What Not to Eat

Travel brings with it many new culinary delights but, along the way, there will always be a few local ‘specialties’ guaranteed to make you sick, or wish you had been just to get the damn thing out of your system. Read on for the top (or, perhaps, bottom) ten things to avoid consuming whilst on the road.

Goat Brain

Curry disguises all manner of things, but if in India or Pakistan you’re presented with something grayish yellow that smells like bad offal and has the texture of scrambled eggs, it’s quite likely you’re being served up goat brain. No amount of chili will make it edible as the lumps stick in your throat, the smell lingers in your nose, and you’ll wake up from nightmares convinced you have scrapie.

Grasshoppers and Crickets

For reasons unknown, several countries seem to have a passion for deep-fried creepy crawlies, especially ones with wings. In the Philippines beware of the not-so-tasty fried cricket bar snacks after you’ve had a couple of beers, and in Mexico steer well clear of salted chapulines- they’re grasshoppers with the crunchy legs, wings and eyes intact.

Kumis

Oh, the joys of kumis. Close your eyes. Remember the contents of your student fridge, the smell of milk three months old. Would you take a sip? Kumis, a particular favorite of the Kyrgyz people in Central Asia, is a drink made from fermented (i.e. gone off) mares’ milk. Milk should not be fizzy. Nor should it be rancid in smell and taste. Leave horse milk to foals, and certainly don’t let it sit around in the sun.

Tripe

Tripe is a key component of dog food. It is made from the stomach lining of cows or sheep and, when removed from the animal, regularly contains vestiges of the creature’s last supper. There are an alarmingly large number of places where this yellow-white glandular tissue makes it onto the menu, despite the fact that it requires 2-3 hours of slow cooking to get it to a stage where it can be digested by a human. One has to ask, why bother?

Grubs

Grubs are larvae, and larvae turn into caterpillars, frogs, wasps and flies. If you’re really luck, your grub may even mature into a barnacle or beetle. The Maoris may try to convince you their hu-hu grubs taste like chicken and the Koreans think eating silk worm grubs is healthy but I only have one thing to say: sometimes it’s a good idea to engage your brain before opening your mouth.

Snake Blood

Think you might be lacking in sexual prowess? How about fixing the problem with a nice pint of snake blood? Purportedly harvested from the King Cobra, you can enjoy this in Thailand straight or as a mixer in a cocktail, and pay up to $200 US for the privilege. If you do manage to find someone to sleep with having drunk this down and told them about it, get out while you still can and run hard.

Baby Mouse Wine

If the name isn’t enough to put you off, one look at the bottle certainly ought to. In a liter of Chinese rice wine you’ll see four to five tiny mouse corpses, each drowned in the liquid, poised as if attempting to swim to the surface. The base alcohol is rough, tasting the way gasoline smells, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the mice do nothing to improve it in any way, shape or form.

Surstromming / Raake Orret

The Swedes and the Norwegians live in developed countries and can certainly afford refrigerators. Quite why, then, they allow their herrings to rot before eating them is beyond me. Fish are placed in a barrel with small quantities of sugar and salt and then left in the garage for a number of months until the mixture has fermented. The barrel cannot be opened indoors, so pungent is the smell, and the juice from the fish instantly attracts flies. It is potentially poisonous if the wrong bacteria contaminates the food.

Squirrel Brain

What is it about the brains of animals that invites people to just tuck in? You cook the head with the rest of the body and then, using a small spoon, crack open the skull and scoop out the soft stuff. I’m not convinced that the calorie content of the meal outweighs the energy expended catching enough squirrels to make a squirrel brain supper.

Breast Milk

Feeling homesick? Missing Mama? Head to Changsha in Hunan Province, China and enjoy a meal cooked in, you’ve guessed it, human breast milk. The locals claim dishes prepared in this way are not only tasty but enable you to “experience maternal love” while you eat. Controversy was recently sparked in the UK press when a Covent Garden ice cream parlour started selling a flavour called Baby Gaga - breast milk ice cream. You needn't go far to find it. If you haven’t yet been weaned, world travel is probably not the thing for you. Stay safe, stay home, and stick to your own mother’s milk.