Unusual Foods

There are a lot of strange foods out there.

 Food.  Glorious food.  There are a billions of types of food out there.  Some are much better than others in the opinions of many.  There are some that are considered repulsive in some cultures and are delicacies in others.  It's all a matter of opinion.  Nevertheless, here is a list of what I think are some of the strangest foods in the world.

Fugu Fish

 Ah yes, the puffer fish.  I used to live these funny little things when I was little.  They are quite normal little fellows until you startle them.  Then they inflate to triple their normal size and float away.  Most predators will not be able to swallow them when they are full of water.  Those that still try to eat a puffer fish are in for a bad surprise.  The fish is covered in highly toxic spines that have a lethal neurtoxin that is 1,200 times as powerful as cyanide.  A single fish could kill 30 adult humans.

Beauty can be deadly

This toxin is made by angry bacteria that live inside the fish.  A victim's nervous system slowly shuts off bit by bit.  First a person's fingers go numb, then their arms, then it seeps through their chest causing spasms and  vomiting, then their head goes numb, and finally their brain goes inactive causing their death.  Though the first four stages they remain consciousness.

And yet with all of that lethality, Fugu Fish are a delicacy in Japan!  It takes two years of intensive training for a cook to be certified to cook these deadly dishes.  Even with the training, approximately 5 people die every year from eating Fugu.

On a lighter (but slightly groser) note lets go on to..

Stink Bugs!

Yes, that's right, stink bugs.  Those nasty beetles that spray foul liquids at their enemies and small children who just want to be their friends.  Stink bugs fires streams of reactive liquid that is cyanide based and smells terrible.  Although the liquid is not poisons it is very noxious so predictors and humans alike try to stay clear of these pests.

There are some people who actually eat these little monsters!  It is rather common in Mexico to stuff stink bugs in tacos.  There are known as jumil, chinche de monte, or xotlinilli (the Aztec name rather than Spanish).  

Hakari (Greenland Shark)

Also known as the Sleeper Shark, Grey Shark, Gurry Shark, or "Really-big-but-lazy-shark".  This shark is a very slow (usually less than 1mph) moving creature that patrols the frosty waves around the North Atlantic shores.  It can grow up to the size of a Great White Shark.  Unlike its ferocious cousin, the Sleeper Shark prefers to scavenge for its food and sometimes small fish (it's still best not to try and swim with them though). 

The shark's 1-1.5 ton frame would be a great source of food if it were not for one problem.  You guessed it!  The shark is full of trimethylamine oxide.  What?  It has a poison with effects that make people seem drunk and poison their nervous system making them unable to stand.  This doesn't stop the people of Greenland and Iceland who have found a way to make the poison even more potent!  O joy!

When a Greenland Shark is killed it is burred in the ground for several years or until it has experienced freezing and thawing several times.  The then rotten shark is excavated and boiled repeatedly.  It is then eatin as a great delicacy along with all the bacteria that it must have accumulated over that time.

Weird But Common Food

Two words.  BLUE CHEESE.  Think about it.  That stuff is strange.  It's cheese that is made by letting  mold grow on it.  MOLD.  You know, like the stuff that grows on dead trees, dead animals, leaf litter, and stuff that I forgot in the refrigerator in 2007!?  Seriously, mold!  Who's idea was this?  If we left the cheese to it's own devices it just might eat itself, crawl out of the fridge, and attack us in our sleep!

On a more serious note, Blue cheese is a very old concept.  The oldest strain of blue cheese is Roquefort which was made in the first century AD.  Gorgonzola was produced in the ninth century and Stilton in the twelfth.  It may be considered normal in western culture but I think that this stuff is one of the strangest foods out there.






If you really think about it these are all just a mater of opinion.  A dish could be perfectly normal in one country and the strangest thing in another.  We all have our tastes and can't imagine anyone else having different ones than we do.



Notice:  If you are easily disgusted or upset by the eating of baby animals do not read beyond the red text.  Consider this the end of your weird food journey and have a good time thinking about stink bugs and blue cheese for dinner.

Warning.

Balut

Originally a dish from the Philippines.  It is the embryo of a duck eating within the shell.   The embryo is usually still in development.  It is cooked with salt, chilli, garlic, and vinegar.   Before consumption the shell is peeled back to expose the yolk and chick within.  In the Philippines the dish is served at 17 days old.  In Vietnam the Balut is served around 20 days when the bones have begun to form giving it a crunchy texture.

I almost feel like taking back what I said earlier about food choices being mater of opinions.  Almost.

Links to Posts

Wonderfully Weird Worms 

Strange Locations:Terrain 

 

Strange Locations: Terrain

Odd Terrains of the World

One might think that there are no new places on earth to look for odd terrain. It could be thought that space must be explored to find wacky mountains and strange canyons. Looking at the pockmarked surface of our moon or the size and grandeur of Olympus Mons (Latin for Mount Olympus)on Mars might make us think that we have little to compare here on our home planet. While Earth doesn’t have anything with the height or mass of Olympus Mons (which is over four times the height of Mount Everest), we still have our own odd terrain to boast.

Olympus Mons

 

 

 

Mount Roraima

This oddly shaped structure is on the border of three South American Countries (Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana). Its odd cubic shape rises 1300 feet and covers a massive 12,000 square miles on the mountain’s flat top. The sheer rock faces keep out anything that would wish to disturb the peace atop mount Roraima. The massive plateau is special in the fact that it generates its own unique habitat due to the isolation that the walls afford. The structure of this strange mountain is built of sandstone which is mostly devoid of plant life except for in a few locations. Unique species such as the Roraima Bush Toad are not found in any other location. Mount Roraima was inspiration for a location in the 2009 Disney film “Up”. The mountain is squared off as if it had been carved by some kind of titanic sculptor who wished for beautifully square block.

Minecraft anyone?

On the note of rocks that appear “sculpted by titans” you should take a look a...

The Giant's Causeway

Located in Northern Ireland these interlocking basalt shapes appear at first to be flagstones made my master craftsmen. They are usually hexagonal and almost always interlock perfectly. Upon further investigation it is revealed that they are more than just flagstones.

And they go on for miles. Three miles to be exact. The Giant’s Causeway lines the coast and sometimes form pillars in the range of 40 feet height! For years people marveled at the strange pillars which they could only theorize were built by giants. Now our best theories indicate that the magnificent Causeway was formed by volcanic basalt flows. When the flows cooled they contracted leaving the cracks that form the pillars. Many other places on earth have similar odd structures.

The most notable one is in Scotland directly across the water. This gave rise to the ledged that giants had built a bridge across the channel at one time.

Mir Mine

Being a mine, this is not so much a wonder of our planet, but it is still a sight to behold. Located in Mirny Siberia (East-Central Russia) it is the largest diamond mine in the world. Or rather was the largest mine, it was closed in 2011.At its average year it could produce around 10,000,000 carats (just over 2.2 tons) of diamonds per year. This generated employment for 3600 workers and made $600,000,000 for extracting the gems.

This mine is 1,722ft deep and 3,900ft wide. This makes it the second largest excavated hole in the world. My attempts at digging to China in the back yard are put to shame. The mine is in a zone where the permafrost makes it impossible to use traditional mining methods so the Soviet engineers who started the project had to resort to explosives and jet powered devices to clear out the rock.

Another unusual fact about the Mir Mine is that Helicopters are not allowed to fly in it. Apparently the size of the hole creates unusual winds that can suck down aircraft crashing them against the bottom and sides.

Ankarana Rocks

Anyone who is familiar of the “Madagascar” franchise will remember the predator side of the island.It is a mess of rocks and jungle enclaves. The gray stone forms massive blade like wall structures. Gloom and rain prevail and the bleak landscape gives off an air of hopelessness.Such a desolate place must not be real.

Right?

Nope!

Ouch!  It would hurt to stand on top of one of these.

Minus the gloom this is an accurate description of the Ankara Reserve towards the northern tip of Madagascar Island. Sheer cliffs over 900 feet protect the area from intruders. The massive walls of limestone have been eroded into sharp points by the 79 inches of annual rainfall. These odd rock blade in Ankara Park split up the dense rainforest within. Ankarana has my vote as one of the strangest places on Earth.

I hope you enjoyed the tour!

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Wonderfully Weird Worms 

Unusual Foods

Wonderfully Weird Worms

Worms: we all know them.  Little brown invertebrates with long round bodies that sometimes excrete slime when they feel threatened.  But for the most part our common earthworms will try to tunnel back underground when they are removed.

Common Earthworm

They chew through soil in our gardens aerating it and leaving fecal material that acts as fertilizer.  Not particularly threatening, right?  Not particularly strange or odd either.  Just happy little fellows doing good for our gardens and environments.  Surely there can't be any relatives of this creature that are at all strange, unusual or odd.

                                                Wrong!

Giant Gippsland Earthworm

Yikes! That's just a small one!
 Just look at it!  Imagine what kind of fish you could be catching with that thing.  Now I have a mental image of a little boy chasing his sister around with one of those.
"Mom!  Jimmy chased me with an earthworm."
"Tell him to stop then.  It can't be too bad."
"Hi mom look at this worm I found!"
"That's nice Jimmy, just put it back and stop chasing your sister with...  EEEEKKKK!!!"

alt="huge earthworm size"

Just another size comparison for this monster worm

The giant Gippsland earthworm is also known as Megascolides Australis.  As the Latin name suggests it is native to Australia.  Although it averages at about 3 feet long the Giant earthworm can be a monster at up to 10ft in length.  Besides its size the giant earthworm is not very different from its smaller cousins.  It is merely a variant of one of the 1000 species of worm that are native to the country/continent.

Not weird enough?  Let's look at some more strange worms!

Blue Worm

Pheretima darnleiensis is native to Borneo, New Guinea, and many surrounding island.  It is only seen by humans when flushed out its burrows during the rainy season.  It can grow up to 70cm in length (2.3ft).
This unusual blue worm is not very different besides its large size and strange coloring.  




The Giant Blue Earthworm has virtually no natural predictors aside from the Kinabalu giant red leech (pictured to the right).  The Leach (Mimobdella buettikoferi ) is even rarer and we know little about it besides what it eats.  It to is often flushed out from its hiding places by heavy rain.

So far the worms haven't been to fantastic.  Ok so maybe they are blue, or red, or really big but what else?  Nothing here has been to fantastic or extraordinary.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...

The Bobbit Worm

Holy cow what is that thing!?
Is it dangerous?  Is it going to eat me?  Does it want my soul?  Did it crawl out of the abyss or some kind of mad scientist's laboratory?  Who's twisted idea was this?

I swear it's natural, this horrible creature is the great and mightly Bobbit Worm.  Fear the worm's wrath and tremble before its power!

Not really, it's not quite so large as it looks from the picture, but the head of the Bobbit worm is quite strange.  Most don't grow beyond 4in but there have been some that grow up to a meter in length.  Bobbit worms are not aggressive toward humans but they can deliver a bite that permanently numbs humans.  That's right permanently so don't make it angry.

The Bobbit worm is also known as Eunice Aphroditois or sometimes simply as a sea worm.  It is omnivorous but generally sticks to eating other living creatures this monstrous worm lies hidden in the silt and gravel on the sea floor.  It then lunges out at lightning quick speeds to snap up its prey in spike-covered jaws.  Theses weird worms are known to rend their prey in two with their lightning attacks.

ROAR!

Links to Posts

Strange Locations:Terrain 

Unusual Foods