All of us have our own preferences especially when it comes to food. There are a lot of delicacies which we’ve probably heard of but we’ve never tasted before as it’s something that is out of the norm in the society we were living in.
Here are some delicacies from different parts of the world which are weird to us Malaysians but deemed normal for different groups of people from where they are originated. Are you ready for it?
P/S: You might want to steer clear from this if you just had a heavy meal
1. The beating heart of a venomous cobra
Source: Vietnamese Food Channel
Hello from Vietnam. This is not just any heart but a beating heart of a cobra.
Technically speaking, the cobra’s heart has to be extracted with a knife while the snake is still alive. It will be served to the customers immediately in a shot glass of cobra blood and alcohol.
2. Balut
Balut is a developing bird embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell. It originated from and is commonly sold as street food in the Philippines. This delicacy can also be found in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.
3. Virgin Boy Urine Eggs
How can we forget about China when it comes to weird delicacies? Virgin Boy Urine Eggs is a delicacy that is prepared by boiling (chicken) eggs in the urine of young boys, preferably under the age of ten. It’s a traditional dish of Dongyang in China and it’s normally called as “Tong Zi Dan”. “Tong Zi” means young boy and “Dan” means egg so the direct translate will be “Boy’s Egg”.
And it’s actually a springtime tradition of the city where the urine is collected from pre-adolescence male. From what we’ve gathered, this is good to prevent heat stroke.
4. Cheese with live maggots
Source: worldwidefacts.tumblr.com
This ain’t ordinary cheese, but cheese with maggots! Italian farmers put the cheese in a round mould until it is ready to eat. Some didn’t stop there. Once these cheese wheels crack, exposing the inside of the cheese to flies, the flies will lay their eggs in there and yes, maggots will come to live after a few days and wriggle their way through the cheese as well. Their saliva will soften the cheese even more and they will start to poop out whatever they’ve eaten. So… conclusion, the whole chemistry process eventually make the cheese soft and easy to spread. Consumers who purchase this particular cheese will eat the entire thing (yes, including anything that are still wriggling on it). Anyway, is actually illegal but it is available in black markets in Italy.
5. Bull penis, lamb penis, black dog penis
Back to China again, there’s this place call The Beijing Penis Restaurant which serve, well, penis.
According to a blogger named Michael who shared his experience on his blog, bull penis is slightly sinewy and slimy and it taste pretty much like fat. Lamb penis taste pretty much like a tendon while black dog penis had a rather dirty taste and was the hardest to swallow so you definitely need a lot of sauce to make it palatable.