all the beef, pork, chicken and goat you could stomach. Also crickets and rain termites fry up pretty good.
I'm not sure if the concept is that strange but umeboshi Japanese plums have a taste I would never expect or be able to recreate. Strangest thing I've eaten was those giant grubs in the amazon and they didn't taste like much really.
I have had fried crickets before. I kept telling myself, earth shrimp, earth shrimp. But they were super tasty.
I have tried jellyfish crisps, they are basically salty and crispy so nothing weird.
I saw crocodile stew, snake stew, turtle soup but I d’really didn’t feel like trying it.
Goya (bitter melon)is probably the worse thing I tasted. It’s a kind of sour bumpy cucumber that tastes like grapefruit skin.
I had Century eggs a few times and they are pretty good.
Durian icecream. It smelled ok, i couldn't get the teaspoon of it down my throat. Dry heaving, water, gargle with listerine. It tasted like rotten sweet onions. Having a gag reflex just thinking about it.
Not ice cream, but I tried durian fruit just to see if I was part of the supposed 10% who would actually like it. Turns out I am. I got sweet creamy caramelized onion flavor with none of the rotten meat overtones.
Andouillette in France. Intestines rolled up inside intestines. Looks like a sausage, smells of poop. Was really hungry and got through half of one covered in mustard sauce and served with fries before my sense of smell really took over. I've had it stuffed inside melted baked Camembert and that was ok, lulled me into a glass sense of security to order the real deal
Oh, yes, andouillette. On my first trip to France, many many years ago, we had our car broken into and our phones and travel guides stolen while we were in Provins. We muddled our way without guides or phones for two days towards and through Dijon, because it was Sunday and Monday and everything but the University Bookstore in Troyes was closed (it seemed).
We managed to find a place to stay in Bar-sur-Seine by pure chance one night, with a little restaurant on the river that was open. We went in to get some food and asked what the daily plates were. The answer was "trout" and "andouillette". My companion immediately ordered the trout and I said "I guess I will have the andouillette, then". After all, I knew what *andouille* was, so...
Well...yes, just imagine steak and kidney pie without steak. I definitely did not enjoy it.
Later, when we finally were able to get a guide and map at the bookstore so we could continue our tour not so blind (a used and battered *Guide du Routard*), I was reading a section about trying new foods before going to bed in Dijon. The paragraph read something very much like:
"To get the most out of your travel experience, when you sit down for dinner always try the local and daily specials. Except for lutefisk and andouillette. Never order those."
I enjoy good quality andouillette with plenty of mustard sauce.
I’m not so fond of French andouille, though. It has nothing to do with New Orleans andouille - it’s layers of tripes rolled into more tripes, then dry cured and smoked.
Brittany and Normandy make their own version. It’s typically sliced very thin and eaten as a starter with bread and butter, or warm in a buckwheat crepe. The smell is unmistakable, like smoky roadkill guts.
At some point my MIL used to bring some to us every time she visited and it stank up the fridge pretty bad.
Horse Tartare in Toronto. I remember being a bit unnerved by, because it was pretty gamey, but when paired with other cured meats, bone marrow and crostini, olives and wine, it was this really beautiful circle of textures and tastes. It had a grassy flavor unlike any other protein I had tasted.
I love horse tartar! Used to get it at a bourbon bar in Ottawa that has since closed. They served it with chili oil, lime zest, and a quail yolk which cut through the gameyness.
Went to a bar once with some friends where they served turkey fries. My friends ordered some as a joke on me because I didn't know what they were. Just tasted like popcorn chicken. They told me what it was and laughed, but I finished them off. Pretty tasty.
Peanut Butter Earthworm cookies. Honestly couldn’t really distinguish between the worms and the cookie.
Fried muskrat. Very tasty. Tender. Reminded me of squirrel.
Alligator sausage. Good flavor but a little chewy.
Snapping Turtle soup. Was like having a tasty broth type soup with some smaller chunks of meat. I enjoyed the taste and texture but would have liked it if there was more meat in it.
I’d like to try muskrat someday! I grew up in a place where they were categorized as “fish” for Lent and there’s still at least one place that has a muskrat dinner during the Lenten fast.
I was pleasantly surprised when I had it. It was at a small neighborhood joint, 5 or 6 tables only, but they knew what they were doing. They just removed the breast meat, seasoned and pan fried it. I moved away shortly after having it for the first (and only) time.
I've had crickets, tarantula legs, and silk worms in Phnom Penh. The cricket was kinda like deep fried (to the point of overcooked) chicken breast. I'd have been fine having a bowl of them with a cold beer.
On the advice of a coworker I tried the tarantula legs but not the body. The legs were just little crispy bits that took on the flavour they were cooked in.
I didn't enjoy the silk worms. They were like little bubbles that bust thick liquid when you bite into them. Apparently the tarantula body is similar, but bigger.
In rural Cambodia I tried grilled/BBQ swamp rat. It was like off tasting chicken that was mostly bone and sinew.
I've tried snails in both French and Cambodian style, generally I found the texture to be tough and chewy, but the taste was just the broth they were cooked in.
I’m not adventurous with food at all. I am still utterly baffled by oysters. It’s the most unpleasant sensation to eat for me. The one time I was able to eat one without immediately chugging a drink was when it was doused in a sauce. Then all I could think was, “that shot of vinegar cost about £9”.
I'd always said I didn't like the idea of balut even though I'm happy eating both chicken and eggs separately. But when we went to Vietnam I decided I would try it. At the food stall we went to they did quail egg or chicken egg balut, so I had the quail one. It was actually really good!
I'll try most things so I've also eaten mopane worms, crickets, ants, sea cucumber, meats that aren't typical in the UK but are elsewhere, stinky tofu...
I like a lot of offal but not all of it, I haven't enjoyed the cow oesophagus, horse mane, or tripe I've tried but love liver, heart, tongue etc.
There was a butcher next door to a restaurant I worked at that would occasionally bring some exotic meats in for people to try. Weirdest one was iguana tail, and it reeked of piss so I didn’t try it, but the chefs who did said it pretty much tasted the same.
I ate a bunch of weird (to me) stuff in Korea. Sannakji - freshly killed raw octopus that is still wiggling. The tentacle suckers writhe and attach to the inside of your mouth! Surprisingly not bad tasting. Some people eat it while it's still alive, but I won't do that. Pig lung loup - weird texture, good flavor. Congealed blood soup that smelled like a barn. Hagfish, aka slime eel. Delicious! Raw sea squirt - which is akin to chewing on chicken cartilage that tastes like the ocean. Bundaegi, or silkworm pupae. Tastes like nutty chicken, but they pop in your mouth which is disconcerting. And of course a bunch of mostly unidentified organ meats eaten at street vendor carts, which were mostly tasty but had different textures than I'm accustomed to. 10/10 experience.
My dad knew a Taiwanese billionaire. My dad told him I loved Chinese food so he invited me to dinner. He flew in from Taiwan shark fin to make shark fin soup. I wouldn’t eat it today but I was ten. It tastes like fish jello. I’m guessing it was a couple of thousand dollar bowl of soup. The billionaire was a very nice grandpa type. Every time I went to his company pick-nicks he’d have special food for me.
"Strange" is relative but here are things I've eaten that you wouldn't find at your local Olive Garden or Applebee's:
Jellyfish salad - delicious. This was at a banquet style Chinese (Canto) spot and was served with Chinese-style salami around the edges. The dressing seemed kind of sweet + vinegary and it also had daikon and carrots. The texture is kind of springy, like a crunchier bell pepper I guess?? It's one of my favorite things ever.
Alligator meat - they were fried nuggets and tasted kinda like fishy chicken. I did not like.
Kangaroo meat - our friend from Australia brought some to us. Slightly gamey but not in a lamb-y way?
Duck tongue - I had these at dim sum. I can't remember how they were cooked but eating them was a trip because I guess ducks have a hard/cartilage part in their tongue? And then the actual tongue/muscle part was kind of juicy. Had a mild duck flavor, not as strong as eating the meat.
Grasshopper gimlet - in Mexico I went to speakeasy. Their gimlet came with a little dish that had manchego cheese, a fried and spiced grasshopper, and some pickled onions. I ordered two.
I grew up eating offal so I don't consider it weird. I love chicken/duck/ox hearts, chicken liver, sweetbreads. We also have a blood stew that is full of garlic and vinegar and pork belly and is just so good over rice or with steamed rice cakes. Also love pig ears - you have to boil them forever and then cook til crunchy. I'll do tripe in small doses. Chicken feet, pig trotters. Scrapple. Dying to try Haggis.
I think the one thing I won't try is this thing my dad told me about, where they cut up a snake and served the meat and broke its bile over the it. He said it was bitter AF and could barely choke it down.
Fruit Bat, in Vanuatu, on my honeymoon.
Apparently they hang barbed wire between the mango trees to catch the bats overnight. Then in the morning they go around and whack them with cricket bats and sell them to the local bars/restaurants to serve to unsuspecting tourists.
Was cooked in a rich mushroom gravy, so it pretty much tasted like *mushroom gravy*.
The best bit was that they serve you the whole bat. So my new wife got to watch me carefully picking out the brains, eyeballs and tongue to munch on while the local staff were pissing themselves laughing at the crazy white man who fell for their tourist trap.
10/10 would do it again.
PS. This was in 2014, so you can't blame me for Covid.
I’m quite adventurous and have eaten anything from horse sashimi to bat curries in my travels, but the weirdest one to me was the silkworm pupae in China. It has a hard-ish, chewy shell and you are supposed to bite it open and suck the inside. It’s just juicy and salty, but seeing them live before being cooked is kinda gross.
Pig's penis (grilled). It wasn't bad *per se*, but I wouldn't order it again. It tasted like..."meat"...like pig penis, I guess. The jokes write themselves.
Next in line would be shirako, which is cod sperm. It was not disgusting at all, it was creamy and mild. It was fried (age dashi), and presented beautifully, like little pinwheels. Imagine a light sea-tasting custard with a thin crisp fried shell.
I had calf fries for the first time last year. I did not like them very much at all but my dining companion consumed them with relish. I am a moreso-than-average adventurous eater, in the general way that I am willing to try *almost* anything once, but I also, as a rule of thumb, do not enjoy the flavor of offal.
Fried honeybees. They're sold at street vendors in Southern China.
Honestly if you were watching TV and you had a plate of fried rice snacks, and surreptitiously someone substituted in fried bees, you might not even notice. The ones I had were pretty greasy, but otherwise the flavor wasn't remarkable.
It's possible there are ways to make them more interesting but I wouldn't go out of my way to South China to eat them. Plenty of other good food there that is worth the trip.
I was volunteering on a biological preserve in Ecuador and one of the locals introduced me to lemon ants, which live on the leaves of certain plants in the rainforest. (fun fact, plants that have symbiotic relationships with ants are called myrmecophytes). You can just lick them off the leaf and eat them alive.
They taste like freaking lemons, man, it's kind of neat.
My top two are balut (fertilized chicken egg, served with sour spicy sauce) and hundred year old egg (I had it with congee.)
Balut was a weird textural adventure for sure, hard boiled egg plus yolk plus feathers and bones. But the sauce was solid.
The hundred year egg was a very potent taste, a bit chemical-y. I bet if I’d had it since childhood I would have been into it, but I found it difficult to acquire later in life.
Honorable mention to durian (which I actually liked, not even that weird really) and gooseneck barnacles aka percebes (remarkable phallic mollusk with a foreskin you have to remove. But very good when served with saffron aioli.)
lol, I know I have plenty of weird foods I’ve eaten that I can answer this with, but I have to go a slightly different way because it’s stuck with me.
I learned to cook on my own, started when I was about 12. Like I imagine a lot of us do: scrambled eggs. After I thought I got a little better and learned to cook chicken, I made an egg scramble with veggies and chunks of chicken. I proudly showed my older brother and he was… supportive of me learning to cook but said something I never forgot: “wow. You have never happening chicken fetus mixed with full grown dead chickens. You’ve really made a depressing dish.” 😂
In Japan they have a dish with chicken and egg, they call it Oyakodon - means "parent-and-child"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyakodon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyakodon)
Pesto & tiramisu hahaha.
I'm was at culinary school seeing Italian cuisine, history and many other things. The point is that in a exposition we have to make a little samples of traditional dishes and we make tiramisu and pasta Al pesto, but for a reason that I don't remember, we start to mix the pesto and tiramisu, just a little.
It taste good, it's strange because you have the sweetness and after a powerful savoury herb flavor. Not that bad imo haha
Fried maguey worms - delicious
Silkworm larvae - hard to taste anything other than the fiery sauce they were in
Live octopus - fun, but tasted like nothing really
Whale - fried was a miss, but the sashimi was great
Dog - sausage was tasty enough, but the ribs weren't worth the effort
Milt - most disgusting thing I've ever eaten and I've had eggplant
Cow pancreas also know as “sweet bread”. It actually tasted really good. My mom forced it on us for a Christmas dinner and didn’t tell anyone what it was before we all took a bite and said it was really good. She’s one smart woman because we wouldn’t have touched it if we knew!! 😝
Accidentally ate live ants. Came into work on a Monday, had a previously opened bag of Ruffles in the kitchen from Friday, reached in and popped a chip in my mouth while I grabbed my lunch from fridge, hand tickled and saw ants all over it just as the lemon-y taste hit in my tastebuds. Spit the half chewed chip into the sink and rinsed like a madman. No bites, thankfully, but it was very strange experience. The ants were just having a party in the bag and there was a barely noticeable, single file trail into the bag on the back side.
I’ve had Braaied crocodile in South Africa. It tasted like pork that had been left in a bag with kingklip. The texture was a mix between badly carved chicken and calamari. (This is not a typical dish in South Africa. It was inspired by a friend’s Australian relatives)
I’ve also had a fruit bat carry in the Seychelles. The curry itself was great and the gaminess in low volumes really worked well. However, the millions of bones ruined the experience for me.
Bit fuzzy on the details, but I was visiting Finland and we went to what was explained to me as 'the home of Eero Saarinen - the architect of the St. Louis Arch and other things'. It was a Museum and Restaurant.
I had a Reindeer Tongue Salad. I expected it'd be all chopped up and whatever, but no. It was a bed of greens with other bits and bobs, with a big tongue just sticking out of the middle.
Tasted like stringy ham. Not bad.
Baijiu. It's a fermented liquor that I was introduced to by my husband's PhD advisor. I can't describe the flavor because it's completely unique from anything I've ever tasted. It's like trying to describe what licorice tastes like. Glad I tried it, but not something is ever drink again.
someone mention cod semen (?), but not shad roe...? maybe it is not so common anymore. delicate taste.... then there is rattlesnake, which I ate in the far west of the USA.... really, really delicious....
Snake, in Vienam. A surprisingly tasty meat, a bit like a cross between chicken and eel. I can 100% see it catching on it the future as a low carbon meat.
I was in Japan and was served a VERY expensive deep see giant clam. It both tasted like and had the texture or white Styrofoam. I ate mine and my friends bc she could not gag it down. Luckily, it was about 3 bites per portion.
Fried alligator - tastes like chicken.
Canned rattlesnake - tasted like can.
Szechuan peppercorns. Picked some up recently the first time to make chili oil and figured I'd pop one of em to see what I was working with. What a wild ride. These things are electric, to the the point your tongue reacts like it's licking a 9 volt battery, and the flavor jumps from sour to salty to everything in between in bizarre waves, and it lingers for a bit. Highly recommend.
Someone at work one time brought these candies from Japan. They looked like gummies that had been rolled in parsley. My colleagues by this time knew that I’d try any food once (and they knew they were cowards of an extraordinary order) and urged me to try some.
It was introduced to me as candy so I expected a candy-like taste. The coating did look like finely minced coconut that had been dyed so I helped myself. Y’all it tasted like someone had just mowed their lawn after a dry spell and glued some of the grassy mulch together. No sweetness, just like I popped a wad of grass into my mouth.
My respect to the people of Japan. This and the OG Iron Chef have me convinced the Japanese will eat anything with gusto.
Uni nigiri. It tasted like I was licking the bottom of a tidepool full of weird ocean critter shit.
No cultural disrespect intended, really. I understand that Uni is considered a delicacy, but it's not for me.
I went to a fancy shmancy restaurant near Boston because my friend happened to know the owner. He came over and said hi and told us to get the weirdest things on the menu. We tried the Sweet Breads for an appetizer and the Green Tomato Pie for dessert. The pie was divine, the sweet breads were…okay. 🤷♀️
absolutely not. I will never knowingly eat insects.
crustaceans are not insects so don't bother.
Kimchi - the real made by a person stuff. smelly beyond all reason, surprisingly spicy, very strong. not bad, but never had it since (35 years ago).
Caviar - the only food I ever scraped off my tongue. yes it was the "good stuff". blech!
I went to a vegan restaurant and ordered a "buttermilk ranch chicken sandwich"
And I gotta say, I cannot even identify what flavours I even tasted. I have never tasted anything ever like that before. I couldn't tell if I liked it or hated it. I ended up not finishing the sandwich because there was nothing ranch, chicken, or sandwich about it.
It was just an enigma of flavours. To this day I haven't tasted anything similar. I've had other vegan food thats been close to the intent.
But that sandwich fucked me up mentally.
I was teaching English in a school in China, and the normal english teacher took me out for lunch. We were in a pretty suburban area between two big cities, so people weren’t used to seeing any foreigners and stared the moment we walked in. It was a beautiful restaurant with ornate details. We sat down, and she ordered many dishes. One was a delicious lamb and cumin dish that came with thin pancakes, that was my favourite. Another was a plate piled high with sticky sweet chicken feet, again absolutely delicious. Another was greens and broccoli, maybe my favourite, that was in a deep smoky garlic sauce. Everything had been absolutely delicious, so I happily took a forkful (well, a chopstick full) of this beautiful looking vegetable. It looked like a flower, maybe made of cucumber, with a brown paste inside. I took a huge bite, expecting something savoury. It was bigger melon stuffed with some type of sugary paste. It was bitter, crunchy, watery, sweet and I could. Not. Swallow. It. It just kept going. It was the absolute worst flavour and texture combination, and I really didn’t think it was going to taste like that. I tried to smile at my lovely new friend, and she just burst out laughing and said “maybe that dish is for local tastes”. It definitely was. She also boxed up the rest of the delicious lamb and some pancakes and let me take it home. I was hopeless as a teacher, but she was so lovely and helpful and welcoming. I’ll never eat bitter melon again!!!
I sometimes enjoy bitter melon, if it's done properly. Definitely needs chilies. I tried fermenting it once. Just don't.
The liver of an Arctic char. Raw. Eaten while the char itself was still alive. I was an honored guest of an Inuit elder in Nunavut and this was a cultural tradition. Tasted fishier than rancid fish!
I find the diet in places like Nunavut fascinating! Amazing use of the entire animal! Would you mind sharing more from your trip?
However you don't want to eat polar bear liver. Vitamin A is fat soluble and it accumulates in higher quantities in the liver. After eating a steady diet of seals (and *their* livers), the polar bear can get even higher levels to the point where it becomes toxic to humans.
This was the most unusual item I ate. I couldn't face seal meat. What truly engaged my interest was how the Inuit found food everywhere. I visited in August and I was shown one type of vegetable...a very thin but long root from a plant that looked like a dusty little weed...but the root was tender and sweet, something like a carrot.
Stinky tofu and bitter melon are acquired tastes, but I actually get cravings for them now. In a case of cultural whiplash, I once had a meal in Japan that featured raw chicken sashimi (tasty), followed a couple of dishes later with bitter melon fried with spam and eggs (also good). I had horse sashimi on a later visit. Cod sperm one at a seafood restaurant (creamy), which also featured raw shrimp sashimi (like eating butter) and deep fried shrimp heads with pepper salt (very good). Snake tastes a lot like chicken, but more boney. Ate a cockroach once by accident - 0/10, would not recommend. Also, if you're eating sunflower seeds, seal the bag carefully between uses.
Alright alright you win. Jesus.
I’m sorry but I’m just really curious— how did you eat a cockroach by accident?
I think it got into the bag of sunflower seeds…
oh lmaoo i just realized i did not read the end of the comment, the cockroach just caught my eye immediately 😭😭😭 well, at least you got extra protein
I was offered what I thought were hard boiled eggs at a party. I bit into it and discovered I was eating a fertilised turtle egg. Yes, I was disgusted.
Ah, the ol 'Balut' trick
What parties do you go too that they’d even have that?
This was overseas in Panama. Apparently they are quite popular there. The locals were quite amused at my reaction.
shudder.
I scurried to the men’s room and vomited for about 30 minutes. Not sure why, but some of my worst nightmares involve turtles.
Before the incident?
Sea cucumber. It wasn't bad, at all. As its taste is somewhat neutral, it takes on the flavors of the dish ingredients. What's different is its texture. Its interior is a little gelatinous. As I recall, it almost had a soft gummy bear type bite. I've only had it once, and in China. I suppose I'd try it again someday. What I wouldn't want again is chòu dòufu 臭豆腐 (stinky tofu). It's fermented tofu, and it does stink. I recall thinking it tasted and smelled like long unwashed sweaty gym socks. I tried it in Taiwan.
I love stinky tofu. There's a few different kinds and they're all addicting but smell absolutely disgusting. Wang Zhihe stinky tofu smells like a mixture of cat piss and week old unwashed balls and it looks like it needs to be thrown away but I love it. Changsha stinky tofu is smelly but pretty mild in the same vein as Taiwanese stinky tofu and also delicious.
I think it likely falls under the category of liking things you're brought up with or just "an acquired taste". Or, I know there are just people who experience some ripe type Western cheeses differently, like Limburger cheese or where I now live, beer cheese (pivní sýr) or Olomouc cheese (Olomoucký syrečky).
I loved it the first time I tried it but I enjoy really intense fermented foods.
Once I was in Yueyang in China and the stinky tofu smell combined with drying fish on the streets made my eyes tear up. I had the dried fish and it was good, but I could not get myself to try the stinky tofu. The thought alone of downing something that smells like a hot garbage bag in a Florida summer gave me the shivers.
I've never had stinky tofu but I have a mild addiction to Natto zushi. My wife calls them "spiderweb beans"
Sea cucumber hasn't really got much flavor.
I read that as sex cucumber and was oddly intrigued.
It takes on the flavor of the whatever it's in
I once had fire roast guinea pig in Peru. They call it cuy there. In Peru I don’t think guinea pigs are really ever kept as pets, they’re pretty much exclusively used as a meat source (at least according to our translator). The restaurant we ate at even had their own personal guinea pig farm which they let us see. It was basically a chicken coop looking building with a main shed and an outdoor run area. The entire 30 square foot area seemed to have what appeared to be a living carpet, but it was actually just 100s of furry guinea pigs running around each other. Now for the important part, the actually cooking and taste of the cuy! Like I said above, they were roasted with a spit over an open flame. Once put on the plate they laid it on its back, opened it from neck to waist, took out the internals, and then served it to us just like that head, paws, and all. The meat was surprisingly tender and fell right off the bone. I’d describe the whole thing as the dark meat of a chicken but even fattier. They served it with fries and a sauce that reminded me of tartar sauce (might of just been tartar sauce now that I think about it haha) regardless, it went great with the fries and the cuy. Needless to say, the whole plate given to my group was gone empty within minutes. The idea of eating guinea pig was a little horrifying at first but it quickly came to be one of my favorite dishes while staying in Peru.
I know of cuy from archer.
All in one day at the Safari Park hotel in Nairobi. It was a buffet that included wildebeest (soft beef), ostrich (tough chicken when fried but amazingly moist when grilled), crocodile (chicken fish hybrid, like a very meaty fish), rabbit (amazing and not chewy like hare/bush rabbits...unlike any meat ive had since), camel (honestly cant remember but it was very fatty), impala gazelle venison (tasted like very lean goat meat, and looked like tongue).... all that on top of all the beef, pork, chicken and goat you could stomach. Also crickets and rain termites fry up pretty good.
I'm not sure if the concept is that strange but umeboshi Japanese plums have a taste I would never expect or be able to recreate. Strangest thing I've eaten was those giant grubs in the amazon and they didn't taste like much really.
Umeboshi is one of my all time favorite flavors. I love it.
I have had fried crickets before. I kept telling myself, earth shrimp, earth shrimp. But they were super tasty. I have tried jellyfish crisps, they are basically salty and crispy so nothing weird. I saw crocodile stew, snake stew, turtle soup but I d’really didn’t feel like trying it. Goya (bitter melon)is probably the worse thing I tasted. It’s a kind of sour bumpy cucumber that tastes like grapefruit skin. I had Century eggs a few times and they are pretty good.
Iguana shish kebabs in Mazatlan Mexico! They were surprisingly delicious, tasted a lot like chicken but flaky like fish.
Sounds like alligator
Had a carpaccio of cormorant in Iceland. Was pretty gamey and a bit fishy. Like how I imagine penguin would taste.
Durian icecream. It smelled ok, i couldn't get the teaspoon of it down my throat. Dry heaving, water, gargle with listerine. It tasted like rotten sweet onions. Having a gag reflex just thinking about it.
Not ice cream, but I tried durian fruit just to see if I was part of the supposed 10% who would actually like it. Turns out I am. I got sweet creamy caramelized onion flavor with none of the rotten meat overtones.
Honestly. I don't know if I could be paid enough to eat a pint of that stuff. I have an 'iron stomach' too
Love crickets. Stir fried with a bit of soy and sugar and garlic. Crispy slightly meaty bar snacks.
I was served dog once in Korea. Didn't realize until I was told but it tasted terrible even before I found out.
Fried goat intestine in Nepal. Delicious
Andouillette in France. Intestines rolled up inside intestines. Looks like a sausage, smells of poop. Was really hungry and got through half of one covered in mustard sauce and served with fries before my sense of smell really took over. I've had it stuffed inside melted baked Camembert and that was ok, lulled me into a glass sense of security to order the real deal
Oh, yes, andouillette. On my first trip to France, many many years ago, we had our car broken into and our phones and travel guides stolen while we were in Provins. We muddled our way without guides or phones for two days towards and through Dijon, because it was Sunday and Monday and everything but the University Bookstore in Troyes was closed (it seemed). We managed to find a place to stay in Bar-sur-Seine by pure chance one night, with a little restaurant on the river that was open. We went in to get some food and asked what the daily plates were. The answer was "trout" and "andouillette". My companion immediately ordered the trout and I said "I guess I will have the andouillette, then". After all, I knew what *andouille* was, so... Well...yes, just imagine steak and kidney pie without steak. I definitely did not enjoy it. Later, when we finally were able to get a guide and map at the bookstore so we could continue our tour not so blind (a used and battered *Guide du Routard*), I was reading a section about trying new foods before going to bed in Dijon. The paragraph read something very much like: "To get the most out of your travel experience, when you sit down for dinner always try the local and daily specials. Except for lutefisk and andouillette. Never order those."
I enjoy good quality andouillette with plenty of mustard sauce. I’m not so fond of French andouille, though. It has nothing to do with New Orleans andouille - it’s layers of tripes rolled into more tripes, then dry cured and smoked. Brittany and Normandy make their own version. It’s typically sliced very thin and eaten as a starter with bread and butter, or warm in a buckwheat crepe. The smell is unmistakable, like smoky roadkill guts. At some point my MIL used to bring some to us every time she visited and it stank up the fridge pretty bad.
Horse Tartare in Toronto. I remember being a bit unnerved by, because it was pretty gamey, but when paired with other cured meats, bone marrow and crostini, olives and wine, it was this really beautiful circle of textures and tastes. It had a grassy flavor unlike any other protein I had tasted.
I love horse tartar! Used to get it at a bourbon bar in Ottawa that has since closed. They served it with chili oil, lime zest, and a quail yolk which cut through the gameyness.
Oh cool! Any other places in Ottawa you recommend checking out? I'd really like to see more of Canada.
Calf fries (bull testicles). They were cut into small chunks, battered and fried. Pretty good with some Ranch
Went to a bar once with some friends where they served turkey fries. My friends ordered some as a joke on me because I didn't know what they were. Just tasted like popcorn chicken. They told me what it was and laughed, but I finished them off. Pretty tasty.
Peanut Butter Earthworm cookies. Honestly couldn’t really distinguish between the worms and the cookie. Fried muskrat. Very tasty. Tender. Reminded me of squirrel. Alligator sausage. Good flavor but a little chewy. Snapping Turtle soup. Was like having a tasty broth type soup with some smaller chunks of meat. I enjoyed the taste and texture but would have liked it if there was more meat in it.
They did you a favor by making the meat small. I make turtle soup often. Larger pieces of turtle are harder to chew
So more small pieces sounds perfect for me!😉
I’d like to try muskrat someday! I grew up in a place where they were categorized as “fish” for Lent and there’s still at least one place that has a muskrat dinner during the Lenten fast.
I was pleasantly surprised when I had it. It was at a small neighborhood joint, 5 or 6 tables only, but they knew what they were doing. They just removed the breast meat, seasoned and pan fried it. I moved away shortly after having it for the first (and only) time.
Bogong moths (Australia). Thrown over coals, wings etc get burnt off and the bodies end up crunchy
I've had crickets, tarantula legs, and silk worms in Phnom Penh. The cricket was kinda like deep fried (to the point of overcooked) chicken breast. I'd have been fine having a bowl of them with a cold beer. On the advice of a coworker I tried the tarantula legs but not the body. The legs were just little crispy bits that took on the flavour they were cooked in. I didn't enjoy the silk worms. They were like little bubbles that bust thick liquid when you bite into them. Apparently the tarantula body is similar, but bigger. In rural Cambodia I tried grilled/BBQ swamp rat. It was like off tasting chicken that was mostly bone and sinew. I've tried snails in both French and Cambodian style, generally I found the texture to be tough and chewy, but the taste was just the broth they were cooked in.
I’m not adventurous with food at all. I am still utterly baffled by oysters. It’s the most unpleasant sensation to eat for me. The one time I was able to eat one without immediately chugging a drink was when it was doused in a sauce. Then all I could think was, “that shot of vinegar cost about £9”.
I'd always said I didn't like the idea of balut even though I'm happy eating both chicken and eggs separately. But when we went to Vietnam I decided I would try it. At the food stall we went to they did quail egg or chicken egg balut, so I had the quail one. It was actually really good! I'll try most things so I've also eaten mopane worms, crickets, ants, sea cucumber, meats that aren't typical in the UK but are elsewhere, stinky tofu... I like a lot of offal but not all of it, I haven't enjoyed the cow oesophagus, horse mane, or tripe I've tried but love liver, heart, tongue etc.
There was a butcher next door to a restaurant I worked at that would occasionally bring some exotic meats in for people to try. Weirdest one was iguana tail, and it reeked of piss so I didn’t try it, but the chefs who did said it pretty much tasted the same.
Cod Semen (milt) it was delicious, just like cod liver.
That’s mine. We had the most beautiful croquette with a very large fish taste. Shirako :)
I ate a bunch of weird (to me) stuff in Korea. Sannakji - freshly killed raw octopus that is still wiggling. The tentacle suckers writhe and attach to the inside of your mouth! Surprisingly not bad tasting. Some people eat it while it's still alive, but I won't do that. Pig lung loup - weird texture, good flavor. Congealed blood soup that smelled like a barn. Hagfish, aka slime eel. Delicious! Raw sea squirt - which is akin to chewing on chicken cartilage that tastes like the ocean. Bundaegi, or silkworm pupae. Tastes like nutty chicken, but they pop in your mouth which is disconcerting. And of course a bunch of mostly unidentified organ meats eaten at street vendor carts, which were mostly tasty but had different textures than I'm accustomed to. 10/10 experience.
My dad knew a Taiwanese billionaire. My dad told him I loved Chinese food so he invited me to dinner. He flew in from Taiwan shark fin to make shark fin soup. I wouldn’t eat it today but I was ten. It tastes like fish jello. I’m guessing it was a couple of thousand dollar bowl of soup. The billionaire was a very nice grandpa type. Every time I went to his company pick-nicks he’d have special food for me.
"Strange" is relative but here are things I've eaten that you wouldn't find at your local Olive Garden or Applebee's: Jellyfish salad - delicious. This was at a banquet style Chinese (Canto) spot and was served with Chinese-style salami around the edges. The dressing seemed kind of sweet + vinegary and it also had daikon and carrots. The texture is kind of springy, like a crunchier bell pepper I guess?? It's one of my favorite things ever. Alligator meat - they were fried nuggets and tasted kinda like fishy chicken. I did not like. Kangaroo meat - our friend from Australia brought some to us. Slightly gamey but not in a lamb-y way? Duck tongue - I had these at dim sum. I can't remember how they were cooked but eating them was a trip because I guess ducks have a hard/cartilage part in their tongue? And then the actual tongue/muscle part was kind of juicy. Had a mild duck flavor, not as strong as eating the meat. Grasshopper gimlet - in Mexico I went to speakeasy. Their gimlet came with a little dish that had manchego cheese, a fried and spiced grasshopper, and some pickled onions. I ordered two. I grew up eating offal so I don't consider it weird. I love chicken/duck/ox hearts, chicken liver, sweetbreads. We also have a blood stew that is full of garlic and vinegar and pork belly and is just so good over rice or with steamed rice cakes. Also love pig ears - you have to boil them forever and then cook til crunchy. I'll do tripe in small doses. Chicken feet, pig trotters. Scrapple. Dying to try Haggis. I think the one thing I won't try is this thing my dad told me about, where they cut up a snake and served the meat and broke its bile over the it. He said it was bitter AF and could barely choke it down.
Fruit Bat, in Vanuatu, on my honeymoon. Apparently they hang barbed wire between the mango trees to catch the bats overnight. Then in the morning they go around and whack them with cricket bats and sell them to the local bars/restaurants to serve to unsuspecting tourists. Was cooked in a rich mushroom gravy, so it pretty much tasted like *mushroom gravy*. The best bit was that they serve you the whole bat. So my new wife got to watch me carefully picking out the brains, eyeballs and tongue to munch on while the local staff were pissing themselves laughing at the crazy white man who fell for their tourist trap. 10/10 would do it again. PS. This was in 2014, so you can't blame me for Covid.
Escamoles. Delicious.
Camel, it had this weird slightly sour taste that I wasn’t a fan of, I don’t know if that’s normal and I haven’t tried it again.
Fried crickets are good, had em in a pad thai type dish once
Sea anemone egg sushi. It was slimy and disgusting.
I’m quite adventurous and have eaten anything from horse sashimi to bat curries in my travels, but the weirdest one to me was the silkworm pupae in China. It has a hard-ish, chewy shell and you are supposed to bite it open and suck the inside. It’s just juicy and salty, but seeing them live before being cooked is kinda gross.
Pig's penis (grilled). It wasn't bad *per se*, but I wouldn't order it again. It tasted like..."meat"...like pig penis, I guess. The jokes write themselves. Next in line would be shirako, which is cod sperm. It was not disgusting at all, it was creamy and mild. It was fried (age dashi), and presented beautifully, like little pinwheels. Imagine a light sea-tasting custard with a thin crisp fried shell. I had calf fries for the first time last year. I did not like them very much at all but my dining companion consumed them with relish. I am a moreso-than-average adventurous eater, in the general way that I am willing to try *almost* anything once, but I also, as a rule of thumb, do not enjoy the flavor of offal.
Fried honeybees. They're sold at street vendors in Southern China. Honestly if you were watching TV and you had a plate of fried rice snacks, and surreptitiously someone substituted in fried bees, you might not even notice. The ones I had were pretty greasy, but otherwise the flavor wasn't remarkable. It's possible there are ways to make them more interesting but I wouldn't go out of my way to South China to eat them. Plenty of other good food there that is worth the trip.
I was volunteering on a biological preserve in Ecuador and one of the locals introduced me to lemon ants, which live on the leaves of certain plants in the rainforest. (fun fact, plants that have symbiotic relationships with ants are called myrmecophytes). You can just lick them off the leaf and eat them alive. They taste like freaking lemons, man, it's kind of neat.
My top two are balut (fertilized chicken egg, served with sour spicy sauce) and hundred year old egg (I had it with congee.) Balut was a weird textural adventure for sure, hard boiled egg plus yolk plus feathers and bones. But the sauce was solid. The hundred year egg was a very potent taste, a bit chemical-y. I bet if I’d had it since childhood I would have been into it, but I found it difficult to acquire later in life. Honorable mention to durian (which I actually liked, not even that weird really) and gooseneck barnacles aka percebes (remarkable phallic mollusk with a foreskin you have to remove. But very good when served with saffron aioli.)
Fried lamb testicle. Meat sponge.
Smoked puffin in Iceland. It was very dark meat and a little gamey but delicious. Closer to a really lean duck.
Fried calf brains in Florence. Flavor was fine but was a texture oddity as it was like a pudding. Don’t regret trying but don’t need to have again.
Penis fish in Korea I was drunk and it was doused in sesame oil so that's all it tasted like
lol, I know I have plenty of weird foods I’ve eaten that I can answer this with, but I have to go a slightly different way because it’s stuck with me. I learned to cook on my own, started when I was about 12. Like I imagine a lot of us do: scrambled eggs. After I thought I got a little better and learned to cook chicken, I made an egg scramble with veggies and chunks of chicken. I proudly showed my older brother and he was… supportive of me learning to cook but said something I never forgot: “wow. You have never happening chicken fetus mixed with full grown dead chickens. You’ve really made a depressing dish.” 😂
In Japan they have a dish with chicken and egg, they call it Oyakodon - means "parent-and-child" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyakodon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyakodon)
Ha! Morbid, but somewhat validating. Thanks for the info!!
Pesto & tiramisu hahaha. I'm was at culinary school seeing Italian cuisine, history and many other things. The point is that in a exposition we have to make a little samples of traditional dishes and we make tiramisu and pasta Al pesto, but for a reason that I don't remember, we start to mix the pesto and tiramisu, just a little. It taste good, it's strange because you have the sweetness and after a powerful savoury herb flavor. Not that bad imo haha
I ate some whale when I went to Iceland and it tasted like a cross between a tuna and beef steak.
Fried maguey worms - delicious Silkworm larvae - hard to taste anything other than the fiery sauce they were in Live octopus - fun, but tasted like nothing really Whale - fried was a miss, but the sashimi was great Dog - sausage was tasty enough, but the ribs weren't worth the effort Milt - most disgusting thing I've ever eaten and I've had eggplant
Cow pancreas also know as “sweet bread”. It actually tasted really good. My mom forced it on us for a Christmas dinner and didn’t tell anyone what it was before we all took a bite and said it was really good. She’s one smart woman because we wouldn’t have touched it if we knew!! 😝
Accidentally ate live ants. Came into work on a Monday, had a previously opened bag of Ruffles in the kitchen from Friday, reached in and popped a chip in my mouth while I grabbed my lunch from fridge, hand tickled and saw ants all over it just as the lemon-y taste hit in my tastebuds. Spit the half chewed chip into the sink and rinsed like a madman. No bites, thankfully, but it was very strange experience. The ants were just having a party in the bag and there was a barely noticeable, single file trail into the bag on the back side.
I’ve had Braaied crocodile in South Africa. It tasted like pork that had been left in a bag with kingklip. The texture was a mix between badly carved chicken and calamari. (This is not a typical dish in South Africa. It was inspired by a friend’s Australian relatives) I’ve also had a fruit bat carry in the Seychelles. The curry itself was great and the gaminess in low volumes really worked well. However, the millions of bones ruined the experience for me.
Shells.
I had chả rươi when I was in Hanoi. Sand worm omelet. Tasted like egg with a mild mystery protein. Not great. But perfectly acceptable.
Bit fuzzy on the details, but I was visiting Finland and we went to what was explained to me as 'the home of Eero Saarinen - the architect of the St. Louis Arch and other things'. It was a Museum and Restaurant. I had a Reindeer Tongue Salad. I expected it'd be all chopped up and whatever, but no. It was a bed of greens with other bits and bobs, with a big tongue just sticking out of the middle. Tasted like stringy ham. Not bad.
Baijiu. It's a fermented liquor that I was introduced to by my husband's PhD advisor. I can't describe the flavor because it's completely unique from anything I've ever tasted. It's like trying to describe what licorice tastes like. Glad I tried it, but not something is ever drink again.
Hormigas limoneras - Amazon "lemon"ants.
None of you fellow cowards tried Balut?
Durian. Disgusting.
Silkworm larvae. Meh.
someone mention cod semen (?), but not shad roe...? maybe it is not so common anymore. delicate taste.... then there is rattlesnake, which I ate in the far west of the USA.... really, really delicious....
Snake, in Vienam. A surprisingly tasty meat, a bit like a cross between chicken and eel. I can 100% see it catching on it the future as a low carbon meat.
I had rattlesnake once. It looked like a wishbone from a chicken. It wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat it again.
Pizza in Brazil. It had tomato sauce, onions, tuna and ketchup on it. Surprisingly yummy
I was in Japan and was served a VERY expensive deep see giant clam. It both tasted like and had the texture or white Styrofoam. I ate mine and my friends bc she could not gag it down. Luckily, it was about 3 bites per portion. Fried alligator - tastes like chicken. Canned rattlesnake - tasted like can.
Rattlesnake, Frog Legs, Alligator. Kinda chewy, tastes like chicken.
Not as weird as others, but I could never stomach Natto. I eat all kinds of weird stuff but that one I can never get used too
Live sago grubs. They were amazing, like fresh coconut flesh and peanut butter
fish sperm sack sushi, it was weird
Escargot, durian, rattlesnake, jelly fish... Nothing too crazy, but I'm usually willing to try stuff if I don't have to order a full plate.
Scorpion. Like eating glass. Not pleasant
Turtle stew. Kinda fishy but not really. Not a string flavor
Durian fruit. Tasted ok but smell was pretty bad so it made eating it harder
Deer jerky. Tasted like beef jerky but different. Now will I eat it again? Probably not.
Foie gras ice cream, sorry to say very good
Szechuan peppercorns. Picked some up recently the first time to make chili oil and figured I'd pop one of em to see what I was working with. What a wild ride. These things are electric, to the the point your tongue reacts like it's licking a 9 volt battery, and the flavor jumps from sour to salty to everything in between in bizarre waves, and it lingers for a bit. Highly recommend.
Garden dormouse, specialty in mountain region. Very strong taste and aftertaste too. Didnt wash it with even a liter of wine.
Grilled rattlesnake. It was like rubbery chicken.
Someone at work one time brought these candies from Japan. They looked like gummies that had been rolled in parsley. My colleagues by this time knew that I’d try any food once (and they knew they were cowards of an extraordinary order) and urged me to try some. It was introduced to me as candy so I expected a candy-like taste. The coating did look like finely minced coconut that had been dyed so I helped myself. Y’all it tasted like someone had just mowed their lawn after a dry spell and glued some of the grassy mulch together. No sweetness, just like I popped a wad of grass into my mouth. My respect to the people of Japan. This and the OG Iron Chef have me convinced the Japanese will eat anything with gusto.
Uni nigiri. It tasted like I was licking the bottom of a tidepool full of weird ocean critter shit. No cultural disrespect intended, really. I understand that Uni is considered a delicacy, but it's not for me.
Burro, and it reminded me of elk
Jellyfish! A trendy restaurant 35years ago. No taste & unpleasant sensation chewing!
I went to a fancy shmancy restaurant near Boston because my friend happened to know the owner. He came over and said hi and told us to get the weirdest things on the menu. We tried the Sweet Breads for an appetizer and the Green Tomato Pie for dessert. The pie was divine, the sweet breads were…okay. 🤷♀️
Freeze dried bee larvae (of drones) at a Noma Food Lab presentation. They were surprisingly tasty and full of flavor.
absolutely not. I will never knowingly eat insects. crustaceans are not insects so don't bother. Kimchi - the real made by a person stuff. smelly beyond all reason, surprisingly spicy, very strong. not bad, but never had it since (35 years ago). Caviar - the only food I ever scraped off my tongue. yes it was the "good stuff". blech!
I went to a vegan restaurant and ordered a "buttermilk ranch chicken sandwich" And I gotta say, I cannot even identify what flavours I even tasted. I have never tasted anything ever like that before. I couldn't tell if I liked it or hated it. I ended up not finishing the sandwich because there was nothing ranch, chicken, or sandwich about it. It was just an enigma of flavours. To this day I haven't tasted anything similar. I've had other vegan food thats been close to the intent. But that sandwich fucked me up mentally.