Half-hatched eggs:
A speciality of the Philippines, balut is a fetal chicken in an egg, complete with its partly formed beak, bones, and feathers, which are eaten whole. Duck eggs are also used, and said to be an aphrodisiac. Like most weird foods, it’s said to taste much better than it looks – though you still have to pick the feathers out of your teeth.
Deep-fried bat:
Bats of various types are found in cooking pots around Southeast Asia, but fried bat is a particular delicacy in parts of Thailand and Laos, where a heap of crunchy flying rodents is usually served with dipping sauce. Reports say they taste pretty much like chicken. In Indonesia, bats are sold smoked and dried – like beef-jerky, with teetch, bones and wings.
Scottish special:
Scotland is justifiably famous for its weird national dish, haggis – a steamed sheep’s stomach stuffed with oatmeal and onions, served with “neeps and tatties” (mashed turnips and potatoes). A modern Scottish snack might instead feature a Mars bar (similar to a Snickers) covered in batter and then deep-fried for several minutes. Deep-fried pizza and fried beer-and-butter balls are also available. Scotland, by the way, has one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world.
Stinky fish:
Although some Asian sauces place highly in this category, the world prize for stinky fish food goes to the Scandinavian countries, where rotting fish cuisine is a source of national pride. Among the most famous is Swedish surströmming – fermented herring – which is prepared by leaving a barrel full of slightly-salted dead fish for a few months. In Iceland, a dish called hakarl is traditionally made by burying sharkmeat underground for several weeks. It’s often served with Icelandic potato wine, charmingly known as “Black Death.”
Dirty delicacies:
Although compulsively eating dirt can be signs of a mental illness (known as pica), in parts of Africa special types of clay are prized as a food additive, and are sold in the market place. And in Tokyo, top chef Toshio Tanabe has created an entire six-course meal of dirt dishes, starting with an amuse bouche of soil soup and ending with a soil sorbet. The house specialty is the “Soil Surprise,” a dirt-covered ball of mashed potato with a truffle centre.