Svið

From the majestic glacier paradise known as Iceland, you get Svið. What is Svið, you ask? It's a sheep's head, seared so as to remove the hair, and then cut in half to be boiled.

This is like a scene out of The Godfather brought to your table. It's also great if you want to instil a healthy fear of sheep in small children. Other than that, I don't have a huge problem with this. I don't want to eat it, but it's like any other cut of meat, I suppose.

But Iceland is so far away, you say. Well you're in luck. It's also available in Iraq and other middle eastern countries called pacha.

Should I eat this? I am confident you won't die.

Have I tried this? Would you believe it if I said I googled places locally that would serve this?

Whole Chicken in a Can

Chicken. It’s delicious. It’s a staple in the diet of many, many different people. I am not trying to discourage anyone from eating chicken. I am trying to discourage you from eating a whole chicken in a can. You do get that whole chicken, intact, bones and all. It's not like the little cans you use to make chicken salad.

I'm paraphrasing what I have been led to believe from several Amazon reviews. It appears that the best way to approach this is to chill it before you open it so that the collagenous goop surrounding the whole chicken will cling to it for easy use. I'm already sold.

The best part? This is without giblets. Just imagine the magic of the whole canned chicken, complete with entrails. Yum.

Should you eat this? I am led to believe that you can boil the shit out of until it makes a pretty good chicken soup, collagenous goop and all. Otherwise, no.

Have I personally tried this? Maybe the next time I get the flu and require soup.

For the low price of $12.95 per can, available in four packs, check here.

Thousand Year Old Egg

We have all heard of the Thousand Year Old Egg, which obviously cannot be a literal thousand years old. So how do you make this delightful thing? Take an egg from whatever bird tickles your fancy and cover it in clay mixed with other compounds such as ash, salt, and lime (not the fruit). Then, like many foods you can eat but should never eat, it gets left to its own devices for several weeks to months.

So what does it taste like? You guessed it, ammonia. Obviously some people like this taste, but it doesn’t matter how you slice it: you are eating a rotten, rotten egg.

Should you eat this? People all over Asia do and they haven’t died yet. But do you want to eat a rotten urine-flavored egg? Do you?

Have I personally tried this? Nope, but I’m going to start trying to obtain some of these foods.

Casu Marzu

Another icky traditional dish for you today. I like cheese. I like cheese a lot. But this cheese is a step too far. Casu marzu is known all over as being gross. So gross that is was banned by the EU. A perfectly normal pecorino cheese has its rind cut off and is left outside for a while so that flies have a chance to get at it. The flies lay their eggs in the cheese which then hatch into maggots. The maggots eat the cheese, making it soft and fermented. It is then eaten. Some people take the maggots out before they eat it. Most people just eat it, larvae and all. You have to be careful though, because the larvae can jump out of the cheese at you. Great, a food that fights back.

Apparently it can leave an aftertaste in your mouth for up to twelve hours. Like other foods (common theme, I suppose) this apparently tastes strongly of ammonia. 

Should you eat this? While one could debate the use of insects as a protein source, I’m thinking you should eat the pecorino before it gets infested.

Have I personally tried this? No.

Cheesburger in a Can

Behold, another gift that comes in a can. Today’s delightful offering comes from the Swiss company Trek’n Eat. TNE makes “food for your outdoor life”, as well as disaster preparedness dishes. Among these is this cheeseburger.

To eat this cheeseburger, because no one likes a cold cheeseburger, the entire can is dropped into a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Then you’re good to go. Yeah, the whole cheeseburger is in there, bun and all.

Did I mention the fixins? This product comes complete with mustard, ketchup, onions, and pickle fragments already on the burger.  There is no possible way that this doesn’t become a soggy mess between the canning and the steaming. Do you want to eat a soggy preserved cheeseburger? I certainly don’t. I suppose if you were lost in the woods, far from civilization, this could be edible. 

Should you eat this? Only if you get lost trekking up Everest.

Have I personally tried this? No. I’m a little more gourmet than this on my outdoor expeditions.

Available online, among other delicious edible boil and eat meals at trekneat.com. The website is in German, just so you know.

Lutefisk

I thought for a while about whether I wanted to write about Lutefisk, but I decided it deserved a place on this site. I’ve been exposed to lutefisk several times, but have always managed to escape without having to eat it. This Scandinavian dish, some say Norwegian, others Swedish, still others call it Finnish, is fairly common in the Midwest where there are loads of Lutherans.

Preparation is simple. Take some dried whitefish and soak it in cold water for about a week. The fish is then treated with lye. Yes, the corrosive dangerous compound. To make the fish edible, since it is now also caustic, it has to get soaked in water for another. It is then cooked. The result is both fishy and gelatinous, while still tasting of, guess what, lye.

I am somewhat hesitant about eating foods that need to have the toxic compounds rinsed off of them before they can be consumed. I am also wary of fish that can be described as “jelly-like”. It smells bad. It looks bad. Conclusion? It is bad.

Should you eat this? Do you like fish that can be described as gelatinous?

Have I personally tried this? No.

Available at any Minnesota family reunion or holiday dinner.

Balut

I saw this on an episode of Survivor when I was eight and tucked it into the back of my mind for a day when this knowledge would finally be useful. Enter balut, a delicacy from the Philippines.

A fertilized duck or chicken egg is allowed to begin to develop into a chick, allowing the embryo to grow a beak and often feathers. Then, it is boiled and the shell cracked open and it is eaten, beak and all, including the soupy embryonic fluid. Are you feeling hungry? I’m not.

I asked one of my Filipino friends about this particular dish for research purposes, and he assured me that the boiling softens the beak so that it only crunches “a little”. There is also a specific way to eat the egg that makes damn sure you see the teeny duckling as a whole. Something about ritualized fetus eating makes me lose my appetite. But can the thousands upon thousands of Filipinos who enjoy this kind of thing be wrong?

Should you eat this? Only if you can stare down the strange aborted bird fetus without flinching.

Have I personally tried this? No.

Available outside of Southeast Asia at some Filipino groceries and restaurants. 

Candwich

Making sandwiches is so difficult! You have to put things in between bread! That takes so much effort! Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just open a can and it be done? Available in either PB&J or BBQ Chicken, the Candwich solves this problem forever!

While I do love made-up words, the Candwich truly repulses me. It takes lazy to a whole new level to send your kid to school with a sandwich that came in a can, which is precisely what this is advertised as being good for. But wait, to sweeten the deal, also in the can is a piece of Laffy Taffy. Practically a complete meal. Conveniently the same size as a soda can, the website says that you can find this at your local Walmart. Of course it would be for sale there.

For full disclosure, I’ve eaten canned bread before. Once upon a time, I was a connoisseur of military MREs (seriously), and the bread in those things would be more than a couple years old. I wouldn’t recommend eating that either. It isn’t the bread that bothers me. It’s the filling. Year old BBQ chicken encased in bread? Yikes.

Should you eat this? You could probably safely eat the PB&J. It’s probably not bad. BBQ Chicken though? Steer clear.

Have I personally tried this? Nope.

Available here, in packs of 4 or 24. It's quite the bargain with 4-packs running you $8.

Corn Smut

Yum, smut taco!

All of the best foods sound vaguely pornographic, right? Take for example corn smut, fungus that grows on corn. It causes the kernels to swell up and turn black as they fill with spores. Attractive image, right? The corn farmers that I know, few though they are, have all told me that corn smut ruins corn. The Mexicans beg to differ, where smut is a delicacy. You’d think if it was actually delicious they would rename it something more attractive. You can find this disease in quesadillas and other dishes all over Mexico.

Cooked or available canned, it looks like the kind of thing that you’d get if you scraped out a chain smoker's lung. However, if you’re in the mood for foods that resemble lumpy coal tar, this may be just the thing.

Should you eat this? Probably not, but you could.

Have I personally tried this? No.

Lobster Potato Chips

Today I have a horror for you that I have actually eaten. Living on the east coast, lobster is not the high-end fancy food that you use to set the scene for important occasions. No, here it is eaten cold as picnic fare. It’s also eaten in potato chip form. Yes, gentle reader, you read that correctly. Lobster potato chips.

I don’t eat seafood normally, but I have tried these in the past and will happily relay my fond memories to you.

The chips come in a double wrapped bag because their odor is so incredibly pungent. They have a distinct rotten fish smell that is enough to turn any sailor’s stomach, and unsurprisingly taste much as you would expect. Salty, fishy, gag-inducing, all in one convenient bag. The good news is that these probably don’t contain actual lobster, as far as I can tell from the label. The bad news is that there is some manufactured compound that tastes like spoiled seafood. I’m glad I wasn’t the tester for that.

Should you eat this? No. Not ever. Not even if you like lobster.

Have I personally tried this? Yes. 

Hákarl

Let me set the stage for you. You’re a Viking, hanging out in Iceland, and you really want to eat some shark. But you want the shark to be special. Maybe you’re giving it to your lady-Viking companion. Whatever the case, just cooking it won’t be good enough. No, let’s really do some crazy stuff to this shark. You bury it for six to twelve weeks, then hang it up in your shark-meat curing shed for some months. Four or five ought to do it. Yeah, now we can eat it. Yum.

People actually enjoy this rotten shark extravaganza. It’s popularly sold all over Iceland. Anthony Bourdain, noted for eating just about anything said that this was the “single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing”. I suppose it’s an acquired taste.

Should you eat this? I guess if you want to after hearing that delightful description of its creation.

Have I personally tried this? Not yet.

Bonus: Watch Gordon Ramsay try to eat this thing here.

All Day Breakfast

I know, sometimes it’s hard to sit down and eat a full breakfast. The answer to all of your solutions is right here! Presenting the All Day Breakfast! As the label says, there are beans, sausages, scotch eggs, mushrooms, and bacon in this tin. That’s right, a full English right there, without having to do any of the work of actual cooking!

I couldn’t find a place to buy this online. Perhaps it’s a sign from God that this isn’t to be unearthed. Presumably you can get it at Safeway.

Should you eat this? Not under any circumstance.

Have I personally tried this? Not yet.

Haggis in a Can

If you would like to eat haggis, I am not judging you. I truly am not. However, I strongly advise that it not come out of a can. Important to note, this is "traditional skinless haggis". I can only imagine how much better it would be with skin.

Available for purchase here at a cost of $25.95 (for two cans!).

Should you eat this? Only if you're Scottish.

Have I personally tried this? Not yet.