What's the most disgusting thing you've eaten?

[fossyant]

As a kid, my mum's fried liver. Good god, horrendous. She wasn't a great cook but it was like chewing fried cardboard. I won't eat any 'iffy' organs since I realised what it was. Hated it as a little kid.

 

[fossyant]

I'm pretty hardy with flavours. Anything slimy or soft and slippery textured makes me retch though, so it's more "texture" that kills it for me rather than flavour....

With you there. Don't like 'gels' for cycling, but seeing as I bought a load dead cheap, better man up...

 

[CanucksTraveller]

With you there. Don't like 'gels' for cycling, but seeing as I bought a load dead cheap, better man up...

I don't mind gels.
I'll have that liver that you've left on the plate there though, if it's going spare. I like any kind of offal.

 

[fossyant]

I don't mind gels.
I'll have that liver that you've left on the plate there though, if it's going spare. I like any kind of offal.

You won't have eaten my mum's cooking of it. Terrible. Me and my missus were so glad when we moved out from our parents when we got married. My mum cremates everything. Steak should be pink in the middle, nope, my mum burns it to death.

 

[Nigeyy]

Mmm weirdly, I'll have to say the food closest to making me gag was energy gel stuff. As a kid I was given liver and kidney and while I definitely didn't like it, I didn't barf over it. But the gel (maybe it took me by surprize) just clogged up my mouth in a horrible way.

 

[Reynard]

yes I'm no fan of polish cooking. Years ago went to that famous polish place in south kensington. Not keen. And truly one of the worst things I have ever eaten in my life was in the bus station at Krakow in the communist years. I'm still not sure what it was so can't enlighten/forewarn you delicate readers.

Yes, I know the place - Ognisko. I did my postgrad at Imperial, and it was just a stone's throw away.

Polish cooking is a funny one - there are a lot of strong flavours that aren't everyone's cup of tea. But there are some things that are really rather tasty. As for cakes, well, the Poles are incredibly good at cakes, although some are far too sweet for my palate.

Communist era food. Hmmm, yes... Sometimes it was better not to ask what it was...

 

[Reynard]

While backpacking in NZ I spent some time with a bloke who trapped possums for their hides. Another kiwi, discovering that we were eating the rest, said he had a really good recipe for possum: get a big billy can, put in a layer of stones, add water, bring to the boil, simmer for two or three hours, topping up the water as necessary, chuck the possum and eat the stones.

There's a recipe for an Amblongus Pie that goes something along those lines...

 

[Reynard]

I think Hungary has a very similar dish. I had some a few months ago and survived.

Survived does not equal liking...

Pickled cucumber soup seems to be a staple in eastern europe.

 

[robjh]

...Mind, Polish cookery has a few clunkers, especially if you've not grown up eating them... Two things I find really *bleurgh* are in fact two soups, one made from pickled (salted) cucumber and the other from fermented rye flour. The latter is particularly ghastly, no matter how much you jazz it up with smoked sausage.

Ah, żurek, love it.

Speaking of Poland this :

.... shepherds pie poured onto a plate and settling out as a pool, level with the plate rim.

reminds me of the time we ordered 'pizza' in a restaurant in Stargard Szczencinski in 1990. What arrived was a sort of flattened doughy dumpling floating in a bowl of tomato sauce. We asked what it was as we thought we must have been given the wrong thing from the menu. Remember that this was just after the end of communism, and this must have been a pizza imagined by a Polish cook who had never seen a pizza.

No doubt not the worst thing I've eaten, but it was memorably bad.

 

[Reynard]

Ah, żurek, love it.

If we all liked the same thing...

Speaking of Poland this :

reminds me of the time we ordered 'pizza' in a restaurant in Stargard Szczencinski in 1990. What arrived was a sort of flattened doughy dumpling floating in a bowl of tomato sauce. We asked what it was as we thought we must have been given the wrong thing from the menu. Remember that this was just after the end of communism, and this must have been a pizza imagined by a Polish cook who had never seen a pizza.

No doubt not the worst thing I've eaten, but it was memorably bad.

Ah, that would have been a lost-in-translation...

You were given pyzy - which are steamed dumplings... Not the most preposessing things, I'll admit, but given what they are, they really do need a good sauce or gravy with them...

 

[robjh]

Ah, that would have been a lost-in-translation...

You were given pyzy - which are steamed dumplings... Not the most preposessing things, I'll admit, but given what they are, they really do need a good sauce or gravy with them...

That's an interesting thought, and one that hadn't occurred to me in 30 years. I'm not convinced, as I I'd been learning Polish obsessively and think I would have noticed it was pyza and not pizza - also it was served just with tomato and not with anything else. Unfortunately, I can't go back to check and now that you've sown the seed of doubt I will never be sure

 

[Reynard]

That's an interesting thought, and one that hadn't occurred to me in 30 years. I'm not convinced, as I I'd been learning Polish obsessively and think I would have noticed it was pyza and not pizza - also it was served just with tomato and not with anything else. Unfortunately, I can't go back to check and now that you've sown the seed of doubt I will never be sure

Well, my dad was half Polish, half ethnic German (family hails from Posen / Poznan), so Polish was spoken at home and Polish food was also eaten. Or not eaten, in the case of things I didn't like...

 

[kynikos]

Caramelised ducks feet (for dessert) when out with a chinese neighbour has since been outdone by curried sheeps brains when out with an Asian friend. I knew what the feet were - it was a bit obvious - but had to eat the brains before chummy revealed what they were.

I need to change the people I mix with.

 

[Reynard]

Caramelised ducks feet (for dessert) when out with a chinese neighbour has since been outdone by curried sheeps brains when out with an Asian friend. I knew what the feet were - it was a bit obvious - but had to eat the brains before chummy revealed what they were.

I need to change the people I mix with.

Reminds me of a Star Trek TNG novel - Dragon's Honour by Kij Johnson & Greg Cox...

 

[slowmotion]

A maggot in my rice when I was in Honk Kong in 1995. Never forgotten.

I had an earwig in my pancake in Kathmandu in 1973. It was alarmingly bitter.