A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1112

A live snail. On a business trip to Japan, our hosts thought it would be a treat to serve a traditional dish and my boss insisted I have the honor. I ate it. It redefined “gross” for me.
-John K. Friedman, Hudson, New York (john jkflaw.com)

Bat wings, in Cambodia. Good!
-Reed Resnikoff, Chiang Mai, Thailand (kwazimotorr gmail.com)

In Paris, I’ve had Vietnamese jellied fresh blood (with cilantro and crushed peanuts) and in Seoul, almost-living squid (unwittingly; I didn’t know the poor animal would be sliced alive just before serving; tentacles were still moving).
-Jean-Luc Popot, Paris, France (jean-luc.popot ibpc.fr)

The strangest food I have eaten was fried tarantula, in Cambodia. My tour group stopped at a rural market where all manner of unusual (to us, but completely normal to the locals) foods were on offer, including various insects and spiders. Being somewhat adventurous, I tried most of them. Tarantula was not my favourite, being rather greasy from the cooking process.
It was interesting to learn that this food item is supplied by professional tarantula hunters. These individuals work deep in the jungles, often still at serious risk from unexploded ordnance dating from the Vietnam War, to uncover and capture their quarry in sufficient quantity to sell as a means of making a living.
-Peter Charlesworth, Auckland, New Zealand (peter charlesworth.nz)

When I was a kid, think WWII era, we had little money, and most treats were available only with ration stamps plus cash. So we would pull blades of wild grass and eat the succulent inner tips. That’s not so unusual, but we also noted that on hot days, tar on the street would become soft and pliable. Many times I chewed a lump of tar. My wife says that explains a lot.
-Bob Carleton Albuquerque, New Mexico (enchanted128 outlook.com)

The strangest thing I ever ate was garlic ice cream. At a garlic festival. Truly one of the worst ideas in the history of bad ideas.
-Fred Perri, Hope, Rhode Island (f.b1 verizon.net)

When I was a kid my dad smoked a pipe, so there were always matches around the house. I would light one and immediately blow it out. Then after it cooled I’d scrape the match head off between my teeth. Still don’t know why I enjoyed the taste. Fortunately, the habit didn’t last long.
-John Lepse, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (j.lepse att.net)

My grad student invited my wife and me to dinner at his parents’ house. They had all emigrated to Montreal from Taiwan when he was in high school. We had a wonderful meal with many courses, which we ate with gusto. But there was an unfortunate cultural clash. We were raised to eat everything on our plates. Mrs. Chu was raised to bring guests more food until they leave some unfinished. Finally, she brought us sea urchin, which had the consistency and taste of gristle. That we didn’t finish.
-Michael Barr Montreal, Canada (barr.michael mcgill.ca)

Traveling Europe as a young adventurer, I spent a week in a fishing village in Greece after which there was a celebration on my behalf. A sheep had been barbecued on a spit, and the mayor brought me a plate of something I was compelled to eat before the festivities could begin. Turned out it was the eyeballs and testicles. Thank goodness for a big slug of ouzo!
-Theo Reiner, Vernon, Canada (theoisnow gmail.com)

When I was a young boy in Marshalltown, Iowa, I worked at a grocery store. One item that always intrigued me was a small tin of chocolate-covered ants. One day, I succumbed to my curiosity, bought the darn thing (it had been in the store forever), and ate its entire contents in one big mouthful. I can’t say I either loved or hated them as the flavor was like a slightly bitter, slightly crunchy milk chocolate. I don’t regret eating them, but it’s telling that I never made a repeat purchase.
-Ron Johnson, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (shimata89 msn.com)

A friend from Savoonga, Alaska, invited me to join members of his extended family for some traditional Yupik delicacies he’d brought from the island to share. I felt honored to be included as the only non-Yupik in the group and I enjoyed eating the maktuk, “Inuit ice cream” made from seal oil, flaked white fish, wild berries, and cured whale meat. But there was also fermented seal flipper. As soon as this was in my mouth I knew I was in trouble. I am grateful for the graciousness of my host and his family for their ability to “not notice” as I tried my best to discreetly remove it into a paper napkin and take a spoonful of the ice cream to soothe my palate. We are still friends.
-Betsy Turner-Bogren, Fairbanks, Alaska (turnerbogren gmail.com)

Before I married a member of the Haya tribe of western Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in New York, his friend told me one of my wifely duties would be to collect grasshoppers when they were in season. By way of initiation, he produced some smoked grasshoppers and insisted that I try one. That was over 60 years ago and I still remember the crunchy, greasy mouthful. I never ate another one, nor did I ever sample their other delicacy, flying ants. I definitely didn’t attempt to catch either one of those “treats”!
-Lucy Kashangaki, Princeton, New Jersey (lkashangaki gmail.com)

Hamburger Helper, made with beaver meat, at a village celebration in Interior Alaska. I logged many hours in a Cessna 150 back then, but never ate one. Perhaps that’s why I’ve outlived Mr. Lotito.
-Chuck McConnell, Portland, Oregon (bestofpdx gmail.com)

I grew up in a small town in east Texas. In our neighborhood on the outskirts of town, there were many new houses being built, so there were lots of piles of dirt at these sites. I loved to climb to the top of them, sit there, and eat handfuls of it. This I did for several years. But I’m happy to say I gave that habit up!
-Liz Tankersley, Washington, DC (liztankersley yahoo.com)

In Mérida, Mexico, at a restaurant I ordered turtle soup for the first time. The waiter left and came back with a bowl and put it in front of me and I began spooning it in. Soon I was sweating something fierce, thinking this is quite spicy! Then the waiter came back with a basket of tortilla chips and gave me a strange look. I had eaten a good portion of the bowl already, which was not turtle soup but salsa.
-Tom Vandel, Portland, Oregon (tom lesoverhead.com)

Black bear. One bite. UGH!! It was so “gamey” that the dog also refused to eat it.
-Chuck Hensel, Northbrook, Illinois (henselgary att.net)

When I was 16 and had never been on an airplane, I flew from my home town of Corning, New York, to the Philippine Islands as an American Field Service exchange student. During our orientation in Manila, we took a bus trip to the mountainous city of Baguio. I had been told that balut was one of the best-known street foods of the Philippines but that one should only eat it in the dark. The reason is that balut is a fertilized duck egg that has been steamed after a period of two to three weeks of development. One can imagine what it’s like to crack open such an egg and eat the contents out of the shell! Being young and adventurous, I bought one from a street vendor on the way to Baguio. It actually tasted like a combination of duck soup and egg drop soup. However, I didn’t listen to the advice and ate it in the light. Once was enough!
-Gary P. Brown, Hammondsport, New York (revnor aol.com)

Australia’s first people ate witchetty grubs. Grubs, yes. I tried them. Once. Awful.
-Patrick Cornish, Perth, Australia (patrickjcornish aol.com)

When my husband and I visited China in 2000 we were served fried crunchy white peanut-size nuggets that had been seasoned with salt and cilantro. The taste and texture were fine, enjoyable. But I didn’t like seeing the little legs of the bamboo grubs.
-Linda Grashoff, Oberlin, Ohio (linda.grashoff oberlin.edu)

Barnacles, on a trip through northern Spain. Supposedly a delicacy that tastes like the sea. Did not taste that way to me.
-Merle Monroe, Evanston, Illinois (mm1580 sbcglobal.net)

Once traveling through the Gran Sabana, a tepui-rich area in the jungles south of Venezuela, I sat to eat with some indigenous people and they offered me a red, marmalade-like substance filled with pieces of giant ants.
They told me that it was sweet and that it would go well with my food. It turned out to be EXTREMELY SPICY. They had a noisy and very long laugh seeing my face when I took the first bite.
-Dagoberto Salazar, Barcelona, Spain (dagoberto.salazar gmail.com)

Mine was not on purpose! While munching on a salad and reading news on my phone, a large sliver of almond moved on the lettuce just as I bit down- AGH! Stink bugs not only smell bad, their spray is as bitter as anything! Beyond my disgust was the immediate need to scrub my tongue and mouth with a cloth as swishing iced tea only spread the horror. And the creature I spit out was wiggling in his death throes on my plate. That HAS to be the worst ever almost-eaten!
-Lar Soler, Columbia, Maryland (lar448 comcast.net)

The strangest thing I ever ate was calf liver. My Mother told me it was steak. I threw it up.
-Al Cooke, Pittsboro, North Carolina (arcooke ncsu.edu)

In the 1980s I lived a year in Darfur, Sudan, in a small place called Umm Kedada, known for its pure cold water, on the “Forty Days Road” across the desert to Omdurman. The local delicacy, sought after by passing travellers, was camel’s hump, eaten raw, usually with raw onion and dipped in chili powder, a breakfast to set you up for the day. I found it unappetisingly chewy.
-Maurice Herson, Leamington Spa, UK (mherson runbox.com)

Strange things I’ve eaten? Deep fried crickets, of course, but those hardly count as “strange”. In some parts of the world they’re a staple. But a friend once cooked me up a fillet of rattlesnake, fried in butter, with onions and garlic. It was delicious, like anything else cooked with butter and garlic. And, yes, it tasted just like chicken.
-John Brownson, Oakland, California (jhb johnbrownson.net)

When I worked at the Ginza, a Japanese curio shop in Washington DC, we sold those little dishes for sushi condiments. A Hispanic woman came in and laughingly told us of the time she mistook wasabi for guacamole. Cleared out her tonsils for sure!
-Judith Judson, Pittsford, New York (jjudson frontier.com)

In the 1980s, Attorney General Edwin Meese asked a number of lawyers specializing in commercial practice, including me, to go with him to Beijing, China, to discuss our system versus theirs with Chinese counterparts. There was an evening banquet for us all in the Great Hall of the People. A lot of different dishes were served, all of which I have forgotten, except one. One of the desserts was a clear, sweet liquid with a gelatinous substance in it: sea urchin soup. I took just a bit of it.
-Bob Krebs, Pascagoula, Mississippi (robertkrebs bellsouth.net)

The strangest thing I’ve ever eaten, intentionally anyway, would be puffer fish ovaries, for breakfast, in Japan.
-Lee Entrekin, Old Fort, North Carolina (harpo mindspring.com)

Yak lung in Tibet.
-Mary Burrows, Redlands, California (redhawkmb aol.com)

I grew up on a farm in western Kansas, and we had weeds called devil’s claws. The meat of the seeds inside these evil-looking pods are edible -- in fact, delicious!
-Kelly Boylan, Wichita, Kansas (boylan.kelly yahoo.com)

I was stationed in Spain in the navy, about 50 years ago. The custom on Friday nights was to go out for tapas. One of my friends told me to try the criadillas. He told me it was a thin slice of pork with breading. I ordered it, ate it, and noticed there was white meat. It was delicious. Then he told me it was a slice of bull testicle from a bullfight earlier that day.
-Curt Andersen, Suamico, Wisconsin (cda854 new.rr.com)

When I was young and foolish (I’m older now), I went into a Filipino restaurant in San Francisco and ate a plate of dinuguan. All in all, not very appetizing. It was blood stew.
-Lou Gottlieb, Hubbard, Oregon (LouGottlieb1 gmail.com)

The strangest thing I have eaten is the mopane worm. I tried one -- I was really hungry -- followed immediately by a lot! This happened way back in the early ‘70s while on furlough during my national service in the military. This delicacy is actually the dried larvae of the caterpillar Gonimbrasia belina which is a species of emperor moth with a wingspan of 120 mm (4.7 in). The mopane worm, richer in protein than chicken and milk, is today a multi-million-dollar industry in the northern and warmer parts of South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. It is commonly eaten in a gravy made with onions and tomatoes. Interestingly, it is actually named for the Mopane tree on whose beautiful and large butterfly-shaped leaves it feeds, although it eats foliage of other trees if mopane trees are not available. It is estimated that South Africa alone trades 1.6 million kg of mopane worm annually.
-Dave Pughe-Parry, Johannesburg, South Africa (dave pugheparry.co.za)

I was standing midwatch (midnight to 4 am) on a Coast Guard cutter, and I got the munchies. So I went to the galley and opened the reefer (fridge), looking for something yummy. There! A pan full of tapioca pudding. Just what would hit the spot. Scooped out a tablespoon full, and put it in my mouth. Uh, nope. It was bacon grease, scraped off the griddle by the mess cook. Nope. That was sixty years ago, but I still shudder and gag whenever I think about it.
-Tim Carr, Decatur, Georgia (carrfamily mindspring.com)

The strangest thing I ever ate was... well, I believe it was dried jellyfish (rehydrated) although the packaging had a picture of a Portuguese Man-o-War. I met a couple from China and the wife cooked an impressive meal with multiple dishes. When I took a serving of white rubbery strips with snow peas, she excitedly showed me the package. The texture was very much like chicken...gristle. On par with the sweet-and-sour pig lung stew my German grandmother made once. Needless to say, I love my vegetables.
-Louisa Ischler, Cleveland, Ohio (via website comments)

While dining at a restaurant in Mexico, I wanted to try something authentic from the menu. A fellow tourist, whose Spanish was better than mine, translated the waiter’s response as best he could that the entree being suggested was mushrooms. Sounded good to me. But my selection, once plated before me, looked like elephant snot. I came later to learn that a better translation for “mushrooms” would have been “corn fungi”. I think I asked for fried chicken in its stead.
-Kay Leuschner, Corpus Christi, Texas (libertybellekl gmail.com)

Email of the Week -- Brought to you buy One Up! -- The wickedest word game in the world. “A devilish gift.”

The strangest thing that I ever ate? I swallowed Anu Garg’s story about the guy who ate an entire airplane.
-Tim Buchowski, Austin, Texas (timbuchowski hotmail.com)

While stationed in Southeast Asia in the 60s, I was “treated” to local delicacies such as Rice Paddy Frog Curry and Rice Paddy Bird Curry. No kidding. For the latter, the little birds that are found in rice paddies are boiled and used in the curry sauce, crunchy bones and all! For the former, you wouldn’t know what you were eating (fortunately).
-David Mezzera, Vallejo, California (damezz comcast.net)

Harry Crews wrote a novel Cars about, among other things, a guy who ate a car.
-Barbara Degyansky, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (degyansky verizon.net)