Odori Don
A Japanese and Korean delicacy, odori don, or odorigui, is a dish also known as the “dancing squid rice bowl.” This meal is exactly what it sounds like - a writhing squid (or similar sea creature) that thrashes and attempts to escape the bowl.
To create this animated meal, chefs remove the brain of a live squid, cuttlefish, or octopus and serve it above a bowl of rice. Because this fish is so fresh and with live nerve cells, when soy sauce is poured over its tentacles, the muscles react to the sodium stimulant, causing them to reactivate and the squid to “dance” in the bowl.
Culinary adventurers should be wary, though: this dish carries a health risk. Because the tentacles are covered in suction cups, it is possible that the still active nerve cells will cause them to lodge themselves to the inside of the throat, choking the person who is eating the dish. This danger is so real that some countries, like Australia, have banned the dish from being served in restaurants.
Drunken Shrimp
If the idea of choking on your meal isn’t appealing, there is another live seafood option that’s popular in Japan and China, called “drunken shrimp,” or qiang xia, which is said to be an aphrodisiac.
This dish is created by soaking live shrimp in a Chinese spirit, baijiu, or a similar alcohol, for about a minute until they are “drunk.” The alcohol is then dumped from their container and replaced with a marinade of your choice. Because the now “drunk” shrimp have become dehydrated, their bodies soak up the marinade, which can range in flavor from sweet, sour, or salty. The creatures are then served, still very much alive, in a covered goblet. To eat them, you tear off their heads and shells and consume their still-wiggling flesh.
Balut
This Filipino delicacy is not as cute as the name might imply: put simply, balut is a hard-boiled, fertilized duck egg with an 18-day old duck fetus inside it. When one considers that the total typical incubation period for a duck is around 24 days, that means that the duck fetus is nearly fully formed by the time it hits your plate, complete with eyes, beak, and feathers. These fertilized eggs are cooked for 20 - 30 minutes, then eaten directly from the shell, with the wider part cracked open to make it easy to sip the amniotic fluid and access the yolk and fetus, which are typically seasoned with salt, vinegar, or soy sauce. This dish -- which is even considered an “acquired taste” by many Filipinos -- is typically served with beer.
If you have an aversion to duck fetuses, this dish is also sometimes prepared with fertilized chicken eggs - although they are only incubated for 13 - 14 days, because the total incubation period for a chicken is only 21 days.
Tuna Eyeball
Tuna eyeball is another Japanese delicacy to make the list. These eyes are found in supermarkets around the country, with attached fish fat and muscle, and are so large that they are served by the pound. The dish is prepared by boiling and seasoning the eye, and is said to taste like squid.
The eyes are typically served atop a bowl of rice, and are said to be far more pleasing on the taste buds than they are on the eyes (pun intended).
Fruit Bat Soup
Fruit bat soup is exactly what it sounds like, but perhaps made more horrifying by the fact that the bats are not actually processed in any way prior to being cooked. The entire bat, including fur, entrails, wings, claws, and fangs, is boiled with vegetables and coconut milk and boiled down. Because these animals survive on a diet of toxic plants that have been linked to neurological problems in humans, consuming the whole fruit bat is not only gross, but may be hazardous to your health.
And if that isn’t enough to make your stomach turn, consider that in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak, the African nation of Guinea banned the consumption of bat soup, noting that the bat was a carrier of the Ebola virus that caused the largest outbreak in history, and that bat soup posed a threat to citizens who consumed it.
Rocky Mountain Oysters
Not all of the dishes on this list come from the far reaches of the globe. We only have to look within our own borders to find our final two contenders. Prairie oysters, also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters, are a dish made from bull testicles. This North American appetizer is made by removing the membranes on the testicles, pounding them flat, coating them in flour or breading, and deep-frying them.
Fried Brain Sandwiches
Another American addition to the list, the name is not at all deceiving. Fried brain sandwiches are made from slices of calf brains, breaded and fried, then served on a bun or hoagie roll. This dish has been banned throughout most of the United States because of the risk of contracting mad cow disease, but it is still popping up on some menus in areas where it is considered a delicacy.
While each of these dishes has made the list for its wacky characteristics or unusual ingredients, it’s important to keep in mind that many of the dishes that we eat on a daily basis are comprised of chemical additives, artificial flavors and colors that are potentially dangerous to our health, or artificial ingredients that - if not packaged brightly and marketed smartly, would likely wind up at the tops of a list like this. Pink slime, anyone?