Have we eaten any different dishes while travelling? Yes, we have! One of the best things about travelling is encountering new cultures and customs, and that means food that is different for us.
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Different dishes
Of course, what is "different" to eat depends on where you come from and what you are used to. For example, we remember inviting some camping neighbours from the Netherlands for crayfish - they definitely thought it was different, while it was quite normal for us.
The same applies, of course, to all the dishes and specialities we're telling you about today. Different for us - but probably very normal for someone else. In any case, we can say that we remember all these occasions and all these "delicacies" very well!
1. Egypt: Stuffed pigeon with legs
When we visited Sharm el Sheikh In Egypt, we had a guide one day. He asked where we wanted to eat and we suggested that he take us to a typical Egyptian restaurant. He did, and there he ordered us each a pigeon filled with rice.
We picked up a knife and fork, but the guide explained that we should eat with our hands and that we should also eat the bones (!). The bones were indeed relatively soft, and the guide devoured the just everything on the plate in a flash, but we still had a hard time eating the bones... The pigeon and the stuffing were excellent!
2. China: Cobra fish in sweet and sour sauce
I (Helena) visited China with my parents when I was 24 years old. My dad was a visiting professor there, and after working on and off in China for many years, my mum and I were also invited on a tour. It was a fantastic trip, visiting Beijing, Xian and Guilin, as well as being invited to the homes of my father's Chinese colleagues.
In China, we had lots of good food and I really learnt how to use it. love Chinese food during this trip. But not everything was good. Cobra fish in sweet and sour sauce was apparently an exclusive delicacy that took a long time to prepare, but it was ... not good. It's almost as if I still remember the hard, yet rubbery consistency. Unfortunately no photo ...
3. Philippines: Sea cucumber
When we were in the Philippines, we went boating for a period of time on a Philippine boat, and one day we went ashore on the small island of... Himokilan. Here we went on a guided tour to a cave, and afterwards we were invited to the home of the guide, who on this particular day held an 18th birthday party for his son.
We were generously offered all kinds of food, including sea cucumber, which is relatively popular in the Philippines as you can pick these on the sea bed. We both had some difficulty with the texture, which is both slimy and hard at the same time, but the marinade gives a good flavour!
4. Scotland: Haggis
When I (Helena) was doing my PhD in 2014, I visited the Glasgow in Scotland to persuade a researcher there to participate as an opponent in my PhD defence. The persuasion campaign went very well - he came to Stockholm on 31 December. my argument to ask all the hard questions - but before that he had time to invite me to the haggis.
Haggis is a Scottish dish made from the liver, lungs and heart of sheep along with oatmeal, onion, mutton tallow and lard. The ingredients don't exactly make the saliva flow, but the fact is that it tasted better than it sounds ...
5. France: Raw mussels, sea snails and fried shark
French cuisine offers many delicacies, but also some ingredients and specialities that may be perceived as different by us Scandinavians. When we travelled around Europe with our motorhome in 2015, we made a stop one day in the city of... Sète, located on a spit of land on the Mediterranean Sea.
Here we ordered a 3-course lunch, and the starter offered no less than three flavours that were different for us: raw mussels, sea snails and fried shark. As we recall, we found the starter to be luxurious and partly very tasty, although we had a hard time with the texture of some of the delicacies ...
6. Kenya: Getin elves
When we visited Kenya Many years ago, together with a friend from the country, we travelled by car with her and her family all the way from Nairobi to her relatives' village on the border with Rwanda. On the way, we had to stop to eat, and we stopped at a place that served goat intestines.
Most of the pieces were long and chewy, maybe intestines? It wasn't easy to eat... Some of the pieces were liver, which tasted better. Our African friends noticed that the diet was a bit difficult for us, and after a while they started to kindly pass the liver pieces to our side of the table...
7. Iceland: Surhaj, sheep testicles and sheep heads
Once a year they celebrate at Iceland a festival called Þorrablót, originally a pagan sacrificial festival held in the Old Norse month of Þorra, around February. During these festivities, people sing songs and drink spirits, as well as eating a lot of traditional food, which is loved by some, but not all...
Svið (boiled sheep's head) and hangikjöt (smoked mutton) can be quite tasty, while it is much harder to like hrútspungar (sheep's testicles) and hákarl. The latter of these has sometimes been called 'rotten shark', but surhaj or fermented shark is probably more accurate. Whatever the name, it takes a nubber or two to swallow ...
8. Mongolia: Horse milk
When we travelled on the Transmongolian Railway many years ago, from Moscow to Beijing, we made a few days' stop in Mongolia, where we stayed a night in yurt. As well as staying in our 'own' yurt, we got to visit a family living in the traditional way.
We couldn't talk to the family, as they didn't speak English, but they generously offered what they had, which included horse milk products. Most of our photos were destroyed because a horse stepped on our camera, but we remember it as a kind of semi-hard "horse milk balls". Tasty? No, but you do your best to eat politely ...
9. Czech Republic: Sausages with cream
The last time we visited the capital of the Czech Republic, we went on a tour of the city. food tour in Praguewhich was very interesting. During this tour, we got to try different local specialities, one of which was sausages that could be eaten with mustard. or cream. The combination with cream was completely new to us, and it may not sound very tasty, but it went down without a problem.
10. Philippines: Balot
We finish with a dish that we haven't actually eaten - a bit of a cheat. In fact, we were supposed to be eating balot, but it's not the same. did not go. The odour that rises from the egg when you peel it is sickening, and just being in the vicinity was enough to make the stomach turn. When we got a glimpse of the contents, it was even worse ...
Balot, or balut, is an egg with a duck foetus inside, which can be 16 or 18 days old. In the Philippines, you often see these eggs being sold by locals in small boxes, and we understand they are very popular.
What different dishes have you eaten while travelling?
What unusual dishes have you eaten while travelling? Please tell us!
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Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Gosh, I could write a whole post about weird food... Sea cucumber is really slimy and inedible. In Algiers I tried bull's tongue... it was chewy and lumpy with the skin still on. Bushrats in Nigeria taste better than the animal looks. Goat in Western Sahara with the liberation movement Polisario... it was alive when we left, slaughtered and we ate from it for about 4 days, then I had dysentery. We eat a lot of sea snails here in Belgium. During the 80's I had Icelandic friends whose mothers sent food... some tin with sheep eyes that stare at you when you open the can. Yes the list could be long ....
01 February 2024 - 6:40
Helena says:
Well, you might just have to write something about it, hehe! Bull pouch does not sound so tempting ... not eyes in a tin can either! But these things are remembered anyway 😉.
02 February 2024 - 16:24
Lena - good for the soul says:
We often eat as local food as possible when we are out. Although it may not be as extreme food as above 🙂 Haggis we ate in Scotland. We liked it too.
But damn, that last one. Eating foetus! No way.
Hug Lena
01 February 2024 - 10:24
Helena says:
Those eggs in the Flippins were very special. No, we didn't even manage to try a tiny bit ...
02 February 2024 - 16:25
Only British says:
No, I have never understood that egg. As I said, sea snails are available in Belgium, but it's still a bit exotic. Haggis, on the other hand, is mostly offal and semolina and we eat that here too, but in a different form. Småländsk sausage cake for example. Then haggis is much tastier!
Goat is good in itself and no meat is fun when you get those chewy parts that are not cooked so fun either. There are chefs who utilise everything "nose to tail" but they have the resources.
Surhaj sounds truly awful. Even celebrity chef Rick Stein couldn't pull it off.
01 February 2024 - 18:08
Helena says:
Well, there are special dishes in our own country too, not to mention surströmming.
02 February 2024 - 16:26
BP says:
Eggs with a duck foetus inside - that's the limit. Then these "maggots" were somewhat unappetising and reminded me of worms - another limit there;-) I have eaten sheep testicles and sheep's head in Morocco, but you have eaten so much more "exotic" food. I also like to try local dishes. I mean, if you don't try, you can't comment;-) One thing you've probably eaten in Spain is tapas with fried lung and sauce. Consistency like marshmallows, but good flavour:-)
01 February 2024 - 19:48
Helena says:
Yes, our limit was also at that egg ... We haven't tried that tapas in Spain. It doesn't sound too appealing really, but I promise to try it if the opportunity arises!
02 February 2024 - 16:28