Foods That You Won’t Eat

Never Say Never Again was a James Bond film staring Sean Connery where M thought that 007 might be past his prime.  A rugby team from Uruguay faced life and death choices when their plane crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972 and they resorted to cannibalism so they could survive till they were rescued.  I would like to think that I would never eat another person, but you never know as hunger can be a powerful force.  Hunger is thought to be a more powerful force than thirst or even fear, outweighing your other physical drives.  I was just at the supermarket and there was a sign up in the baby formula aisle limiting customers to a purchase of only four items and all the babies need to eat.  I saw Angelina Jolie eating insects on TV and I thought that was pretty yucky, but I read that insects provide more protein than even meat and chicken eggs.  I hope that I never get hungry enough to want to eat bugs.  There was a kid in my neighborhood when I was growing up who ate a worm for $5, but that is not the worst thing I saw.  I was in a bar one night where this guy said he would eat a whole pack of cigarettes for $20.  I chipped in a few bucks to watch this, but we made this gut eat the packaging along with the cigarettes and we bought a pack of Lark because they had charcoal filters and we thought that would be more disgusting.  People are capable of doing very weird things when they get drunk.

My company sent me to Scotland for a job and I have always heard about haggis being a popular dish there, but I never wanted to try it.  I heard about the ingredients that went into making this and I decided this was not for me.  One day my wife and I went down to the restaurant that was in our hotel and I ordered the full Scottish breakfast knowing that it had sausage, eggs, bacon, vegetables, toast, scones, coffee and many other things were included.  My wife ordered a much simpler dish, and she noticed some black looking stuff on my plate, and she asked me if that was blood pudding, which I had also heard about, but it sounded disgusting to me.  When the waitress came by, I asked her what the black stuff was on my plate.  She spoke very loudly and said, “Oh, have you never had any haggis, you must have some haggis while you are here in Scotland”, with a very thick accent.  The whole restaurant got very quiet as all the customers stared at me and I think if I didn’t try the haggis, they might still be staring at me to this day.  It wasn’t all that bad, as it tasted like a savory sage stuffing, but I don’t think I would ever order it.

I am a fussy eater and I decided early in my life that I didn’t like onions and my mom always cooked me special meals from the rest of my family without any onions.  For Friday Faithfuls this week, I would like you to share the weirdest foods that you have ever eaten, or some foods that you would never even think about trying.  Maybe you think snails are disgusting and you would never order escargot?  Perhaps you think that meat should be cooked, so you wouldn’t want to try carpaccio.  I don’t think that anyone will ever catch me eating monkey brains.  I will probably never get to India, but if I ever do, I will not be trying Gomutra, which is cow urine.  If I do go to The Philippines, chances are really good that I won’t be tasting any of that Balut, which is a fertilized developing egg embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell.  What sounds even more gross to me are those Virgin boy eggs, which are boiled in the urine of young boys who were presumably peasants, preferably under the age of ten.  If you have ever eaten Rocky Mountain oysters, I would love to hear all about that adventure.  I hope everyone joins in this week, so hit me with your best shot.