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What is the weirdest animal/insect/reptile/paleo food you have ever tasted?

Did you eat it under survival conditions/in a restaurant/prepared it yourself?

Would you eat it again or recommend it to others?

Do you sometimes lament that the range of food available today does not contain more exotic foodstuffs?

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This isn't really a useful Paleo question. This is simply what-is-the-most-exotic-food-you-have-ever-eaten-question. Let's avoid questions like this in the future. – Patrik Mar 15 2010 at 16:54
Ok got it, I understand - easier to answer than poetry though ;) – Louisa Mar 15 2010 at 17:12
The poetry thing at least revolves around Paleo. This is simply exotic-food with Paleo tacked on. – Patrik Mar 16 2010 at 5:05
so glad about the grasshopper recipe though!!! – Louisa Mar 18 2010 at 20:03

17 Answers

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In late summer I gather grasshoppers (out in the woods, away from pesticides, fertilizers etc), freeze them and make curry hopper! It's sorta gross, and I mostly do it to gross out my friends.

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Tim, this absolutely calls for the complete recipe! – Glenn Mar 15 2010 at 20:55
I agree- watched a show on TV recently about cooking wasps in Mexico and using them as a sauce. I found two grasshoppers today in the back yard so if they breed I'll try your recipe. – henny Mar 15 2010 at 22:54
@Tim -- you are hardcore. – Patrik Mar 16 2010 at 5:07
No recipe, really. Get a butterfly net to catch 'em. Freeze the buggers to kill 'em. You can pick off the wings and legs (I don't, then there is not much left if you do!) fry them in coconut oil, crispy. And then dump them into a coconut milk/curry sauce of your choice, I like hot stuff with onions, and yams. Serve the mess over fried cauliflower rice. Whilst collecting them, be sure to eat a few live, makes you feel tough if you can choke them down and not have a gag reflex. Certainly collect them away from urban areas, no pesticides/fertilizes! – Tim Rangitsch Mar 17 2010 at 20:32
I am so trying this..... – Louisa Mar 18 2010 at 20:02
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Squirrel. A few days ago. I caught them myself, out on the mountain. I boiled them in melted snow. I will be honest. They were not tasty. But I guess they were nutritious, at least I hope so! I ate the meaty part of the critters, did not eat the testicles (I know, I know, wasted opportunity!) or the brains.

That's about as weird and paleo as a gal can get!

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And I wish you had some butter to add to them- it would help a lot!! – henny Mar 16 2010 at 3:40
@Lucky -- you make the hardcore folks look like rank amateurs. – Patrik Mar 16 2010 at 5:07
I wonder about "rabbit starvation" from long term subsistence on such small game? Just not much fat in a rabbit or squirrel. I noticed my Husky will catch a rabbit or squirrel and eat the head (crunch crunch) and rip the guts out and eat them, she leaves the rest of the critter (meat and hair) behind and moves on. – Tim Rangitsch Mar 17 2010 at 20:34
I caught an elk this past week, yay. And it's fattier than the squirrels but not what I'd call fatty. I'm definitely missing my fat on this challenge, and I wonder how paleolithic folk got by in this respect. I am eating all of the elk, so I'm getting fat from some of the organs. – Lucky Mar 20 2010 at 14:22
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Steak tartar (dijon, onion, olive oil). Nothing too fancy, was very good though! I'll definitely have it again.

steak tartar

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Oh great photo!!! We have steak tartare here in France, so to me its not (too) weird and it is GOOD! – Louisa Mar 15 2010 at 16:12
Gorgeous! @Mikael -- put this on the PaleoHacks FB page. – Patrik Mar 16 2010 at 5:06
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I used to live in China, so I've eaten some crazy stuff, and come to think of it most of the really weird shit qualifies unambiguously as paleo (aside from the vegetable oil it is often cooked in). So: bee larvae (in an omelette; delicious, tastes faintly of honey), large, stinging wasps (stir fried; very warming qi), deer penis soup (broth made from testicles), every kind of organ imaginable (most memorable: quartered pig brains in hot pot), whale (braised meat, cured blubber and raw meat with wonderful streaks of fat; in Japan; remarkably good, particularly the blubber), snake (with blood and bile served on the side) ... not sure what I'm forgetting ... silk worms ... I had the opportunity several times to eat scorpion and passed.

The only thing that I truly refuse to eat is dog, and my rationale for this rule was paleo before I knew what paleo was. I had a little speech I gave every time someone suggested that I eat it: dogs co-evolved with us, and as a species they are our friends and have helped us hunt since before the dawn of time, and so killing and eating a dog is equivalent to killing and eating a person. Although if my kid was starving I would no doubt think otherwise.

As to whether I would recommend eating weird stuff - why not? Eating shouldn't be boring, right?

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I lived in China and one day was offered 'One Thousand Year-Old Eggs' at a small family house deep in Yunnan Province. The eggs were not a thousand years old, but pickled in ash and horse's urine to make them look old, so I was told. The white had turned a kind of see-through green color and the yolk was well, indescribably awful, it made me want to retch immediately.

The other thing I ate whilst in the Himalayas, not strictly Paleo, was Yak-Butter Tea. I insisted on drinking it, when everyone else in my party had green tea and it was gross. I could only manage a few sips. It was such a shame because I wanted so desperately to eat what the Tibetans ate, but I just couldn't manage it.

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Yak butter tea is sick. It's like licking a wet dog. – Alex Mar 15 2010 at 16:36
Voted this up due to horse urine- that's just plain GROSS! – henny Mar 15 2010 at 22:53
I actually liked yak butter tea! Did you try yak cheese momos (like little dumplings)? They're great! – CT Jun 30 2010 at 12:21
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Crocodile, silk worms, and ostrich. The two meats prepped at a restaurant, the silk worms by myself. All tasty.

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Calf´s kidneys, sheep brain and some udder. All in oldfashioned bavarian restaurants. First 2 great but udders are ... strange ;). I would give roasted insects and grilled snake also a try. But those are not available in Europe.

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The idea of somebody eating brains always makes me a little queasy. That is something zombies do! :D – David Csonka Mar 15 2010 at 15:09
yeah, I always walk by the shrink-wrapped fresh brains in the supermarket, thinking 'if only I could find a recipe'. nosetotailathome.com may have one, they had a recipe for cow's tongue the other day, but they are so HUGE, I do not think I could carry one home let alone cook it.... – Louisa Mar 15 2010 at 16:14
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Stingray, prepared in a restaurant with a "relish" of baby shrimp and some minced vegetables. The consistency of it is like a cross between eating chicken and well-done steak. I can't say it's the most delicious thing I ever ate (or terribly fulfilling, for that matter) but it wasn't the worst, either.

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The stingray should be crisp roasted and charred, but not otherwise overcooked -- the usual challenge with any white fish. But it's really the sauce that makes the dish. If you're ever in Singapore, I recommend Newton Hawker Centre, stall #39, for the best sting ray I've ever had. – Meng Weng Wong Mar 16 2010 at 2:44
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Antelope... at a restaurant in Los Angeles (very good, not gamey). Snails and frog legs, at a different California restaurant.

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I don't consider it unusual, but some of you would: chit'lins (chitterlings, boiled pig intestines) and chicken feet.

Both taste quite good, though chit'lins have a distinctive smell that I've never gotten used to.

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Smoked reindeer heart.

Whale sashimi.

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Rattlesnake in a restaurant and

Roasted grasshopper at an ethnic display.

Neither one killed me, but neither one is my favourite food.

PS Chicken feet at a Chinese dimsum restaurant- we saw kids clamouring over this dish so we got a plate. They are better in chicken stock than to eat in sauce!

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Being a sissy, I skipped dog meat (family issues) but bat and forest rat made it and from eating them I've learned why they're not staples anymore. Not only is the taste excessively earthy to a refined palate like mine, there's also very little meat on them so given the choice between spending a tiresome day clubbing forest rats and a few hours spearing a sizable bovine of some sort, I know which would be the sensible choice for a paleo hunter who values his time.

In "How the mind works" Stephen Pinker suggest that this is exactly how food taboos against small rodents, insects and, possibly, shell fish came about: they're just not worth the effort.

Unless you're really, really hungry.

Or unless it's really, really tasty, I guess. If you can get over the idea that you're eating something that has an inordinate number of frighteningly segmented legs, fried grasshoppers are actually quite a decent snack food. Kind of reminded me of the small dried fish they eat in SE Asia.

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I recently ate a Balut egg, which is a fertilized duck or chicken egg. I got it from my Vietnamese friends. I hard boiled and ate it with some lime juice and salt and pepper. It was quite an experience, it looked awful but tasted quite good. I would recommend it to anyone adventurous.

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um, barbecued guinea pig in south america (peru to be exact). it was delicious.

I tried some raw canned pumpkin the other day, and it was nasty. i nearly threw up. i was trying to make "paleo pancakes" but then i decided it wasn't worth the weird taste. i just like my food simple.

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Sausage made with fresh pig's blood. And it was fabulous!

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I make cow heart shishkabobs (you have to trim the tendons and all that, if not it's almost unbearably chewy) Peruvian style sauce (They're called Anticuchos, and my grandma was the best at making them). I don't have teh sauce recipe on me now, but it should be easy to find and hack. They are really good, and you grill them til they're a little charred but still tender. Delicious!

I live in Miami, too, so I've gone and had alligator tail, alligator burger patties. Cow brain meat patties are also surprisingly popular and definitely delicious! Of course, so many Argentinians here that offal is always readily available and definitely delicious.

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