Could You Nom That? Disgusting and Dangerous Delicacies from Around the World

In this hilarious episode of Wildly Curious (formerly For the Love of Nature), co-hosts Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole take you on a global culinary adventure, exploring the most bizarre and stomach-turning foods from across the world. From Cambodia's fried tarantula to the infamous Sardinian maggot cheese, Casu Marzu, they discuss the cultural significance and nutritional value behind these extreme dishes. As they debate whether they'd ever dare to try these foods, their witty banter will have you questioning your own culinary boundaries.

Perfect for food adventurers, nature lovers, and anyone curious about the weird and wonderful things humans consume. Tune in to hear why some people say, "I'd eat that!"—and why others run the other way.

*This episode contains sexual content and human remains*

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to For the Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.
And I'm Katy, and today we're gonna be talking about how humans around the world need to eat and drink, but some foods and beverages can seem disgusting or dangerous to others.
Definitely.
Disclaimer, disclaimer Laura.
We understand that different cultures have different culinary practices. This episode is not meant to bash these cultures, only express why certain foods and drink seem highly appealing to us as individuals.
As Laura and Katy, stuff that we think we would never probably want to eat, we as sissy Americans who don't have a ton of variety of things, yeah. America is kind of, for the most part, can be kind of, I don't know, we just don't have extreme, like we have-
Well, I think it's very, I mean, it's all our point of view. Yeah, yeah. I think other people probably think that fried butter is extreme.
You know?
That's pretty disgusting. I mean, it's-
I was just saying, but you know what I mean. Americans would be like, oh yeah, fried Snickers.
But I also feel like everybody else, I also feel like everybody else would be like, oh, that's on par with America. Like, that makes sense. Alrighty.
So yeah.
Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
Yeah, I'll go first. So my first one is fried tarantula.
I feel like that's going to be crunchy, very crunchy.
Here's how I kind of broke it down. I'm going to describe it. Talk about why it seems crazy.
Talk about if I would have tried it first, and then we can call it.
And if we would have tried it first, like if we stumbled upon this thing, like the very first person.
Yes. Okay, so this fried tarantula is pretty much how it sounds. It's a tarantula that's fried and rolled in sugar or garlic.
So at least they're trying with flavor. That part I'm on board with, the fried and rolled in sugar or garlic, it's the tarantula part. I mean, tarantulas can be found in many parts of the world eaten.
This one is a very common street food, vendor food in Cambodia. Specifically, the species is the Thai zebra tarantula, which is five to six inches. Big spider.
Yeah, that's a big snack.
It is high in protein, folic acid, and zinc. But why does it sound crazy? Because it's a freaking giant spider.
You first have to catch it, okay? And tarantulas are venomous. It would really freaking hurt just to even catch it.
Then, regardless of if it's dead or alive, fried or raw, the textures is what I'm not going to get over. Tarantulas are hairy and have exoskeletons. So I'm picturing a hairy, crunchy, and gooey mouthful.
Would you taste the hair? Is it breaded?
Well, yeah, it is, I think, to a point. It's deep-fried, so maybe a batter? I don't know.
So maybe you wouldn't taste the hairs. But if you did, no. No, no, no.
These things are not really hairs. And that's like a defense weapon. Yeah, it is.
That's what I was going to ask. I wonder if that's one of those things where they tell you, what is it, octopus or squid when you eat it? Like the live one, and they're like, hurry up and eat it because the suckers can get stuck on you.
So I wonder if this is the tranche, one of those things where it's like, hurry up and guzzle it down so you don't get the hairs.
You gotta brush all the hair off first.
Could you also imagine if you got those hairs like stuck in the back of your throat?
It would itch and be horrible. Yeah, the legs. Nope.
So would I have first tried it? For me, only in the case of starvation, which was actually the case, which was the reason that made this food so popular in Cambodia. In 1975, a military communist party named Khmer Rouge took over the region, forcing millions of people to flee into the surrounding forest, and they had to survive on what they could find.
Thus tarantulas. So I totally understand why they started eating tarantulas. I just would have had to have been desperate.
I doubt I would have had the courage to try it first. I would have seen a giant spider running past me and not been like, I'm going to eat that.
You're over there like skinny, rib showing, starving. You're like, not yet. Not yet.
I got a ways to go.
Yeah, no, no. And so would I ever... Maybe.
I'm kind of curious about what it tastes like, but I really don't think I could get over the legs. But if you paid me, absolutely. Quite a bit of money.
Quite a bit. I would have a tarantula for.
Interesting.
So that's my first no food.
My first no food? Blood sausage.
Just nope. So a blood sausage, again, pretty much what it sounds like, is a sausage filled with blood that is cooked or dried and mixed with a filler of some sort like a fat or whatever until it is thick enough to solidify when cool. Most commonly, the blood of pig, sheep, lamb, cow, chickens, or goose is used.
Many cultures throughout the world eat blood sausage basically everywhere but the United States.
Yeah, I know. I know in the UK like blood pudding. Mm-hmm.
So the history, it's not that you say that, history of blood sausages dates back to 800 BC where a mention of black pudding was found in the 18... in the 18 of Homer... in the 1800...
Wait, what? Forget I said 18. Why did I say that?
I was probably... Yeah, I was probably thinking and typing. Anyway, but it came up in Homer's classic, The Odyssey, but others have claimed that blood sausage originally came from China, which is a lot like everything else, where it kind of parallels.
You know, like China was sort of cut off from the rest of it, from Europe.
You're right, developed at the same time.
I mean...
Humans consuming blood? Not surprising.
No, not at all, because, I mean, if they use every... If they utilize every other aspect of the animal in some form or fashion, like, it only makes sense that blood... You would have to do something with it.
Yeah, do something with it. Especially, I mean, when you slaughter an animal, and there's, like, all this liquid coming out, you know what I mean? Like, that would seem like a waste of something, but, to me, it seems odd that, like, drinking it first.
You know what I mean? Like, I would think, like, they drink it.
Drinking it first is the first step.
Because that would make a little bit...
Because it's still in liquid form.
Yeah, which is still not my cup of tea, no pun intended. But...
The blood tea.
But the part for me is, like, they let it solidify into a gel to make the sausage. I think that, to me, that, like, drinking blood is weird, but blood gel is just way weirder. Like, I definitely wouldn't have tried it first.
Not once it became a gel. I would have tried it as a liquid, but I would not try it.
If I was maybe desperate...
If I, like, found blood that had congealed into a gel, I'd be like, it's bad now.
Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Like, it just doesn't... And I love sausages, but...
Walked right into that one. I did.
But not blood sausage.
I do like, like... When I eat steak and stuff, I like my steak medium rare. No, no, me too.
I like the taste of blood. So, like...
Guys, if Laura goes missing one day, it's because the FBI heard this episode and just came and snatched her, because surely I love the taste of blood.
Blood?
That's so gross.
You're right, the congealed.
Yeah, I just couldn't do it. And like you said, honestly, I would think it went bad too. Like, oh, this can't be good, because it came out as a liquid.
Yeah. I just don't think I could overcome. And how metallic-y would have to taste?
You know what I mean? Like, even putting in a filler, it would have to taste like metallic-y. You know what I mean?
Probably, but somewhat.
Well, anyway.
Things that look like they probably have gone bad. My next one is another. No food is called Huitlacoche.
I'm sure I'm saying that wrong. It is also-
Where is it from?
Mexico.
So it's Spanish.
Huitlacoche. It's also known as corn smut. Love that word.
Just corn smut. Or Mexican truffle. Huitlacoche means sleeping excrescence.
What a word. And what a term. What an excrescence.
What it is, it's a fungal disease that infects corn kernels resulting in puffy gray clouds. Like the picture, dude. So it's a fungal disease.
The season for Huitlacoche is between May and November. And the word, actually, I'm sorry, the word is not Spanish. It's Nahuatl, which is the language of the Aztecs.
And where are little mascot? Like, actually, it's not axolotl, I heard, too. Isn't it, like, asha?
Something, yeah, it's not axolotl.
We're saying it very American.
I mean, like, every American says it wrong. Right, right.
Anyway, so that the word is Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, still spoken in Central Mexico today. We know at least the Aztecs were eating this, along with the Hopi and Zuni Native Americans. Zuni actually considered it...
Does it kill the corn? Like, does it kill the corn plant?
Because I feel like if something...
Okay, so it's a disease. It kills the corn, the crop that you're growing, and then you think to yourself, let's eat it.
Yes. The Zuni actually considered it a symbol for the generation of life. It's used for culinary, ceremonial, and medicinal purposes.
Is this like one of those hallucinogen things? You get like a trip from it?
I don't think so.
I'm sure it would have come up in your research if it did.
Yeah, I don't think so. It's now considered a delicacy in the United States. So, why I'm crazy?
I'm a person who examines all fruit and vegetables before eating or eating them. You are. At the first sign of mold, it's in the trash.
Other produce was touching the moldy stuff, like blueberries, they usually get tossed too. Although, it depends. It depends on how hungry I am.
But in general, I'm no... Like some things, if they're, you know, like produce, if it's got mold in one spot, it's juicy inside, and that's all through the inside. It doesn't matter that you're seeing it here, it's all through.
Other foods, other foods, like bread. Okay, I'll just rip off, like whatever. But no, not produce, like corn.
So corn is... Many farmers try to prevent their crops from getting diseased and ruined in the first place.
That's what I'm saying. That's what I can't get over. Like, hey, it's killing it.
Let's eat it. I still can get past that.
I had written, I'd love to see the first farmer who saw this fungus and be totally chill about it and just decide to go ahead and eat it.
Oh, my goodness.
Whatever. Corn is already delicious and beautiful. Why would someone try something that looked like this?
It looks rotten. Like, it looks disgusting. So would I have tried it first?
No way. Because it looks like you'd get sick from eating something like that. Unlike some mushrooms, which look visually appealing, like some mushrooms just look good or colorful, this just looks like a mass of gray tumor-looking growths on the corn.
So would I now? I think it depends on the circumstances. I love, love mushrooms.
This is just another fungus like that. However, I'm not sure I could get over it the way it looks. Maybe if it was prepared in a way that I didn't ever have to see the starting product, maybe then I'd give it a try.
Apparently has a very good mushroom flavor, so maybe I could be convinced, but not if I saw the first part.
You know what is really good? It comes from the corn of Mexico. Is it Mexican street corn?
Heck yeah. That tastes good and looks good. Not mushroomed, diseased.
Fungal-ridden corn. No thank you.
All right. So my next one is called Balut, I think.
This made my honorable mention list.
Okay, okay.
I've heard of it, but I don't know much about it.
So records show, starting around the late 1800s, balut is a delicacy in a lot of countries, and it's a fertilized, developing egg embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell. So this poor, unknowing embryo inside is commonly a duck, and it's sold as a street food in South China and Southeast Asian countries, notably in the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam. Of course, in that region of the world, Southeast Asia, I don't even know what I would see on some of these markets and stuff, because they're just crazy, crazy things.
I mean, not crazy from American standards.
Yeah, like extreme, like extreme. It's not normal. It's just like so many different animal bits and parts and pieces or egg embryo.
Yeah, I mean, if it's out there, let's eat it. So the balut is a fertilized bird egg, like I said, which is incubated in the sun or buried in sand and warm for a period of 14 to 21 days. Here's where I'm like, yeah, that's where, because you're like, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Okay, because it is so young, bones are still easy enough to chew. And I don't think at this point it has a lot of feathers or I should be again, like, I know. Just spitting out feathers.
But another aspect I just don't think I can do is that, like, the good part of it is that it's, you know, cooking for 14 to 21 days. And the first thing you do when you crack the egg open is you sip the fluid out of the egg. That's what you do first.
What was also funny is, like, when I was watching, like, researching for this, the balut, I watched a how to eat balut video, and the guy used a fork, which I'm like, listen, if you're going to eat balut and you're in Asia, I highly doubt you're going to have a fork, first of all. Second of all, because it's going to be chopsticks. But it's also street food, so it's probably just like...
What do you mean you wouldn't have a fork?
Well, you American? Chopsticks are, I mean, street food. Like, so anyway, most of it's like...
Well, I just eat it from the shell.
Yeah. Right. From the shell.
But this guy, this how-to... This guy, and that's what I thought, but this guy was eating it with a fork, and he like jammed the fork down into the egg, and it was like each prong on each side of the little duckling's neck, and then like pulled it up, so it was just like...
Bloop!
Like it was like it was so long in his neck.
And I was like, yeah!
So you drink the fluid first, and then you guzzle up the duck.
There's like, this is on a lot of levels for me, because here's the thing.
That's what I'm saying, it's multi-leveled, it's multiple levels.
Do I eat eggs? Absolutely. Do I eat fertilized eggs?
I would absolutely eat a fertilized egg if there wasn't an embryo inside of it. Because every once in a while you do get an egg, where you're like, there's like some blood in there, and maybe a rooster got in. But not an embryo.
Do I eat chicken? Yes, I do. Would I eat it off the bone?
Absolutely. So like, okay, I'm even as far as that. I'm even maybe eating a chicken, a chick from an egg.
I would even eat the little fuzzy chicks.
Mostly for me, it's the sitting in the sun for 14. Like, how is it not a health hazard?
Well, I mean, you would bacteria. I mean, you figure it had to be hot enough. I was reading that like whenever they carry these to the market, like you basically buy them like they come with like a vat of sand and like to keep them heated and everything.
It's not cooked or the bones would be hard. Like it wouldn't be cooked.
Well, no, the bones aren't hard because of how early in its development it is.
Yeah, but I feel like if you cooked anything, it would make it like kind of hard and the liquid would go away. Like, so it can't be like cooked, cooked like a hard boiled.
No, no, no. I wouldn't get that. But I mean, you can cook a lot of stuff in the sun.
I mean, under this.
Oh, for sure. But like within a day, like I would consume it. Not yeah, not too late.
Yeah, 14 to 21 days.
If you find an egg from a bird that has not been sat on for a few days and that sucker cracks open, it smells of death.
It does.
How does it?
Again, though, this is one of those survival situation, and I came upon a bird nest. Yeah, no question. But I would still be like, yeah, can't probably because you're going to get sick.
Yeah, you're going to get sick.
Right.
But yeah, like you said, it's multiple layers. It's just eating a whole bird.
A whole bird. I think I could eat the bird. I just wouldn't want to eat a bird that had been sitting around for so long because there's nothing that could convince me that it wasn't full of bacteria.
But like the actual bird.
So we'll go there and I'll just pop one out with my fork and feel like I'm cooking a little bit, fry them up a little bit.
Well, probably I'm just a sense that we at the Nature Center, we have to feed the owl chicks.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
One day chicks. So there's still bones are real soft and they are covered in feathers and they still have their yolk sack attached to them. So they're still pretty little.
Yeah.
I mean, I'd eat that, but it's not in the egg.
You're sipping its juices first.
Yeah, no, not that either. I do like yolk.
Continue.
Actually, on a kind of a similar vein, the next no food for me, Rocky Mountain oysters.
Oh, yeah.
OK, this, I think if you've never heard of these, you're probably wondering what? Let me explain. These are also known as Prairie Oysters, Montana Tender Groins, Cowboy Caviar, which is such a good name.
Swinging beef, calf fries, dusted nuts and bollocks. Dusted nuts. Why the name oysters?
Oh, it's because of how slimy are before they're prepared, which makes me want to hurl. Because these Rocky Mountain oysters, they are breaded covered balls. OK, that's what they look like because that's what they are.
They are testicles. They are calf texticles, which makes it even a little weirder.
Call the oysters for their food.
That itself, I feel like is wrong.
Too far. Take it from the adults, not the babies.
Don't take it from the babies.
Not the babies?
Why don't you let them live for a little bit?
Montana tender groins.
Such a good name. Whoever thought of that, they had to have been just sitting there laughing.
Well, so when bulls are young, they're castrated, which means their testicles are cut off. Okay, this is how you make them, because there's a lot of recipes. You castrate a calf, or you buy them already, you know, already castrated.
Their testicles are cut off, they're washed, peeled.
Wait, you buy it? So can you like pick these up in the store?
Because like that's what I can eat. I mean, you're a Texan, can't you just go into the store and get a testicle skin? But I feel like, dude, he's coming like an egg carton.
Like an egg carton.
I just hope you can go to the meat counter and be like, so they're nuts. And he's like, they're from the produce section. No, no, no, the ten of the grains.
Here's your egg carton. You wash them, you peel them, which... That's a whore, though.
Roll them in flour and season and then fry them in a pan. The last part, that sounds fine. It's the first couple parts.
I actually found a video of how to peel a testicle.
I would vomit in the process. Like, okay, I'm going to make these...
Just like cacking. Just the whole time.
Well, because it says they're slimy.
That's what I'm saying. It's so gross.
The whole thing, it started with ranchers out in the western United States. Again, it was a, you know, don't waste any part. We got all these balls lying around.
You might as well eat them.
And you can get yourself one of them.
Let's peel them and fry them up.
Fry them up. Fry them up in a pan. It's a super American.
Maybe put them in a soup or something.
Anyway, continue.
Although fried, I think most things fried, you wouldn't be able to tell when.
Like a true meatball in a soup.
I feel like I shouldn't have to ask that question, because it's testicles, okay? This seems crazy to me on many levels.
Poor guys.
A, how much meat can there even be on this, okay? These are not full-grown gonads, they're baby ones. So like, I'm picturing like a large marble, maybe.
Just like, like a tater tot.
Like a bite-size snack.
Yeah, a tater tot, essentially.
But you eat tater tots?
I mean, I wouldn't just like pop two and then be done. I mean, you gotta, probably gotta eat a lot.
So, not a lot of meat, right? Well, right, and I mean, obviously you'd have to be doing this on a mass castration scale, because otherwise you just got two, and who would have a satisfying meal of that?
Who would just eat, what kind of animal would just eat two balls? Two balls?
Dead, dead.
The texture, that's... The texture, barf. For those of you that have forgotten the anatomy or have never learned the anatomy of sexual organs, the testes are basically just a whole bunch of coiled tubes.
They would be spongy in nature.
I'm telling you, the whole time, I'd just be like, ugh, ugh, just couldn't do it.
I know. I was like, am I mistaken? Maybe it's only humans that have that.
No, because when I watched, it was a dissection of a bull testicle. If you find this on YouTube, it is all full of the vast efferens, like the tubes. It's all full of tubes.
When you peel it, it's just like a sack of tubes. It's like... No, no, no.
As soon as you bite it, it's just... in your mouth. So, I get, not wanting to waste things, the dude.
And like we were saying, where do you even buy these? Where do you even go and buy calf testicles?
I mean, the realistic place is probably like a local butcher. You know what I mean? But like a small butcher shop, because they still do exist.
But I don't think you're going to be going to like your major grocery store.
I want your freshest swinging beef that you got.
Yeah, alright.
Yeah, so would I have been the first to try it? Although people have been eating animal genitals since at least the Roman times, I would not have been the first.
Yeah.
Of course, this is believed to be an aphrodisiac. Leave it to men to feel the need to eat testicles.
Makes me more powerful.
And Katy, here's where it goes so far. But please, people on Patreon, this is why you need to support us, because we need to go to a testicle festival that is annually... Yes, listen.
It's in Montana, and it is known as the Testifesti.
I'm not kidding! Please, please, let's go to Testifesti. Let's go to Testifesti where we eat 50,000 pounds of bone.
I'll just be walking around, just be walking around, trying to interview people, all the time.
Like one of the days.
That's going to be great.
The merch. That's what I was going to say. Testifesti.
Support us, Testifesti 2023. I'm there.
And I will. If you guys really do support us... If people send us, yes.
I will eat them.
Yeah.
If we had somebody pay for our trip, I would eat it, hands down.
That's the only way I'm eating these. Would you? No thank you unless I'm being paid.
Oh goodness. Even if it's being paid via free trip, yeah, I'll go. Somebody pays for Laura and I to go Montana.
I'm in Texas, Laura's in Maryland. She does. Yep, she does.
I wonder if she's anywhere near Testifesti.
We might have a connection to the Testifesti that could go for us. Yeah, right. Alrighty, so the next one that I am going to talk about is Bird's Nest Soup.
Also known as...
You're on the follow up of Bloop.
Yeah, right. Also known as Bird's Saliva Soup, this is one of the most famous delicacies in Chinese cuisine. Many people are willing to spend fortunes on the soup since they believe...
Hold on. Since they believe it will help them stay young and live a long life and have a strong body. Traditional Chinese medicine.
It's a big menu item in Chinese traditional medicine, and according to CTM... CTM, no, TCM. I have something wrong there.
TCM, it promotes, again, good health, especially for the skin. The main ingredient in Bird's Nest Soup is a swiftlet nest, which is usually found in Southeast Asia. Edible birds' nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans.
The highest rated nest...
Fascinating.
Well, the highest rated nests are red nests, quote, unquote, from the red nest swiftlet, which can cost as much as 10,000 per kilogram. So not 10,000 for the thing, 10,000 per kilogram.
How many? Is it because there aren't many of them left?
Yeah, there's not many of them. Yeah, because of this. Because of this.
So the price goes up.
Can you imagine? You just build a house and all of a sudden a giant crab eats it?
What the heck?
I'm being used to me being hunted, not my freaking house.
House, yeah, right? So the more common black and white nests, swift-lit nests, which they run between 5,000 and 6,000 per kilogram. But still.
So how are these, while Laura and I are like, we said earlier, it's saliva, they literally just, like the birds spit it up. It's not like you're eating sticks.
That's what it is. Like it's literally just their spit.
Yeah, like that's how they make it.
I mean, I know that all birds use some of their spit, but like I don't get it. And it is purely spit.
Yes, it's a hundred percent bird spit because it's up on like the cave one. It's like stuck to the side.
Well, right, but like around here we've got swallows and they make it with like regurgitated mud or you know, mixed with saliva.
No, they just skip the middleman and just spit it right up.
That's nuts.
How is it hard?
I mean, just.
Like I mean how does it hard? I just said how does it hard?
I meant get hard. How does it hard?
This is fascinating.
Yeah, if you look at like videos of people collecting these, they have insane, because first of all, it's Southeast Asia, so it's not like they're going in there with like a fork lift or like a bucket, the scissor lift, you know, and stuff like that. So they have like these makeshift like 60 foot tall, not even 60 foot, but it's like 40 foot tall, 50 foot tall ladders.
I'm looking at the graphic here.
Yeah, that they like rope up, like they rope up the end of it. It's so tall, and some knucklehead has to go up like insanely high and collect these nests.
There are so many different kinds. I'm looking at a chart here, and it's the Federation of Malaysia's Bird Nest Merchants Association. So Merchants of Nests.
There's Grass Nests, Feather Nests, Leaf-shaped Nests, White Nests, Orange Nests, Cave Nests, House Nests, Blood Nests, Yellow Nests, like all different kinds, and not all of them are Peer Spit.
Well, these ones are at least mostly.
Like the high quality. Yeah.
It's like mostly spit. But yeah, so for me, for me, would I try spit soup? As long as somebody didn't tell me it was spit soup.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'd be like, oh, I don't like like rice paper.
Exactly.
It looks like.
Yeah, it does look like rice paper. Yeah, I don't think to me why I wouldn't try it is the cost. Like, not only like the, let's just say I had, you know, pockets full of cash.
I still could not fathom my brain spending that much money on a bowl of soup. Like, and that's 10,000 per kilogram, per kilogram. Oh, my goodness.
Anyway, no. So I would try it when I be the first one. I mean, probably not the first one, because like, how the heck do you eat?
It's like most of them are like insanely high. Well, and let's eat that instead of the bird.
Right. Yeah, I can understand. Like, you watch animals eat all sorts of things.
So far, we've said like things that are made of meat, things that are like, yeah, like you've seen animals eating tarantulas, and you've seen animals eating blood, a nest spit. There's no nutritional value in spit.
So you just they're just all like, you know, like, you know what? I want to eat that one.
Like, who do you how do you think the first one ended up happening? It was a mistake. It just fell on their soup and they just ate it anyway.
Just like they're sitting under a nest. It fell in and they were like, oh, I'll eat it. I need it.
And then they got really good looking skin.
And I was like, boom, it was that. It's the nest. It was definitely the nest.
Oh, all right. Next.
Um, I kind of want to save mine for last.
Do you want me to do mine? Do you want me to do my next one? I have one more.
Yeah.
Okay. I'll do my next one. All right.
So the other one that I have is Habosu. Yeah, that's fine. Okay.
The next one I have is it's called Habosu, and it's an alcoholic rice liquor drink. Alcoholic rice liquor drink, of course, because of the liquor. With a venomous snake inside.
Just chilling.
Of course there is.
Yeah. Just chilling. Like an after, like, snake just soaking in happy juice.
So the snake most commonly used is Proto-Bothropes Flavor Vardis, I don't know, which is in the pit viper family. So it's a pit viper.
Oh my gosh.
So and the snake is only found in the Japanese Ryukyu Islands and can grow to a maximum of 7.9 feet long. Why would anyone? Yeah, that is pretty big.
Why would anyone put a snake into an alcohol and then drink it? Well, they can make for up to 26 hours at a time, which is why it's a common belief that drinking it will cure sexual dysfunction problems. Again, people will go long ways to cure sexual dysfunction, including drinking snake liquor, apparently.
With venom in it, unless they remove the venom. No. It's also a very fierce snake, and so it's just pissed off, probably because people are making alcohol out of it.
So they easily strike. So the other thing is, besides the fertility, is that it's said it can give you an energy boost. So thankfully, this wasn't as expensive as a bird's nest soup, but a bottle can go from about $90 to $250 a bottle.
So how they do this, unfortunately, is, I mean, this one's not ethical, because they essentially fill a bottle with alcohol, and it's alive. Well, they either freeze it, and then they gut it, and then put it in. They gut it.
It's still alive. They gut it to an extent, but keep it alive. Put it in the bottle, and it's alive just enough that it strikes, because whenever you see it in the bottle, its mouth is open and striking.
And I've seen pictures of it, and I just assume they stage the snake like that. It's like a ship in a bottle. You're always like, how'd they get this snake in there?
No, it was unfortunately semi-alive, and then when it wakes up, it died. Yeah, and then they drink it. So would I drink it?
I mean, maybe?
No, I'd be afraid of dying from the venom. That would be my thing.
Yeah, but I mean, if it's even a snake, though, if it's in the, you know what I mean? It's not like it's snake pieces, because it's whole.
It's a whole snake in there. Don't you think it's disintegrating over time? It depends on how old it is.
I don't know, if you look at the pictures, I mean, it's all like a whole snake just chilling.
Yeah, but come on, like you've seen like a whole, like things in formaldehyde out there. Yeah. Yeah, eventually they start to disintegrate.
But I don't know how long, like, do you make it and, yeah, do you make it and drink it? Yeah, is there like an expiration date on it? Or, you know what I mean?
Because then you get the venom. I'm like, yeah, this one was bad.
Yeah, so and then just like the ethics behind it. Once I started reading it, I was like, oh, like alive. I mean, that goes back.
I mean, it's a snake. But then it goes back to like, like octopus, you know, eating them alive and everything like that. And I'm just like, don't think I could.
Yeah, no.
So anyway. All righty, you want to do your next one?
Okay, my extreme one and also a drink. I have been talking about this to everyone at work. I've gotten the reaction I was hoping for, so I'm hoping I will get the same reaction from you.
All right. This is both the most insane thing I've ever heard of someone consuming and a fantastic story. So it's called the Sourtoe Cocktail.
Found in Dawson City, Yukon, at the Sourtoe Saloon. This drink was established in 1973.
So it's only found in one place, like literally one bar?
One place, one bar.
Continue.
The consumption of this drink admits you to the Sourtoe Cocktail Club, which currently has 95,000 members from all over the world. So it's a pretty popular drink. Typically, it's a whiskey drink, although it can be one ounce of any 80-proof alcohol with an unusual ingredient.
A mummified human toe.
That is so disgusting.
So, okay, background. Legend has it...
Okay, pause, pause. Okay, wait, no, go ahead, go ahead. I'll say it.
Go ahead.
Legend has it that in the 1920s during Prohibition, the Lincoln brothers were rum runners. They were out during a blizzard, and Louis got his foot wet while directing his dog sled. His foot quickly froze, and he got frostbite.
So his brother Otto chopped off his toe with an axe, and they preserved it in a jar of alcohol. A momento, which I can't even joke. That was in an article.
It was just so fantastic. Toe humor, like severed toe humor. I'm here for it.
So fast forward to 1973, when Captain Dick Stevenson discovered the jar in a cabin. He and his friends developed it and its rules. Okay, so maybe the legend of the Rum Runners guy is not true, but somebody started this drink, and it is a real toe.
So I only assume that Captain Jack really did find a random toe in a jar with his friends, and they decided to drink it and make this whole thing. So it only gets crazier. Okay, so, I mean, obviously, this is crazy, because you're freaking drinking the liquid with the human toe in it.
You only have to pay an extra $6 to add the toe.
Where are they getting these toes?
Yeah, so which is then put in by someone called a toe captain.
Why do they make it sound so normal? Like, continue though.
Who goes over the rules, and they have you pledge the Sourtoe oath before they drop the toe in. So the oath goes, you drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch this gnarly toe. So you have to say it, then they drop the toe in, and the rules are, no biting.
Clearly, your lip has to touch the toe, but continue.
Right, your lip has to touch it, but no biting, no chewing, no putting it in your mouth, and no swallowing.
So hold on, do they reuse toes?
Oh yeah, 95,000 people have had this drink.
I wonder how many toes are in this rotation of toes.
They have had 25 toes over the years, with at least 100. Nine of them currently in rotation. So many people sharing toes.
So many toes have been tonated. Again, not my joke, but so good. So someone, and you know, the reason you might have noticed in those rules, all those rules, no biting, no chewing, no swallowing, because someone did freaking swallow a toe.
That's what I was going to say. Somebody probably downed it. Of course they did.
So now you're fined $1,900 if you swallow the toe.
Yeah, because now they need the $1,900 to black mark at a toe.
Yeah. So 25 over the years, with nine in rotation currently, the toes are dehydrated and kept on salt. That's just how they maintain them.
They're typically retired after five years because they start wearing down.
Yeah, wearing down is not the right word we're going to use here.
Wearing down.
So like you can only use it for so long before it's just starting to disintegrate. Sometimes the toe captains make you kiss it first. Because people are psycho.
I read interviews with people, and one lady said that the drink wasn't so bad, but the toe captain made her kiss it, and it tasted like a bit. The texture was that of a greasy raisin.
Because, listeners, you might be picturing like a mummified human toe is just looking like a severed toe, but that is not the case, people. Okay. When you mummify anything, it turns very dark, very wrinkly, and like oily, greasy.
Okay, so it's like a blackened, frost-bitten, greasy, old... So, anyway. And you get a freaking certificate from doing it.
So if you do get your certificate...
I need like a t-shirt, a plaque. I need something a little bit more than a piece of paper.
So much more than that. So, when I have tried it first, are you kidding me? My first thought when I see random liquids in jars is to never taste them, much less a liquid with a severed toe floating in it.
What on earth was this captain guy thinking? Like with his friends, were they all stone? Like drunk?
Drunk themselves. I'm like, this sounds like a good idea.
It sounds like a bunch of bros egging each other on to do something crazy.
Yeah. And then they realized they survived, and then tried to make everybody else do it.
And then they made a club, and so many people are into it.
Oh my gosh.
Have I or would I ever try it? No. No, no, no, for many reasons.
A.
I would not be able to get over the fact that a shriveled up black and salty toe touched my lips.
Yeah.
What if the toenail tapped them first? That's no, no, no. If I even felt the rash of the toenail against my lips, no, no, no, no.
I would need to know the medical history of said toe.
I would not be able to just trust that a human toe is okay.
There are thousands of people who drink using the same toe.
Which that to me is like, nope.
Yeah. I mean, all right, listeners, I'm Catholic and we all drink out of that same wine cup, and already I'm not on board with that most of the time, much less a toe that's touched thousands of lips. Adiproof alcohol, so the only way that this is legal, it's supposed to be legal because they keep it on salt and they put it in adiproof alcohol.
However, adiproof alcohol is only 40%, which is really not that high.
It'll still give you a kick though.
Yes, yes, yes, but adiproof isn't insane, so what I'm saying is I wouldn't trust it to kill every German virus on that toe.
I would have to...
After the lips, and the lips, and the lips. It's more than adiproof.
I would have to be so drunk plastered ahead of time for it to be like, oh, this is a great idea right now.
Like there's no way. Like herpesvirus. That's not going to get killed.
That's not going to get killed with adiproof alcohol. So the wearing the toe endures can only mean that slowly, ever so slowly, it is decomposing and so there must be bits of skin in every gulp you take. Making you a cannibal, okay?
Making you a cannibal.
Although it would be a fantastic story to tell everyone, it is not worth it to me, the gross aftertaste.
The hygienic, yeah, the hygienics.
But according to the articles that I've read, some people love it. They said it's a great experience. Some people have done it multiple times.
It's a great experience. This isn't Disney World.
Everyone from locals to internet, so this place gets a direct flight from Europe, so Europeans come, of course the Americans come. And then even the locals, this is what you do when your family comes from out of town. You take them to go drink a Sourtoe cocktail.
So yep, that's my last no, and I feel like the vast majority of the world is on board with me on this one. It's just that apparently some people are into the thrill more than anything.
And the mummified part for me, anyway.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, so all of these toes, like I said, they are donated. So it's like recently somebody had gotten gangrene, and so they donated their toe.
Do you really want somebody's toe if they got gangrene toe?
Or like a gangrene foot, maybe, and like maybe the toes weren't affected by it. I don't know, but like people will their toes essentially, or donate their toes.
I will their toes. I just will my toes.
Take all ten of them.
Yeah, restock you for the next, next how many years?
Do you think like for your first time, would you want the big toe or pinky toe?
None.
Well, right, but if you had to.
None. Still none.
Death first.
Still none. So gross.
Well, there's plenty of other insane stuff out there.
Yes.
The drinks were horrifying. You can get placenta 10,000. So picture that.
That's a drink. Dear penis wine. That's a drink.
I mean.
And then we both, we were both, we were true.
Yeah. So we, because we each like separate our lists, sometimes there is a little bit of overlap. This one we definitely wanted to talk about, but we could not, not talk about it.
So we're just going to both talk about it. And it's called Casu Marzu. I'm guessing that's how you pronounce it.
Is it cheese? Well, Sardinian. Which is, yeah.
So it's a sheep milk cheese that contains live insect larva, aka maggots.
Maggots. Not an insect, a fly.
Maggots. Yeah. So this cheese origin...
Go ahead. I was just going to say, so yeah, it starts off as the sheep's milk cheese, typically a hard cheese called Porcorino, usually produced around the end of June when the sheep's milk is changing due to reproduction and dry grasses, and it takes three months to produce this new cheese.
That is just so gross.
Yeah, because the flies, so these cheese skipper flies, lay their eggs in the crack of the cheese. Once the maggots hatch, they begin to eat and digest the cheese.
Well, they lay more than 500 eggs at one time, though. So it's not like a little bit. Yeah, it's 500 eggs at a time.
500 maggots in there, and their leavings, aka their poo, turns the cheese from hard to soft and creamy. They're eating maggot poo, and the maggots themselves, a lot of the time. In 2009, it was dubbed the world's most dangerous cheese by Guinness World Records.
As the maggots can pose a potential health hazard, and it's been banned from commercial sales since 1962, though many hope it will be revoked in the future, because it's considered like a national cuisine, but you can't sell it, because...
Yeah, no, it's illegal there, and it's fined, like you're finable. Can you imagine, like, you're smuggling cheese? Because clearly this is still done.
Cheese prohibition.
Yeah, it's just like a black market cheese.
So would you have been the first person to try it?
No, I would have thrown it out. Right, you would think it's bad.
It's full of maggots. I get, so they said it's like a shepherd thing, you know?
Maggots! The shepherds should be the first ones to know not to eat something with maggots in it.
One would think. I just couldn't, the texture, the fact that there are maggots in it.
Yeah, no. I'm one of those people that like, and I don't know if we've talked about it, I think we have, where they use maggots to like eat the dead skin on injuries and things like that.
Yeah, actually I think that was like two episodes ago, yeah.
Okay, Kit could not. And I get if I was dying maybe, but I was like, I don't want to look at my arm, I don't want to know what's going on, I...
Well, I think the only way I could get on board was that I'd have to be totally trashed on good Italian wine. And then I'd be like, all right, cheese.
Give me the cheese.
And I love cheese.
I love cheese.
Not just the facts. So here's...
Not maggot cheese.
Quick horror story. So anyone who, you know, maggot poo, that's what you want to eat. All right, cool.
I one time was eating Girl Scout cookies, these wonderful...
Girl Scout cookies. Continue.
Upside down, frosted, upside down oatmeal. Upside down frosted oatmeal. Whatever.
They were frosted on the bottom. And so good. They're all like crumbly and powdery, and I'm like enjoying them licking the powder off.
And I take a bite, and there is a moth larva in there. And I realize what I have been licking is not crumble cookie. It's the moth leavings that have been...
I was eating moth poop, as I had been eating and digesting cookies. I was horrified.
Did you call the company?
No, I think it was from my own... I think it was probably from the... They had been opened in the cupboard.
I'm sure a moth got in, laid its eggs.
Because I was like, man, Laura, you could have been rich by now. What did you do?
No, just high school or middle school Laura just snacking down on moth poop, enjoying every moment of it until she realized what it was.
Ugh, so gross.
So yeah, I have a little bit like a PTSD. I don't think I could eat the moth poop. The maggot poo cheese.
No. And too, like, I don't know, like soft cheeses, like how soft that they were saying this was, it's a little... Yeah, it's a little too soft for me.
It's a little too soft for me. To be like, yeah, I mean, too liquidy to be like, okay, it's also the reason why it's so soft.
Like, yeah, you'd be thinking poop every minute you're eating it, because it's so soft and creamy.
And maggots. No, I wouldn't even be thinking poop, I'd just be like, maggots, maggots, maggots, maggots. Because I'm eating it.
Cuttin.
And right, yeah, I don't know. Well, listeners, please, I know we do have a lot of international listeners.
Send us the testies festies.
Yes, well, I was going to say, any international listeners, please tell us what food seems totally wild and crazy to you that we eat as Americans.
I would be fascinated to know.
Yeah, it's got to be deep-fried butter, because there are like, why, who and why.
I'm sure, well, maybe they didn't know. Rocky Mountain Oysters, that's an American one, and that is bananas.
It is.
So, yeah, please let us know, listeners, or any listeners, what are some foods that you cannot believe that humans ever started consuming?
And send us to Montana by visiting our Patreon page.
Please do.
We would live stream that one, for sure. Oh my goodness.
Testy Festy.
So gross. All right, everybody, join us next week.
Bye, everyone.