What is the most disgusting food you were surprised to enjoy?

It’s not snails or balut, but the thought of fried peanut butter jelly sandwich with American cheese does sound disgusting. Right?

It…was….a….maz….ing! I was a very picky eater as a child. This is as adventurous as it gets for me.

Calf brains and raw beef (wagyū). The wagyū was especially good.

I guess these don’t seem disgusting at first (maybe the brains) but I have not eaten many exotic foods. The food that’s seemed most disgusting to me is tripe, which looks and smells awful (or more punningly offal) and has made me gag each time I’ve tried it.

Octopus

Steamed clams, for one. My mother said, “Don’t look at them. Just pop them in your mouth.”
It was love at first bite.
For two, fried calamari. In Italy, I ordered Frito Misto. It included calamari with its little tentacles. My mother wasn’t with me. I couldn’t make myself eat it. 30 years later I tried it and I’ve been kicking myself ever since for wasting all that time NOT eating something so delicious. I could have been eating it for 30 more years! What a dolt!

Don’t say it too loud in front of Dr J, but… jellyfish.

Curry cow tongue, it was just tasty until i realized what I was eating. it was good though.

Shrimp.

Durian. Wow, that fruit has a stench. I’d tried durian-flavoured foods before, and I despised those, so I figured I’d stay away from the fruit itself even though I lived in Singapore for 10 years. Finally got around to tasting it last year and it’s one-of-a-kind. Creamy custard texture. Wow.

Kimchi…vile looking, foul smelling, barely edible and tasted blech. Amazing what you will eat when hungry.

Alligator, snake tail, escargot, shark, eel, frog legs… I enjoy all of these things except maybe shark… too spongy

Oysters

sauerkraut

As a vegetarian I’m coming from a completely different place than everyone else, so far. All of those icky meat and fish things are not even an option, by choice, for me (and I’m glad, because most of them sound really awful).

That being said, when I was a little kid, the smell and the thought of mayonaise was truly revolting. But when I got to be in my 20’s I tasted some and now I really like it.

And although I’ve tasted and eaten okra in all different incarnations, I never found a preparation that I could stomach until a few years ago when I had some at an Abbysinian restaurant. Somehow, it was flashfried (so it was not greasy) and it was crisp and crunchy and dusted with teff flour. No slime, no grit, no funny aftertaste.

Another thing that sounds awful, but tastes pretty good is seaweed salad that is served at many Japanese restaurants.

And mushrooms (of any kind) used to hate ‘em till I ate ‘em! Now I can’t live without ‘em.

I was always afraid to try Rutabagas, just because that word sounds like something icky. Well, in the last 6 months I’ve been roasting them, marinating them, grating them and eating them raw in all sorts of things. And I love them! They’re similar in taste to a parsnip, but they’re a little sweeter and less earthy.

When I first became a vegetarian, I was a little wary of trying tofu, but now tofu is just as common for me as cheeseburgers are for the rest of you folks.

And last, but not least, there is a local restaurant that serves it’s burgers (veggie and regular) with mayonaise, peanut butter and pickles as the topping. Sounds revolting, tastes like heaven!

As I just wrote on another thread, I eat a lot of things people think are gross. Tongue, tendons, tripe, liver, kidneys, various critters. One of the best experiences was snapping turtle barbecue with a friend. I don’t think I’ve ever thought any of them were gross.

Raw Oysters – even without the cocktail sauce!

I have to add one thing that just loved but found I no longer could stand . . . kidneys. I thought they were just great until after I married and had my first baby. I think I cooked them 3 times and each time, my husband walked in the door and asked if there was a problem with the baby’s diapers because the house smelled of urine. Then I smelled it too . . . that was the last time I had kidneys. Or is this too off topic?

Thousand Year Old Egg

@Schroedes13 Describe the taste and smell.

@cletrans2col It actually isn’t the taste and smell that threw me off; it was the look. Think of jet black eggs! That is Thousand Year Eggs. It has an eggy type smell, kind of like egg salad and it tastes quite salty.