Thursday 14 April 2016

What is the strangest thing you have eaten?

Everyone complains that I do not write about food as much as I should, so - for their benefit - this post is for them.

Every now and then, someone brings up the subject of 'What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?', and I wait until the last person has made their contribution before I give mine, in the sure knowledge that I will not only win, but win by a mile.

Some people think that oysters are a daring thing to eat, and usually at least one or two people in any group will admit to never having eaten one. Everyone is astounded to learn that Samuel Johnson fed his cat on oysters, but forget that - in his day - oysters were the food of the poor. Daniel Defoe used oyster bars as a rough guide to how poor a town was - the more bars, the poorer the town - in much the same way that we use charity shops for the same purpose, or assess the affluence of a country by the price of a bicycle sold there.

I remember a school teacher telling us of a certain culture eating what sounded like an absolutely disgusting mixture of animal products when literally and colourfully described by him, and the children almost gagged in disgust when he listed the ingredients. Well the culture turned out to be ours, and the meal he described was a full English breakfast.

There was a famous explorer who once was the guest of a secretive and rarely seen jungle tribe who shot and ate monkeys, and on the first evening they all sat around and watched him as the elders placed a monkey's eyeball in front of him to eat. Not wishing to offend, he reluctantly put the eyeball into his mouth, then the whole tribe almost screamed with horror as the elder said, "So it is true - you white people will eat anything!"

Ok. I once ate a necklace made from human bone, which was brought back from Africa by Sir Richard Burton and stolen from a museum in a smash and grab raid. It was given to me by a South African antique dealer.

Beat that.

36 comments:

  1. You were pissed at the time I suppose.

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  2. OK, I once (and only once) ate a product that I think was intended for lining the insides of septic tanks; they called it 'Bread and Butter Pudding' for want of a better name.

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    1. Pussy. (That was an accusation, not a description of everyone's favourite snack).

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  3. I once drank a potion of crushed leaves, vinegar, fag ends, shampoo, mustard, tomato ketchup, washing powder and suntan lotion { amongst other things } ..... they dared me !!
    Did the bone necklace give you special powers and was it voodoo related ?!!!! XXXX

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    1. I will never know, although I suspect the LSD did, but I will never know about that either.

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  4. I once ate soap for washing cars (as a child). Other than that, I once had a piece of snake.

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  5. But how did you eat the alleged bone necklace? Did you sit and methodically chew each bit? Sadly, the question was what did you eat, not why did you eat it. OK, why did you eat it?

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    1. The beads were tiny, and I ate it in order to become the Master of the Universe. I didn't get where I am today by not eating human bone necklaces.

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    2. All lit up, eh? You're right, there's no beating a Master of the Universe story.

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  6. oddest thing I have eaten? A few odd things in various trips to China and the Far East but really have no idea what they were and always thought it best not to ask.

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  7. Did it still look like a necklace when you passed it?

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    1. Nic one, pearl one. The beads were about three times the size of a pinhead, plus - unlike John - I don't actually go back to investigate yesterday's meals, even with doggies.

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  8. An earthworm pie - it was delicious!

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  9. Pickled pigs feet as a child. And then my mom would humiliate me when I was a teenager by telling my boyfriends about it. I was so embarrassed.

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    1. Hopefully an orthopaedic surgeon sorted them out?

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  10. Five days of the exact same, lukewarm full English breakfast at a B&B on Guernsey. Especially distasteful was the watery juice of a barely cooked tomato seeping into the underdone, cold toast.

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    1. Yes but Shawn, on a dirty week in Guernsey, the food is irrelevant.

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    2. Sorry to disappoint you, Rach, this was a family holiday.

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  11. I have very occasionally wanted to eat my words....and when I was younger I always thought that one of the loveliest things to eat or chew on was a loved ones neck....I secretly thought that 'love bites' were sexy! but with regard to comestibles I am very boring and bland....

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    1. I am stopping myself from committing humorous obscenity.

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    2. Tip: If you suffer from a large family, buy Neck of Giraffe. It goes a long way.

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  12. Not sure that the number of charity shops indicates the " poorness" of a place. I have just done a quick count in my head of the charity shops in my small town of Harpenden and I got 10 at least! ( in a town of only 30K ) ( People who don't live here consider it " posh" and there are certainly large areas of houses worth millions…..ours is not!! )

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    1. Yes, maybe that rule of thumb is outdated now that charity has become big business, employing global fundraisers on massive salaries and getting their rents and rates cut by two-thirds at the same time as using unpaid volunteers to run the shops.

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