Weird Foods I've Eaten



				Weird Foods I've Eaten. List created on 9-18-01. Updated on 02-13-11.

				I have a reputation as an avid eater of "weird" foods, and, I must admit, it pleases me. I do have a personal rule: if there's an unusual item on the menu, I must order it rather than the more conventional options. I once read an article in The New Yorker about a group of diners who call themselves "The Innard Circle" and make it their mission to gather regularly at various restaurants and sample internal organs. I was pretty jealous. I also have a clipping from The New Yorker about a brilliant molecular biologist who liked to eat unusual dishes--"cow's udder, bull's testicles, crocodile tail, filet of snake... which he simmered on his Bunsen burner." He also ate caterpillars, ducks' feet, horse meat, snails, haggis, fish lips, and all kind of brains. I was quite excited by this article and even highlighted the relevant passages. Compared to that guy, my list of weird foods is extremely tame. I try, but weird foods are hard to come by! Note: "Weird" is, of course, completely subjective. I don't actually consider most of these that strange/scary/disgusting, but, based on their reactions, some people seem to. And a lot of the fruits on the list are more exotic than weird, although some rank pretty high on my personal weirdness scale. Note #2: This list is always in progress. I will try to keep it up to date, but I'm sure there are things I've forgotten (especially in the non-beast realm). Note #3: Good grief, this is getting unwieldy! I had no idea when I started this list how long it would get!
				Beasts (some more exotic than others): Ahi roe - I've eaten ahi (Hawaiian yellowfin tuna, usually raw or just seared on the edges) many many times, but I've only had ahi roe once! Pahu I`a included it as part of their "evolution of ahi" dish. Really unusual and good! Anchovies - Are not considered a weird food, I hope. An awful lot of people seem to be scared of them, though. My favorite pizza topping, and great in pretty much all their applications. Bone marrow - Tastes meaty and very rich (a bit too rich). The two large marrow-filled bones were served with a super-long twisted handled spoon with a scoop on the end, with which you scoop out the marrow, then spread it on crostini. Got it at Evangeline in Portland, Maine. Brains - Got a calf's brain fritter at Evangeline in Portland, Maine. As I ate it, I tried to report on what it reminded me of. First I said sweetbreads, then I realized it tasted even more like shad milt! Creamy white in the center with light-tan breading outside. Salty. I liked it! Buffalo - Buffalo burgers can be had any time at The Vanilla Bean Café in Pomfret. Bug - Not intentionally. I inhaled it swallowed it while walking on a trail in St. John, and choked it down. "Ak! Hak! .. All right! I've officially eaten Bug now!" It felt like it was trying to crawl out of my throat. Chicken feet - Got them cooked and in sauce at A Dong, a really cool Asian grocery. Very neat looking, chompy and tasty. Cow foot - Got at Champion House in Grand Cayman in 2010, and commented, "Hooves where you just gnaw at the gelatenious light-brown translucent stuff off of the white hard hoof. Spicy! A little spicy for me! I bet it's good for your nails." Crocodile - I had conch & crocodile fritters (with scotch bonnet) at Tukka restaurant in Grand Cayman. They were great! Deer - Given to my family by hunters. I am not overly fond of venison... in my experience, it's kind of tough. Duck - At restaurants; weird only because I used to have pet ducks. I'm a little bit ashamed to admit it, but I love duck meat. Eel - One of my favourite kinds of sushi/sashimi; I've also had crispy baby eels (were they elvers?) from a dim sum place. ~~I've only had eels prepared in Asian ways; I'd love to try Italian-style eel and English-style eel.~~ I had English-style smoked at Icoa in Grand Cayman, and it was delightful. I'm still waiting for the opportunity to eat Italian-style eel and English-style jellied eels, though. Egg, duck's - I've eaten the eggs of the pet duck I had when I was younger. Preserved duck egg / Century egg / Hundred-year egg - Bought a box of them at A Dong and ate one. It was one of the more difficult things I've eaten, mostly just because of the appearance (rotten green colored yolk and translucent cola-brown white). Egg, quail's (raw) - On uni, at sushi restaurants. I also had deviled quail's eggs for afternoon tea at the Umstead Hotel! :-) Escargot (snails) - Are awesome; I order them whenever I can. Foie Gras - I've had both duck and goose, I think. I love warm foie gras, but cold foie gras is not my thing. I've also had chicken liver pâté. Frogs' legs - At four different restaurants. They were pretty juicy. Nothing like chicken. (Update: Ha! At the third restaurant they were like chicken! Extremely tender chicken.) Goat - I had it at a Jamaican food stand at The Taste of Hartford in 2004. Also had at Champion House in Grand Cayman in 2010 and commented, "This is the best goat I've ever had! Sort of like the turtle where it's not quite a dark meat but not a light meat. A little spicy. Lots of weird bones to encounter. Turtle and goat meat reminds me of frog." Guinea Hen - At Alto in NYC. Headcheese (testa) - Had warm testa at Lupa. It was fantastic. Ate every scrap. Jellyfish - They don't really have that much taste and are somewhat rubberband-ish but cool. I'd like to try them prepared in different ways to compare. Jellyfish are so amazing. Kangaroo - Had a kangaroo fillet at Tukka restaurant in Grand Cayman. Kidneys - Finally had (in Steak & Kidney Pie form) in Grand Cayman on 11-24-08, at the Triple Crown Pub! I loved them. I'm not totally sure what animal the kidneys were from (cow? lamb? pig?), but here's a picture of some of the kidney chunks, and of the pie before I ate it. I liked the kidney bits much more than the steak ones. The texture was bite-y, like a chicken/turkey heart or gizzard, and the taste reminded me of a chicken liver, but not as strong. Lionfish - Had lionfish ceviche (raw, marinated in citrus juice) at Tukka restaurant in Grand Cayman. I really liked it! Liver, cow's - I get a craving for it every few years. Liver, rabbit's - I had rabbit livers at Fore Street in Portland, Maine. They were delectable. Lobster coral (roe) and tomalley (liver--the green stuff) - I always eat them when I find them in a lobster. Oxtail - Had in "'Terrina' alla Vaccinara" format at Lupa, which looked sort of salami-ish, but the slices were really soft and fally-apart-y, with big fat Lupa raisins and pine nuts and celery leaf snipsels on top, and all the flavs combined wonderfully. Yum! Also had an ahi & oxtail dish at Pahu I`a, which was delectable. The oxtail was in shreddy pieces with white beans and sage, and all the flavs (ox, ahi) were perfect together. Had local-style oxtail in Grand Cayman; the tail was like a big long turkey neck (but all the bones were pre-separated) that you could pick up and gnaw on. Octopus - It's a bit too chewy unless sliced really thin/prepared well, but when it's done well, it's delectable. The suckers are so cool looking, too. Spris had an octopus salad I liked a lot and always ordered when I felt like something lighter than the sardines or baccala. I had a really great grilled octopus (which was a whole octopus, including the body) at Cafe Atlantico in Washington, D.C. It was very very tender and grill-ish and delicious, and was accompanied by flavored foam of some sort and cool wispy-streaked octopus ink designs on the plate. Bricco Trattoria's grilled octopus is also amazing, and so is Five-Fifty Five's. Octopus done well is one of my favorite foods, I think! Ostrich - I had an ostrich burger in Hawaii. It was good. Brown. Kind of liver-y tasting. Oysters, raw - I loved them. Like eating the sea! But later that night I felt all feverish and dizzy. :-( The second time I tried raw oysters, the same thing happened, and I threw up several times. Damn it!! Oysters are now on my short list of foods I will not eat (even though, in their case, I really really want to.) Pig's feet ("trotters") - I had these in Luxembourg at the Parc Belair hotel. They were delicious, but not in recognizable foot form. Pheasant (wild) - This was road kill; my mother hit it. Gorgeous bird. I salted and dried the pelt and kept it for years. Quail - At a restaurant. Rabbit - At restaurants. Most recently (December, 2010), had at Five Fifty-Five in Portland, Maine and decided that rabbit is one of my favorite meats! Roe - I've eaten at least five different kinds of various fish roe, not including the ones I've given specific entries. I adore all roe and caviar. Sea cucumber - Very very gelatinous. Had it at a Chinese place in Hawaii, in a brown sauce with shrimp roe. It was actually somewhat hard to get down, but I ate it all. I might want to try sea cucumber again, cooked differently, to see if it's more palatable. Shad roe and shad milt - Both cooked, and I made them myself! Also, shad in fillet form; hard to find, but not weird. Love shad milt. Love it. Liked shad roe when I had it at the Griswold Inn and Cafe Routier; my own attempt was slightly overcooked, I think, but still pretty good. Milt's the best. Shark - I had this in Stratford, Canada; it was kind of boring, as I recall (sort of like the town). I think I've also had shark fin dumplings as a dim sum food (if so, I truly regret this; shark finning is a cruel and sickening practice and I will never knowingly support it in any way). Also had mako shark in St. John, 2006. It was again kind of boring--a big white slab of fish. Skate - Had it at Cafe Routier on my birthday! It was incredibly tender, moist, and delicious. Nothing like a boring shark slab! Reminded me of shad, but maybe even better. Squab - At Annisa. My niece Antonina ordered it, and I got to try a bite. It was dark and tender, with a weird texture kind of like chicken livers. The taste was reminiscent of them, as well. Pretty delicious. It came with super-cute tiny drumsticks! A squab is a young pigeon that's never flown. Squid - I'm extremely fond of squid and cuttlefish. Squid might actually be my most-often eaten weird food animal, since lately I order squid salad practically every week at my favorite Thai restaurant. I have also had raw calamari, in Grand Cayman. Squid ink - Love squid ink pasta (black!!) and squid ink in all its delightful applications (sauces, etc.). Cool cool stuff. Sushi/sashimi - All sorts of raw sushi and sashimi, but sushi is not weird! Stomach, pig - I found prepared stomach at A Dong grocery store, in the refrigerated foods section. It was really good! However, it was a lot more like a fake meat than a real one. (Not a bad thing; just really weird.) If it had said on the package that it was made out of soy or wheat protein, I wouldn't have questioned it for a second. Its texture, colour, and way of taking on the flavour of its sauce/seasonings (in this case, slightly spicy) were exactly like a fake meat. Sweetbreads - Yum. Celeric soup w/clove & crispy sweetbreads from Pahu I`a is my new favourite soup. The sweetbreads weren't at all crispy, though. They were pretty smushy. And good. The whole thing had a really interesting, unique flavour. Also had sweetbreads at Babbo and Alto, in NYC, in spring/summer 2005, in Boston in spring 2005, at The Modern in NYC in May 2006, at Cafe Atlantico in Washington, D.C., spring 2008, and at at Fore Street in Portland, Maine, summer 2009. Sweetbreads are good! Tender and delicious. They are one of my very favorite weird foods, when I can get them. Best sweetbreads EVER = Bricco Trattoria, in Glastonbury! They were so big and tender and succulent and eye-boing inducing! And they gave me tons of them! Yummmmmmmm. Sweetbreads really remind me of shad milt (or vice versa). Tongue, cow's - A favourite of mine, hot or cold; too hard to find, though! At least Rein's has it (cold). Tongue, buffalo's - We had one for Thanksgiving (not on Thanksgiving, but, rather, the day before) at my parents' in 2008! My brother-in-law, who is a hunter, shot the buffalo. It was good, of course! Greyish, and about the same size as a cow's tongue. Tongue, deer - Had a whole bunch of these for Thanksgiving (see previous entry), too! They were about the size of lamb's tongues and were firmer than the buffalo tongue. Very tongue-y looking and fun to eat! The buffalo tongue had better texture and flavor, though. Here's a picture of the big buffalo tongue (with tip cut off for sandwich-making) next to a little deer's tongue. Tongue, elk - My brother-in-law hunted the elk, and my mom cooked the tongue (Christmas '09). Very similar to deer tongue and buffalo tongue. Tongues, lambs' - These are wonderful, too. I've had them jarred lots of times, and, in England, canned. Also had a delicious warm lambs' tongue dish at Babbo. Lambs' are probably my favorite tongues. Tripe, cow - I got ox tripe at a dim sum place! Very exciting. It's all fluted like a mushroom cap or a lampshade... looks lungish or gillish, and is covered with cool little bumps. White. The texture was chewy and rubbery, and the tripe itself had a very mild taste. Also had a tripe fritatta, at Lupa. Tripe, pig ("pickled hog's maw") - Chinese New Year special at China Pan. It was grayish brown and cut into wrinkled slices. The inside had these weird squishy moist/gelatinous sections that were pretty interesting (you can sort of see them in the picture), and the outside texture was boingy and bite-y, kind of like a gizzard. It was good! The waiter was surprised that I liked it. Turkey and chicken innards - Gizzards, hearts, livers and necks; these are the best parts. Also, big piles of chicken gizzards cooked up are fantastic. When eating a neck, I love slurping out the spinal cord! Turtle - I had a turtle steak in Grand Cayman, where sea turtles are legally farmed (but they're illegal to import to the US); it was good, and reminded me of veal. Turtle stew - the national dish of Grand Cayman. It's "made from a mix of cheaper cuts of meat, including the bone, green jelly-like fat and menabolins (organ meats, flippers, callopy and other parts). This combination is then stewed down (no water is added) to a delicious meaty and strong tasting stew." I got it at a local restaurant, and it was not what I expected; it wasn't a soupy type stew, it was just a big pile of dark chunks of meat that looked sort of like dog food. But, to my delight, I found a bunch of pieces of internal organs (they reminded me of chicken livers and hearts but were even better) and a few bones. Much to my disappointment, there was no green jelly-like fat, but it was still good anyway. Intense and salty (to a good degree). I also got it again at the Champion House in 2010 and commented, "Kind of addictive. Much better than turtle steak. Has some weird organ meats and stuff mixed in. Mmmmm, the organ meats are the best part. Bones, too (rounded on the end). Different pieces have different textures--some gelatinous, some dry and meaty/chewy. Doesn't taste anything like veal. Tastes most like an organ meat. Really good flavor." Uni - the sexual organs of a sea urchin (raw) - soooo cool looking. The taste varies. Incredible stuff. Really good uni is melty. The best uni I've ever had were at Imari and Kenichi in Hawaii. White anchovies, a.k.a. Boquerones - had at Alto in NYC, but only one; it was delicious--melty-tender--and I would like to experience this again, more fully. (Update: I have, a number of times since.) Wild boar - I got wild boar prosciutto with fresh figs at Spris in Hartford, but I would like to have wild boar again in a non-prosciutto format (it tasted pretty much like normal pig prosciutto).

				Fruits/Vegetables/Other: Abiu - Got at South Kona Fruit Stand. I'd never even heard of these; they were scrummy, but kind of scary to eat in the dark because the big slimy seeds looked and felt sort of like raw chicken hearts. Ackee & Cod - Not sure whether to list this dish under fruit or fish, but the ackee part is more unusual than salt cod, so I'm putting it here! Here's a photo of the one I ate (from Miss Vivine's Kitchen in Grand Cayman, November 2008), and it was fantastically delicious. I would leap at the chance to have it again! Apple Banana - I've had these in Hawaii from various sources. They're small, and the texture is so much better than regular (Williams) bananas and the flavour is much more complex. They make normal bananas seem sweet and bland. I don't usually eat bananas much, but I couldn't get enough apple bananas. I've also had South Kona Fruit Stand's Cuban Red bananas (pretty, but somewhat boring) and "ice cream" bananas (you are supposed to be able to freeze them and they remain a bite-able texture so you can eat them like ice cream; it wasn't really that great, though). Also, a Blue Field Banana (unfortunately, it wasn't blue). Tropical apricot - Small and soft and round, lightly furred, with a speckled golden hue. They came in a little plastic berry box. It's very flavorful but tart. It doesn't taste anything like an apricot. Asian Pear - Not weird at all, but somewhat unusual; I'm crazy about them; my favourite pome fruit by far; unfortunately, they are usually expensive. Atemoya - From the Keauhou Farmers' Market. Similar to a Cherimoya but much creamier and tastier. Bilimbi - A much smaller and non-ridged relative of starfruit. Has a weird waxy feel. From Keauhou Farmers' Market. It tastes like vinegar. Juicy, slurpy vinegar. With a slight fruity background. It isn't harsh on the throat like swallowing vinegar. Very tasty as a substitute for vinegar in a vinegar application! Breadfruit - Bought one at the South Kona fruit stand in Hawaii. Soft and creamy, heavy and very filling, like a big bowl of bread pudding. Blood Orange - Not that weird, but rather beautiful inside with shockingly blood-coloured flesh. I've had really good blood oranges a few times, but usually have bad luck with them. They're often too dry and flavourless. Cacao seeds a.k.a. cocoa beans - Some hippies at the South Kona Fruit Stand gave two to me (saying how wonderful they are and how I had to try it), and I ate part of one. It was unpleasant. Tasted a lot like straight coffee beans. Hard and bitter. Cactus pear - Looks very cool on the outside, but not that exciting tasting. Calamansi/Calamonsie - From Keauhou Farmers' Market. Really really good squeezed on papaya! It's sour like a lime (you wouldn't want to eat it straight) but has a totally different taste, sort of like a kumquat but yummier and juicier. I like eating the calamonsie after it's all squeezed. The peel is sweet and edible and the inside scraps are yummy! Cape Gooseberries - I am not a fan. They're a lot like yellow cherry tomatoes, but more viscous, and they don't have that je ne sais quoi that makes good tomatoes great. They're fantastic looking, though, with their Chinese lantern husks. Another one of those fruits that doesn't live up to its appearance. [Edit: Locally made poha jam is insanely good, though! It might be my favorite jam ever. Well, along with mayhaw jam, lilikoi jam, lulo jam and quince jelly.] Carambola - The starfruit you can get around here are so inferior to the ones I get in Hawaii, it's tragic, but I love them anyway, especially sprinkled with salt. Fresh Hawaiian starfruit is the best thing ever. Sweet (with a tangy bite) and juicy, with an intensely wonderful fragrance. Carrots, purple/maroon - They're not really that weird, but when I was buying them to try out, everyone else at the grocery store sure seemed to think so! Really delicious (they do taste a little different than an orange carrot), and beautiful, too. Cashew apple - From South Kona Fruit Stand. Very juicy. Even though they look and smell scarily pepper-like, it turned out to be pretty delicious. Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda - Weird and good! It reminds me of 1) celery (obviously), 2) V8 (something about the smell, and maybe it has to do with how you always picture V8 with a stalk of celery stuck in it), 3) Chloraseptic throat spray! It even makes the roof of my mouth feel sort of numb and tingly. It would make an excellent throat lozenge flavor. Celeriac - From the Coventry WinterFresh Farmers' Market. It's a kind of celery, grown as a root vegetable instead of for the stem and leaves. Even though it looks all rough and bulbous and weird, it tastes like celery (with a different texture), can be eaten raw or cooked (after being peeled), and is great in soups! Cherimoya - Cool looking (the cashier compared it to a Rubik's cube) with really interesting seeds, but not that exciting tasting. Had one in Hawaii that was better. Chesa - A stand at the Ali`i Gardens Market had a pile of them, so I asked the girl about it and she cut off a piece so I could try some. It was very strange and un-fruitlike, sort of like a combo between a dry/chalky/pasty avocado (not creamy at all) and a sweet potato. It tasted most like a sweet potato. [Edit: Also known as lucmo. I accidentally got this a second time (being called by a different name), at the Keauhou Farmers' Market in 2009. Not very appetizing!] Codium fragile - I found some growing wild (rather than washed up, like usual) at the ocean, so I thought I'd try it. Didn't really know if it was edible or not, although someone once told me that all seaweed are. It was very spongy (not soft/smushy, but incredibly fresh, full of cells... I can't think of any food with the same texture), and it tasted like the sea, in the way that oysters do. I chewed the sea-taste out, then swallowed a small piece to make it official. Later I noshed on some more. Currants (white) - Tiny, translucent, pale gold spheres in tight bunches on stems, like miniature moons. You can see the seeds inside through the delicate skin. Eating them makes me feel like a bird, though. Dragonfruit - Very, very beautiful (fuchsia outside and in!). Pretty good, but not super-exciting taste-wise. Similar to watermelon. (I've had it both at home and in Hawaii. They were similar.) Also see my Pitaya entry. Fiddleheads (young ferns) - We have them grilled every spring, while they are in season. So cute, with a unique earthy taste. Figs - Not really exotic, but hard to find fresh; unbelievably amazing in every way. [Edit: Fresh figs are good, but I'm not as into them now... not sure why I used to think they were so amazing! I'll leave my original note, though, since I must've meant it at the time. I like them better cooked, offsetting something salty.] Horned melon - Cool looking but pretty boring tasting. Feijoa - Can't remember it too well; I think it was very fragrant. Gooseberries (red) - Very cool looking, with translucent skins that show off their insides. Tart, with a grape-like texture. Not my favorite ever, but they weren't bad. Gourka - Got at the Keauhou Farmers' Market. The gourka guy called it "a very rare and exotic fruit." On the outside it looked like a big pointed yellow plum, but when I sliced it in half there was no pit in the middle--instead there were several seeds. It smelled and tasted like a very intense, tart apricot. The flavor was good, but the tartness was a bit much, so I didn't finish the whole thing. Grumichama - Aka "Brazilian cherries," from the Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative. They were pretty good. Similar to cherries, but a little more acidic and not as yummy. They have weird large seeds (sometimes more than one) that are easy to remove while eating them. I like the cute crowns on the bottoms. Guava - From the South Kona Fruit Stand. They smell incredible, but the taste is pretty boring. Ice Cream Bean - From the Keauhou Farmers' Market. You eat the white cottony part around the seed and it's sort of cotton-candy texture, but not melty. It's nice and moist and has a sweet, floral taste, very green and plantish. It was fun and easy to eat. My husband and I both liked it. (But eating it didn't make us giggle like the farmers' market girl said it would!) Photos: the bean and opened up. Ice plant - As part of a delicious smoked eel with cucumber, ice plant, potato fondant, Boston lettuce & deviled quail eggs dish at Icoa in Grand Cayman. Jaboticaba - From South Kona Fruit Stand. Tasty. Jackfruit - From the Keauhou Farmer's Market. Tastes like Juicyfruit gum! Juniper berries (dried) - Kind of inedible. Tasted like gin. Kava - Served in a coconut shell, at a Kava bar. It had no effect whatsoever, other than making my lips slightly numb. Kiwiberries/Baby Kiwis - Soft, tiny and sweet. Kumquats - Got addicted for a while. Love the perverse inside-out nature of the kumquat, and the texture, the combination of sweet and tart, that weird citrus-zest-oil flav, the crunch crunch crunch. Li Hing Mui - Dried, powdery li hing mui (bought at Long's drugstore) is inedible straight! I am no fan of "crackseed"-style preserved li hing mui, either. But li hing mui is a delicious flavouring for shave ice or sour kids. It's a type of dried plum with a sour/sweet/salty flavor and is a local favourite in Hawaii. Li hing mui shave ice with li hing powder on top is my favorite ever, and li hing salt makes an incredible edge on drinks. Lilikoi, aka passionfruit - Got at South Kona Fruit stand. Sweet, has seeds that you swallow; ate skin too. I liked the skin. [Edit: Also got at the Keauhou Farmers' Market and South Kona Green Market in 2009 and 2010. I am a huge lilikoi fan now! Especially with miracle fruit. I don't know why I described it as sweet in my initial entry, but they are quite deliciously tart, and eating the skin sounds very bizarre and impossible. Was I talking about the right fruit?? I've tried yellow, orange, and purple passionfruit.] Limes, unusual varieties mostly from Farmers' markets in Hawaii: - Abhay Apuri lime, originating in India. It's long and skinny shaped instead of round. I got two, one green and one yellow. The stand guy said all limes turn yellow as their last color! - Kaffir limes - Very cool because they look like brains! But kind of dry, as limes go. - Key lime - From the South Kona Green Market. NOT tasty. (Note: I HATE Key Lime pie!) - Rangpur - Orange colored. From the South Kona Green Market. Same as Kona Limes from the Keauhou Farmers' Market, I believe. They look like clementines or Mandarin oranges, but don't mix them up or you're in for a cruel surprise! - Tahitian limes - My favorite kind of lime. - Palestine Sweet Lime - These were from Whole Foods in Connecticut. The description on the website is highly accurate: "The straw-yellow flesh is very juicy, with very little citric acid which gives the juice its insipid, bland flavor. Some characterize this as a watery taste." It really is sweet and mild (you can easily eat it straight, out of hand), and doesn't have that limey kick at all. I didn't like it; it's too boring tasting and doesn't have enough piquancy to be worth eating. Loquat - Got at the South Kona Fruit Stand. Good; tender and apricotlike. I bought more. Loofah - Dean ordered a tofu and loofah dish at a Chinese restaurant, and of course I tried a piece so I could add it to my list. He liked it; I thought the texture was a bit too squashy/slimy (but part of that could have been the sauce), but it was not bad. It was the color of pea pods and resembled squash. Lulo - From the Keauhou Farmers' Market. Orange and round with smooth speckly skin, and deliciously tart. I am a big big lulo fan! One of the best exotic fruits ever. They are also fantastic for making blender concoctions out of. Lychee - I don't like them--too perfume-y tasting; I tried them in Luxembourg, but they're available in US groceries. Mamey sapote - The South Kona fruit stand lady raved about it and said it tasted like pumpkin pie, but it was all dry, fibery and not sweet, and was basically inedible, even though it appeared to be ripe when we ate it. I also got a local "mamey fruit" in Grand Cayman; it was not good, either. Mameyita, aka "lemon drop mangosteen" - They're tiny yellow cherry tomato looking relatives of mangosteen, sour lemony flavored. You eat them whole and spit out the seed. Found at the Keauhou Farmers' Market. Mango - I don't consider mango exotic, but I'm surprised by how many people have never had it. The little yellow "champagne" kind are always incredible; the other kinds can be risky; a good mango is impossibly delicious. Mangosteen!!! - The so-called Queen of Fruits. Found at long last on 11-28-06 at Banana Joe's fruit stand in Kauai! (Update: also found on 11-17-07 at the Keauhou Farmers' Market on the Big Island!) (and again at the Keauhou Farmers' Market in March '09.) I refuse to describe mangosteen because I think it needs it hang on to its sense of mystery and unattainability. Let me just say that all those mangosteen products that are flooding the market now taste very little like fresh mangosteen. Miracle Fruit - Ordered from a grower in Florida and tried on 1-17-09! It was a cool experience (most effective on lemons, and also with wonderful flavor-enhancing powers for starfruit and kiwi), and the fruit itself tasted really good. See my videos on YouTube for the results of our flavor experiments. [Edit: Scroll down for the much more dramatic later experiments in Hawaii. We stumbled upon fresh miracle fruit at South Kona Green Market, in March '09. The fresh miracle fruit's effects were MUCH more dramatic. Quite amazing. My favorite was miracle fruit + lilikoi. We actually did so many miracle fruit experiments in March '09 that I got really tired of it! My husband loved miracle fruit with lulo, but after two or three sessions I'd had more than enough flavor tripping.] Yellow Momban - Sort of similar to mameyita, but more oblong shaped, slightly sweeter, less intense, and not lemony. Both have a single large seed inside. Found at the Keauhou Farmers' Market. Monstera - Highly recommended! After nearly seven years of wanting to try it, I stumbled across a whole pile at Whole Foods! After waiting for the hexagonal scales to start falling off on their own (as per instructions), I ate my first kernels on 8-15-2007. Monstera tastes like very good pineapple with a hint of banana, and is more creamy and tender and less juicy than pineapple. The flavor is pronounced, sweet, and delicious. It's also really fun scraping/popping off the little corn-like kernels and eating them a few at a time as they ripen, and it's cool knowing exactly when a fruit is at optimum ripeness because it tells you so! Morel mushrooms, wild - Picked in my parents' yard. (I've also had them at several restaurants in NYC.) Yum. Noni - From South Kona Fruit Stand. Beth advised me on which one would be ripe enough to bite into, but not too ripe (apparently they become really repulsive when they get too ripe). I took a few bites, and it wasn't terrible, but it's certainly nothing you'd want to eat. It's really hard, full of seeds (so incredibly difficult to cut/gnaw off a chunk) and not very tasty. Oro blanco - Same thing as a my "torange," mystery fruit or not? Definitely the same appearance-wise and preparation-wise, but tastes like a mild and non-bitter grapefruit. (There was something lemony about the torange, and the flavor was more intense.) Very good, and fun to eat. I like it when the individual vesicles escape. Otaheite gooseberry - They're small and cute and pale yellow, with a similar shape to the pitanga, but other than shape they're nothing alike. Uuck. It's really sour and astringent with the texture of a waterchestnut! (You're supposed to make jelly and stuff out of these, not eat them straight.) From Keauhou Farmers' Market. Pamplemousse - Inferior to grapefruit. Got one at the Keauhou Farmers' Market, but didn't finish it all. Papaya - Nice fresh local ones (from ten zillion different sources, in Hawaii) are good with lime squeezed on top. Persimmon, Hachiya - So ripe it was almost liquefied. Good. Made my tongue tingle. Pitanga - They look sort of like habaneros, but aren't related to peppers and the bush they grown on looks nothing like a pepper plant. However, they smell like peppers to me and I hate it! I sampled one at the stand and didn't like the taste, either. They're sort of sweet-sour and not at all hot, but they have a pepper element to the taste which I find really off-putting. Pitaya - From the Hilo Farmer's Market and Keauhou Farmers' Market. It's dragonfruit, but mine were yellow pitayas, which are more delicious than the regular (pretty magenta) kind. They are also smaller. Expensive, hard to find, and very very good. One of my favorite exotic fruits. Update: Got to try orange pitaya in 2010! The vendor told me that the yellow kind is native to Columbia and the new orange ones are a mixed breed between yellow and red, field collected in Peru. So pretty! They're good, but not as good as the yellow ones. Poi - Um. Mauve and lumpy, with a very strange taste. From the grocery store in Hawaii. Pomegranate - Not weird, but I don't think many people eat them; I love eating pomegranates. Pummelo - From Karma Fruit Stand in Hawaii. Sort of like grapefruit, but sweeter, with extra-thick skin and uneven sections. I ate it without sugar although it was pretty sour that way. Quince - At first I tried it raw, and it was awful (dry and sour and made no sense), but then I read that you're supposed to peel and cook it before eating, and it was great! Rambutan - Very similar to a lychee but covered with cool-looking spines like messy hair; I had them at a breakfast buffet in Hawaii, and from a market in St. John. I don't like them, though: too perfume-y tasting. Ramps - As part of a few spring meals in New York. Rollinia - From the Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative. So weird and cool looking. It wasn't optimally ripe, but it got soft enough to dig out parts of the insides with my bare fingers and get a taste, at least! Very delicate lemon pudding. Romanesco - Got it at Island Naturals Market in Hawaii! It's so awesome looking (fractal food!), and I really liked it, too. It's tastier cooked than cauliflower, and really fun to eat. We counted at least four levels of fractals. Later, I also found romanesco at my local Whole Foods in Connecticut, but only once so far! In the summer of 2010, I got to eat fresh and local Connecticut romanesco, grown by Four Fields Farm! Awesome! Rose Apple - from the South Kona Fruit Stand. Yuck, smells and tastes like rose water! Rhubarb - Is rhubarb weird? I LOVE RHUBARB. Green sapote - Soft and squishy when squeezed. The inside was dark orange, smooth and creamy, spoonable. Sweet and pretty tasty although I wouldn't want to eat the whole thing. From Keauhou Farmers' Market. Seaweed - Quite a few varieties, in seaweed salads and other applications. I love seaweed; the stranger looking, the better. At the Block Island Farmers' Market, I got a fresh seeweed salad with sea lettuce, plus glasswort and sea rocket (two succulents that grow on the beach). I also had rockweed aka bladderwrack at my 15th anniversary dinner at The Atlantic Inn. See also: Codium fragile, above. Sea Asparagus - Aka Glasswort. Bought at the Gourmet Market at Shops at Mauna Lani in Waikoloa. I really liked it! It's crispy and fresh and pleasantly salty. Here's a picture. Soursop - At the Keauhou Farmers' Market. It was similar to an atemoya or cherimoya (other than all the cool spikes on the outside), but pleasingly sour. Not overboardly sour, but a good amount. I liked it! Purple sweet potato tapioca from Ba-Le - It's a great color. Sort of lavender. And it has chunks (small) of sweet potato. I commented at the time, "Definitely counts as a weird food." Snake Fruit, a.k.a. Salak Palm fruit - Got them at the South Kona Fruit Stand in Hawaii. Very scaly, peely skin, with a crunchy not-very-moist chestnut-looking center that separates into several segments. Quite a cool fruit, but not all that thrilling tasting. Strawberry guava - Really, really, really good. (And I am no fan of regular guavas.) Single-bite sized, sweet-tart, and delicious. Got at the South Kona Fruit Stand and wanted more. Star-apple, aka cainito - Pretty cool looking inside, especially the purple one (kind of echiodermy/mangosteeny, but not five-pointed) but rather slimy/lumpy/gelatinous. The taste was okay but the texture was a little off-putting so I didn't finish them. Both colors (green and purple) tasted pretty similar. I got the green one at the South Kona Fruit Stand and the purple one at a roadside stand. Sugarcane juice - Freshly extracted using a hand-cranked sugarcane smusher machine at the Keauhou Farmers' Market. It was pretty good! It was sweet, but not insanely sweet, and was refreshing, not like sugar water. Torange - Related to a lemon (looks kind of like a large yellow orange and has a very thick rind) and is supposed to be lemon-flavoured but not bitter. (But the sign at the grocery store suggested making useless something-or-other out of the rind rather than eating the flesh.) I peeled it and separated the sections like an orange. The pulp is pale yellow, like a lemon, and it has seeds, but they are all near the center and extremely easy to get out. The pith has a really strange inedible consistency; I didn't eat it, even though I'm an orange pith addict. It reminds me of that kind of syrofoam that containers are made out of. And the membranes between slices are tough, sort of like on a grapefruit; I ate the flesh from between them, and threw the membranes in the sink. It's not juicy, and the individual citrus cell thingies are very distinct, but it's not dry, either (I bought a nice heavy one), and has an intense flavour. The taste is strange... lemon-like, but not mouth-puckering. Sort of like not-too-sweet lemonade. Sweet and sour at the same time, like a really good sour candy. Makes your hands smell wonderful. Really loved it, and bought as many as I could. This was from a grocery store in Connecticut, and I don't know if I'll ever find them again. I can find no reference to a fruit actually called a "torange" (although that's what it said on the sign at the store), so I have no idea what this was. Maybe it was a type of pummelo or an oro blanco?? Tamarillo - Amazing stuff, intense and tomato-ish, but more acidic; doesn't look that unusual on the outside, but it's filled with seeds that look like blood; don't eat the skin--it tastes horrible. Tamarind - From the South Kona Green Market. Tamarind seeds are good! I like them. They're tasty and fun to snack on, like a sour candy. Also had fresh tamarind juice at Miss Vivine's in Grand Cayman. Delicious! Tri-colour bean Vietnamese dessert - In a tall glass with red beans on the bottom, yellow mung bean goup and weird bright green jello-ish strips, layered beneath coconut milk and shave ice style ice. Very strange but very good. I always order one at Pho Boston. Ugli fruit - Weird looking, but not weird tasting. Juicy and delicious. Wing beans - At Pahu I`a in 2010. I was delighted to be able to order them, as I'd seen them for sale several times at markets and always wanted to try them.

				Weird Foods I Especially Want to Try: Lamprey. ~~Kidneys~~ (finally had in Steak & Kidney Pie form in Grand Cayman on 11-24-08, at the Triple Crown Pub! I loved them and would still like the especially try them again.) (In 2010, I bought some frozen steak-and-kidney pies at a British store in Maine, and cooked them in the oven at home. Loved the kidney parts!!!) Sea anemone soup. ~~Sweetbreads~~ (first had on 12-10-04 Pahu I`a in Hawaii; later, at Babbo, Alto, Cafe Atlantico, Fore Steet, Bricco Trattoria, and others). Snake. ~~Ostrich~~ (had on 11-18-04 in Hawaii). ~~Crocodile~~ (had on 11-19-10 at Tukka Restaurant in Grand Cayman). ~~Kangaroo~~ (had on 11-14-10 at Tukka Restaurant in Grand Cayman). Monkfish liver. ~~Boquerones, a.k.a. white anchovies~~ (had at Alto in NYC on 7-2-05, and several various places since). Wild boar (had at Spris in July, 2005, but it was wild boar prosciutto, so that doesn't really count). ~~Oxtail~~ (had on 9-6-04 at Lupa in NYC and 12-10-04 at Pahu I`a in Hawaii. Also had an oxtail (in a very tail-ular format) from a local restaurant in Grand Cayman, 2006.) Coxcombs. White apricots. Fresh dates. ~~Monstera~~ (after nearly seven years of wanting to try it, I stumbled across a whole pile at Whole Foods!) (ate my first kernels on 8-15-2007.) ~~Snake Fruit.~~ (bought 11-9-05 at the South Kona Fruit stand in Hawaii) ~~Mangosteen!!!~~ (found at long last on 11-28-06 at Banana Joe's fruit stand in Kauai!) (update: also found on 11-17-07 at the Keauhou Farmers' Market on the Big Island, and several more times there, since!) Heart (other than chicken/turkey heart). (Update, 11-08: According to my mom, I've actually eaten heart; we used to have it for dinner when I was little. I don't remember, though, so it's still one of my topmost "especially want to try" foods.) ~~Miracle Fruit~~ (ate on 1-17-09!) (and in March of '09, fresh, in Hawaii.) ~~Romanesco broccoli~~ (first ate on 3-01-09, in Hawaii; found locally in December '09, and locally grown in summer '10.) Jellied Eels. ~~Rollinia~~ - Shortest time on "Weird foods I especially want to try" list before actually procuring??? Added to list March 16th, 2010, found/bought on March 25th, and ate on March 27th.) Indian (Alphonso) mangoes . Australian finger lime. Autumn olive berries. ~~Lionfish~~ - (It's good to eat lionfish because they are an invasive species in the Caribbean!) (NEW shortest time on "Weird foods I especially want to try" list before actually procuring! Added to list November 11th, 2010, eaten on November 14th!) Haggis.
				Weird Foods I Will Never Eat: Raw (non-fish) meat. Steak tartare? Does not appeal to me at all. ~~Brains of any kind, even though I want to. Mad cow disease and its cousins are way too scary.~~ (I did it anyway, at Evangeline in Portland, Maine, on 7-29-08. The opportunity to have a whole meal of nothing but weird stuff--escargot, frogs' legs, bone marrow, and brains--proved too much for me to resist. I still think Mad cow disease and its cousins are way too scary, though. If the opportunity arises to eat brains again, I will resist. Even though I really liked them.) Oysters. Alas. (See above.) Shark fins.

				Lists \| lpetix@dpcc.com