Pajiba

Korean restaurant, seafood smorgasborg platter. A rubbery large marble-sized thing that when bitten secreted a lotion textured goop. We asked the server/owner what it was and after thinking for a several seconds she said, "Sea rock." I'm pretty sure that's Korean for dolphin testicle.

Maroccan cuisine. Can't eat that shit to save my life

I've had a lifelong aversion to pickled beets but the one food that I had to spit out because I started to heave once it entered my mouth was rabbit served in a military chowhall. I'm not even sure how they cooked it but dear god, that made me gag. Never been tempted to try rabbit since.

I also saw someone pull out and eat a fairly large sheet of tripe in some Vietnamese soup that didn't do my appetite any favors either.

Are those mini-tacos on that pizza? That's kind of insane.

I found a bag of donuts on a friend's fridge. I was drunk, it was 3 AM. When he saw the bag in my hand, he said "You can't eat those, they've been up there for weeks, they're moldy". I threw the bag out without telling him I had already eaten one.

That pizza looks delicious.

I love that the flan love has poured from Facebook into Pajiba. Shut it, Kballs! Flan is delicious!

In Tunisia one of the national dishes is a fried eggs and tuna in a deep fried shell-Or so I was told when it was ordered for me. It was texturally awful.

Flavor- and texture-wise, shredded boiled jellyfish. It was like eating really old crusty rubberbands, in chili sauce.

Odor-wise, durian. Enough said. (But the flavor is quite lovely.)

Way back when I was but a wee Peripatetic, I was rummaging about in my grandparents' attic and ran across a bunch of canned US Army rations.

World War 2 vintage.

Twenty years on, they were still good. The ham and cheese was pretty gnarly, but after deviled ham you really don't notice much difference. The peanut butter tasted plastic and the grape jelly had sort of clotted.

But it had Chiclets gum in the packets, which was great.

I love international food, and I like trying new things. I've even eaten sea cucumber (basically a slug of the sea) and did not gag. I love sushi (including fish roe). But oysters, raw oysters, make me heave. The texture (slimy AND gritty!), the flavor . . . I'm almost throwing up right now just thinking about it. I know many people love them, but I've never eaten anything more nasty in my life.

Oh, and flan. I HATE flan, creme brulee (fancy flan) or custard of any kind. And jello (bone marrow!). But none of these comes close to my revulsion for raw oysters.

I'm not into eating gross food, not on a dare or to seem "sophisticated" and "adventurous." Fuck that. But I have willingly eaten those little Vienna sausages that come in a can filled with gelatinous goop. Those are pretty gross. Though if you rinse off the goop, they're not bad.

That pizza looks disgusting. It's like the pizza is being gang raped by greasy fast food.

Pork blood stew. Need I say more? It has cartiledge, tripe, stomach lining stuff, intestines, and of course pork blood. It's a Filipino delicacy- my family eats it but I can never stomach the texture and the taste.

I had chicken feet and I don't see the point really.

A friend of mine in college used to whip up this lovely little snack after we had been drinking. He claimed it was a recipe from his Slovak grandmother: machunka. Basically it was bacon grease and ketchup mixed together and then spread thickly on bread. Sadly, I remember it tasting really great when I was wasted, but if I am ever in need of a triple bypass, I know who to blame.

I also have one, that although I have never tried it, made me gag when someone talked about it. Hoagie Dip. Take one hoagie, insert into blender, and use blended hoagie to dip unadulterated hoagie in. I'm gagging a little just typing that.

How can people hate FLAN?! YOU PEOPLE ARE SO WRONG.

Grossest thing I've ever eaten? A fermented bean soup that my brother brought back with him from Japan.

In fact, I mostly despise Japanese food, including sushi.

Also: Liver. Blood sausage. Chicken livers. Most things my dad loves.

Asparagus ice cream. It was at a Belgian restaurant in South Africa. My dad dared me to try it. Basically tasted like vanilla infused with asparagus juice...and had chunks of frozen asparagus in it too. Nasty.

Escargot. I'm sure I've eaten things that tasted worse, but the texture was what made it bad to me.

Actually, I choked one down at a birthday dinner once and kind of blocked it out of my mind for the rest of the evening.

Two weeks later I was sitting in class and I broke out in a cold sweat and almost yarked on my computer's keyboard because I suddenly remembered what it felt like to eat one of them. It took a good 20 minutes of struggling with my gorge before I felt better.

Oh, and also carrots. I hate them so much.

I ate chitterlings as a teen with much trepidation. Then I remembered that I was born a black child in the south and got over it.

THat fact notwithstanding, I still can't think about okra, regardless of how it's prepared, without retching.

I had a pretty nasty blood sausage once in Bavaria. Yeeeech. I have nothing against the concept but sometimes the execution can be pretty horrid.

On the other hand, haggis is a food that a lot of people consider gross and nasty, but I quite enjoy it. It's basically a type of sausage made of sheep organs (liver, heart, etc), oatmeal, onions, and spices. Served with champit tatties and bashed neeps, mmmm!

As the man said,

"Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if Ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!"

Too right, Bobbie, too right.

After having travelled and been awake for about 26 hours straight, we arrived at my in-laws house in Staffordshire for dinner. I was starving, it smelled good, so I dug right in to some steak and kidney pie. Other than the kidneys, it was delicious, but I had a VERY hard time with the kidneys. I ate them because that was how I was raised, but that is the closest I have ever come to throwing up at the table. I like most everything else I have tried, though, including some pretty out there Asian foods.

I love things like foie gras, sushi, sweetbreads, tongue, octopus, blah blah. But the worst thing I ever ate was a concoction that my old roommate/one of my bestest friends everest made all the time. We we making dinner in our small Manayunk apartment and she whipped up her favorite quick meal: penne pasta mixed with steak sauce and Italian dressing. I always shrugged it off but she finally convinced me to taste it. I had to spit it out-she is a psychotic young lady.

btw: what is the DEAL with grits (sorry guys, but the Seinfeld affect was too tempting)? Are they like cream of wheat or something? I guess I always imagined they were a creamy and formless soupy-type side -- like a polenta but more liquid-y? Frankly that doesn't appeal to me, but it also doesn't sound like a thing I'd lose my cookies over. It's no sea cuke.

Imitation crab meat. It's the hot dog of the sea, people!

The only thing that I eat (that others find really gross...usually non-Hispanics) is Menudo. It's made with stomach lining, and I eat that shit up. I love it, but only as Menudo. Oh and Barbocoa, 'cause that's the meat from the head or something. My grandma sure likes them eyeballs.

Other than that...I don't like to try obviously weird things. Especially when they start stuffing crap into crap. Even ice cream with candy bars in them...blegh. Deep fried this, covered in this...Can't do it.

Canned Spinach, so far, is the only food that has made me gag.

Jerry, my grandmother used to eat boiled okra. Have any of you ever seen boiled okra? If not, go find a used kleenex and that's it. I refuse to eat okra to this day because of boiled okra.

Grits are one of those things that if you grew up with them, you love them. If not, you'll find them disgusting.

Raw oysters make me horf. I can't even watch someone else eat them. So damned disgusting.

On the semi-normal end of the spectrum, I cannot stand canned spinach, canned tuna, or braunschweiger. All three make me gag. I used to eat lunch alone in my room on the days when my family would make tuna salad. And the braunschwieger? My mother absolutely loves it, but even she agrees that's it difficult to tell if it's gone bad or not. As a teenager, I always tossed it out when cleaning the fridge, regardless.

On the "What the hell? Why would you touch that?" end of the spectrum, the champion of awful things I've willingly eaten, is and hopefully shall forever remain a giant canned water bug. It was maybe two inches long, similar in appearance to an undersized hissing cockroach, with a thin, almost popcorn husk like exoskeleton encasing a hideous squishy amalgam of goop, squishiness, and nearly chewy parts. If I go into more detail, I might start retching. Oh the follies of youth.

I spent over a month in Nashville many years ago (I had a 2-week training course and made so many friends, I returned for my vacations). I stayed on a farm with some people who grow their own okra, and while it was fine at first, after eating it 3 times a day for several weeks, I couldn't take any more. Oh, and we had grits for breakfast every day. I love the people, but I'm never eating okra or grits again if I live to be 200.

Balut...mmmm. Actually, I've never eaten it. My old man, on the other hand....For those of you who don't know what balut is, it is a nearly full term chicken or duck egg that has been hard boiled. So you have the whole thing...feathers, feet, claws and beak. And you eat it. My dad worked with a lot of Filipinos, and he'd eat pretty much anything. So he tried it, and liked it. First time he ate one, he started to pour off the...broth...that came out when he cracked the shell, and they yelled at him, said the juice was the best part. Yuck. I do remember him bringing some home when I was a kid and telling us they were platypus eggs. We believed him too. Good times.

HAHAHA THE THREAD THAT WOULDN'T DIE IS EVERYWHERE.

I have a visceral reaction to anything that smells or tastes fishy {enter your standard "good thing you aren't a lesbian" joke here} so I can't imagine how hungry I would have to be to willingly horf down the Cuttlefish that seemed so popular in Singapore and Thailand on my trip this year. I ate everything put in front of me by my hosts, who made it their buisness to have my try just about EVERYTHING Singapore had to offer, and the only thing I couldn't stomach was Rojak. I don't know if it was the cuttlefish, bitter gourd, sweet soy sauce, or the combination, but it was the one thing I actually spit out and couldn't ever TRY a third bite. (the first was OK, it was the second that wrecked me)

Andouillette in the south of France. Bloody disgusting, even by tripe standards. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://images.french-property.com/1/1/9/6/cms1196.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.french-property.com/regions/champagne_ardenne/food-gastronomy/andouillettes-troyes/&usg=__7ORuVz4AVNNGtpIgyVY3gbKgZ4M=&h=178&w=340&sz=37&hl=en&start=0&sig2=DnVPQ9kUPjLeGKmuVCVlyA&zoom=1&tbnid=xZbnQCfynMWY4M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=216&ei=62EFTuSEJ4-EtgfXn7XYDQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dandouillette%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG%26biw%3D980%26bih%3D1169%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=148&vpy=705&dur=1916&hovh=142&hovw=272&tx=52&ty=283&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:16,s:0&biw=980&bih=1169

This thread is killing me with laughter....

For my contribution, I give you: The Fishloaf

Thanksgiving, 2001 - my wife and i were living in Belgium, and it was our 1st American holiday overseas. My best friend's wife (both of them as British as can be) offered to cook us dinner that night as a special treat.

We showed up to their place, and the dinner that was served was a football-sized (and shaped) hunk of fish (sold at the grocery as "Sea Perch" - anyone ever heard of that? The fishiest of all possible fishy fish. Not sure what it actually was, since, as best I can tell, there IS no such thing as "Sea Perch"). The "Sea Perch" was stuffed with cream cheese, rolled (again, into roughly the shape and size of a football) and then wrapped with smoked salmon.

It was then cooked in a microwave.

She brought this fishiest-smelling of all possible monstrosities out of the microwave, proudly declared it "done", cut it in half twice so that it was in four pieces (each probably weighing about 2 pounds), and served it up onto our plates. So I was then faced with the prospect of attempting to eat 2 pounds of the most vile, fishiest-smelling thing ever. Tried to nibble around the corners, but it was sooooooooo bad. Played sick, and then, after we left, drove to a Belgian McDonald's to celebrate Thanksgiving the old fashioned way.... with a Royale with Cheese.

Ahh, Angus and Heather - we miss you guys.

"or sandwich." Typing on an Iphone is tricky.

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com

Not that much of it looks disgusting to me, frankly

The worst thing I ever ate was when I went walking in the woods and my friend found a plant with little nuts that looked like a peanut. I told him not to eat it but he tried one and said it was good. So I said why not? And it did taste good...four about 10 seconds. But then it tasted like I had just up chucked bile times ten. We were both suffering from the nastiness and whats worse we had nothing to drink.

Among real food, the nastiest things I ever ate was durian taffy, natto and tripe.

I will try anything once. I mean, if they, whoever they are eat it and don't die from it, and I'm in their country, fuck it. I'll try it. Does not mean I'll like it or eat again, which brings me to natto. Oh holy jebus/godtopus/marymotheragod/beelzebub but that is some naaaaaasssssstttttyyyyy shit right there.

Follow this recipe, won't you? Take a handful of soybeans. Find a 15-year-old boy who just hit puberty and who has an aversion to showers and steal his athlete's-foot-covered sock. Put soybeans in sock. Put sock in metal box. Set metal box in the sun, preferably the Dallas sun around August 3 when it's 110 or so degrees. Leave in sun for a month or so. Come back. Open box, retrieve sock. Remove soybeans. Set in pretty bowl with a side of rice. Stir soybeans so that snot forms and when you lift the beans to your face, long sticky webs of bean jizz float about. Smell that? That's death. Eat. Vomit. Ta da. Natto!

Liver and sea urchin and haggis and all the rest pale in comparison to the horror of natto.

So ..

My sister and brother and law and I went to my brother and laws grandmothers house. We were helping his grandmother move furniture out of the house. As a "thank you", She offered to cook us her world famous beef stew. Sounds deilious right?

My brother in law and I were EXTREMELY hungry. We immediately dug into our bowls of steaming hot beef stew WHEN-

I noticed my sister had a peculiar look on her face. She wasn't touching her stew. She said to me "Eric, look in the stew. " I took a long hard look.

There were lots of LITTLE TINY MAGGOTS in the stew.

I couldn't believe what I saw! Apparantly she used rotten meat.
We told grandmas daughter what was in the stew. She didnt believe us and said it must have been "special seasoning."

My dad was not much of a cook. When my mom was away at a work conference, Dad made fried bologna and egg sandwiches for dinner. Bologna is bad enough but fried with eggs then placed on toast *barf* It beats out anything else I have ever had in the grossness department (that includes the deep-fried grasshoppers with chili and lime). The fried bologna smell was overwhelmingly terrible. We had to air out the house for a day or so before Mom got home. Needless to say, I learned to cook out of self defense or some sort of survival instinct.

a. Flan is phlegm in dessert form.

b. Natto - It's a Japanese breakfast food of fermented soy beans. It was like hot dog that had been left on the counter for 3 weeks and then coated in something sticky.

c. Pigs feet in Seoul. I had said I wanted "meat" to my very sweet hosts. The feet still had skin and bristles. BRISTLES!

I love snails!

*blushes* I had just popped in to post the weevils-in-the-parsley-flakes story from 4th grade, when my BFF Manda and I couldn't figure out what those crunchy little brown seeds were on top of our homemade pizza.

After careful inspection, I noticed that the "seeds" had ...OMG! Legs! We tried to make ourselves vomit, but could only gag, so we moved to Plan B. Manda suggested a special concoction of baking soda and milk, which I dutifully chugged down. Still, no vomit. I had to give up because I couldn't fit anything else in my stomach, so I ended up having a cocktail of weevils, baking soda and milk slosh around in my stomach all night.