The 10 Most Disgusting Foods in The World

Try­ing out a new dish always has a thrilling feel to it, espe­cial­ly when sam­pling ‘for­eign cui­sine’. Most of it has to do with the excite­ment sur­round­ing the entire expe­ri­ence – you nev­er know what you gonna get, in true sense of the phrase, until you dig in.

Some­times though, these new dish­es require good guts, quite lit­er­al­ly. Behold! We share some of the most dis­gust­ing foods around the world that would make you spew your entire body out of your nose.

In no par­tic­u­lar order of dis­gust­ing-ness (we could­n’t decide which one was the worst!), here they are:

1. Baby Mice Wine (Korea)

Source: flickr

This tra­di­tion­al Kore­an and Chi­nese ‘health ton­ic’ report­ed­ly tastes like raw gaso­line. And yes, it is made up of mice fetus­es that are fished from the mother’s womb before being stuffed into a bot­tle of rice wine. The con­tents are best enjoyed after fer­men­ta­tion (can you think of a more bad-ass drink than this?)

2. Shiokara (Japan)

Source: flickr

This is a Japan­ese del­i­ca­cy pre­pared from marine organ­isms like squid which are fer­ment­ed in their own entrails. It comes as no sur­prise then that it’s quick­ly fol­lowed by a shot of whiskey.

3. Surstromming (Sweden)

Source: flickr

This is a Swedish del­i­ca­cy made from fer­ment­ed Baltic her­ring that even results to bulging of the can from ongo­ing fer­men­ta­tion dur­ing ship­ping. In oth­er words, this is rot­ten fish. In fact, a study in recent years found this weird food to have the most putrid smell of any food in the world! No won­der it’s best enjoyed out­doors.

4. Sannakji (Korea)

Source: wiki­me­dia 

Take a small octo­pus and take it apart. Then sea­son it just slight­ly with sesame oil. Serve as is. It can be a pain for those not used to chop­sticks because the eyes are still mov­ing in front of your very own.

5. Head Cheese (Europe)

Source: wiki­me­dia

Prepa­ra­tion: Skin the head of a pig, sheep or cow and pour out most of the con­tents. Then, soak the head in a pot of boil­ing water until ten­der. Next, cut the now cooked con­tent into small pieces and return it into the boil­ing liq­uid. Allow to cool. The result is a mix­ture that sweet­ly jells into a solid­i­fied gelatin (thanks to the mar­row!). Slice and serve with sal­ad or sand­wich.

6. Rocky Mountain Oysters (United States)

Source: flickr

If you see this on the a la carte, best to skip it. The name is mis­lead­ing. Unless you don’t mind peeled, flat­tened and deep-fried bull-calf tes­ti­cles, or sheep or pig tes­ti­cles, depend­ing on your pref­er­ence.

7. Duck Blood (China)

Source: flickr

You read that right! Duck blood. A com­mon del­i­ca­cy in Chi­na (that explains that look!) it can also be cooked to mir­ror a jel­ly-type sub­stance. Those with the stom­ach can gulp as is. Make a casu­al vam­pire face for best effect.

8. Durian (Thailand)

Source: flickr

So smelly, the duri­an fruit from Thai­land remains an unwel­come snack in many hotels, bus­es or sub­ways through­out South­east Asia. Call it the For­bid­den Fruit, and it has been likened to body odor (yikes!), the smell of sewage, or rot­ten garbage. Yet, it still makes it to the mouth of some to the point they want to sneak it in the bus.

9. Lutefisk (Norway)

Source: wiki­me­dia

The del­i­ca­cy is pre­pared from aged stock­fish and lye, aka caus­tic soda, aka that cor­ro­sive alka­line sub­stance. The aged fish is soaked in lye for a cou­ple of days and upon removal, it is so cor­ro­sive that it is requires near­ly a week long of wash­ing in cold water for it to become edi­ble again.

10. Balut (Philippines)

Source: wiki­me­dia

Few weird foods around the world come close to balut. This is fer­til­ized duck egg that has been incu­bat­ed to the point that the fetus becomes a lit­tle feath­ery. Fil­ipinos enjoy it best after 17 days of incu­ba­tion, while the Viet­namese pre­fer it at 19–21 days old. Boil and serve, yum-yum!

Which of these weird dish­es would you fan­cy? What are some of the most dis­gust­ing foods you’ve tried?