History Main / ForeignQueasine

* Casu marzu, or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu maggot cheese]], is a delicacy on the island of Sardinia. It is made by fermenting pecorino cheese until rotten, and adding ''live maggots'' to the cheese in the advanced stages of fermentation. If you aren't squicked out enough yet, if you don't chew the maggots when eating it or suffocate them in a bag beforehand, they can survive in your digestive tract and [[BodyHorror chew holes]] in your stomach, causing vomiting and bloody diarrhea.

*** Lutefisk, dried cod, reconstituted and cured in soda lye water. Norwegians--and their [[APrairieHomeCompanion American descendants]]--themselves jokingly call the stuff "a penance before God" (rather like [[AVeryBritishChristmas sprouts and inedible fruit-cake at Christmas in Britain]], lutefisk ''must'' be eaten on certain occasions). It literally dissolves silverware. [[hottip:* :that is, literally made of silver. Your day-to-day steel forks should be fine.]]

*** Crawfish are eaten in parts of Scandinavia as a seasonal delicacy, though served very differently to the Cajun style. ThisTroper does not understand what the fuss is about, since a crawfish is a smaller, tastier lobster.

* Hotdogs, especially when cooked under a hot lamp. To older and more traditional Brits who were hoping for the reassuring white bits, and pink bits, [[{{Diskworld}} and those green bits you hope like hell are herbs,]] they just look odd.

* Casu marzu, or maggot cheese, is a delicacy on the island of Sardinia. It is made by fermenting pecorino cheese, and adding ''live maggots'' to the cheese in the advanced stages of fermentation. If you aren't squicked out enough yet, if you don't chew the maggots when eating it or suffocate them in a bag beforehand, they can survive in your digestive tract and cause vomiting and bloody diarrhea.
** Wait, it gets worse. It's runny. Very, very runny. And the maggots mentioned above? If you don't remove them by suffocating them or whatever, the maggots are able to leap up to ''six inches'' above the surface of the cheese. Hilariously, this edible NightmareFuel is illegal in the only place people are crazy enough to eat it, the island of Sardinia.

* [[OrderOfTheStick Elan]] is rather put off his appetite on learning that a delicacy in the Empire of Blood is phoenix pate. Since phoenixes explode when they die, the liver has to be cut out while they're still alive. He decides to wait for the main course, which is unicorn flank. Both of these in ''DungeonsAndDragon'' are good aligned, and are smarter than most humans.

* Many cultures include offal in their traditional dishes, but there are fewer ones that would consider bird saliva and shark cartilage as expensive delicacies. Japan does.

*** Lutefisk, dried cod, reconstituted and cured in soda lye water. Norwegians--and their [[APrairieHomeCompanion American descendants]]--themselves jokingly call "a penance before God" (rather like [[AVeryBritishChristmas sprouts and inedible fruit-cake at Christmas in Britain]], lutefisk ''must'' be eaten on certain occasions). It literally dissolves silverware. [[hottip:* :that is, literally made of silver. Your day-to-day steel forks should be fine.]]

-->'''Space Ghost:''' You know what I had for breakfast this morning? A sausage and mayonnaise soup with a cream of corn omelette, some milk I left out in the sun for a week, and some fuzzy bread.

* [[SoylentGreen SOYLENT GREEN]] IS MADE FROM ''PEOPLE''!!

*** Also popular in Russia.

** There's only one village in Slovakia where slaughtering dogs annually for a special dish is common - Valaská. Some rural areas in the Czech republic have the same weird tradition, but instead of dogs, they use ''cats'' (humourously covered-up by referring to cat meat as "roof rabbit steak").

* Casu marzu, or maggot cheese, is a delicacy on the island of Sardinia. It is made by fermenting pecorino cheese, and adding ''live maggots'' to the cheese in the advanced stages of fermentation. If you aren't squicked out enough yet, if you don't chew the maggots when eating it or suffocate them in a bag beforehand, they can survive in your digestive tract and cause damage and infection in your intestines.

* Dwarves in DwarfFortress waste ''nothing'' when they butcher an animal for food, preparing and eating things like the animal's heart, eyes, brains, and stomach. They will also butcher ''anything'' that is edible and not sentient. This includes [[OurMonstersAreWeird titans and forgotten beasts]], if they're not made of something like glass or amethyst.

* KimPossible...[[{{Understatement}} is not a fan of this trope]]. Throughout the series her brain surgeon mother makes meatloaf made to look like brains, declines an offer for squirrel stew and nearly throws up when told about the various bugs that are considered a delicacy.

* ''P'tcha'', popular with Eastern European Jews, basically consists of calves' hooves, boiled until gelatinous, then stewed with garlic and boiled eggs.

*** Rakfisk gravlaks, basically fish that has been partially decomposed by storing it in salt solution or simply by burying it in the sand (you traditionally serve a piece of it to your cat first to check for botulism).

* Triple-subverted in ''DemolitionMan''. John Spartan wakes up from cyro-prison to find that the food in his own hometown has become Quesine, because it has been stripped of anything even the slightest bit unhealthy. When he goes to the rebel undercity, he is so excited to find them grilling meat that he trades [[CrowningMomentOfFunny his partner's Rolex watch for a burger and a beer.]] Then he discovers it's made of sewer rat meat. After a {{Beat}}, he [[ShrugTake shrugs]] and keeps eating it anyway.

* In Norway, whale and seal meat is available even if some foreigners find it repulsive. Other classics include smalahovud, a burnt, salted and boiled whole sheep's head, lutefisk, fish that is dunked in lye as part of its storage process, rakfisk and gravlaks, basically fish that has been partially decomposed by storing it in salt solution or simply by burying it in the sand (you traditionally serve a piece of it to your cat first to check for botulism), and gamalost, a cheese that is almost entirely mouldy by design and whose smell has been known to knock grown men out.

* The Chinese have 100-year-old egg (often described as "rotten" by Westerners) as a delicacy, but they are neither 100-years-old, nor they are rotten -- they are pickled in straw and lye for several months. They are indeed something of an acquired taste,
** Just like another lye-pickled delicacy -- Norwegian ''lutefisk'' (dried cod, reconstituted and cured in soda lye water), which Norwegians themselves jokingly call "a penance before God". It literally dissolves silverware[[hottip:*:that is, literally made of silver. Your day-to-day steel forks should be fine.]]