It’s time for gastronomic adventures. Bear with us and prepare your stomach, as it’s the Swiz Disgusting Food Museum. The description alone is going to make you rethink some things.
According to the authors of the exhibition, the feeling of disgust from an evolutionary point of view has often been helping our ancestors avoid unsafe food and, as a result, diseases.
As the authors say, disgust has been helping us evolve. You see it, smell it, feel sick, then put it back down and tell the rest not to eat that. Ultimately, it’s a survival mechanism. However, different cultures love experimenting and have different preferences. For some insects or long-stored meat is a life necessity. For others — even life or death like…
So, we neither judge nor discriminate today. We simply present diversity.
80 exhibits. Almost every one of them is for you to enjoy. “Please, do touch,” says the sign on some dishes.
Special excursions are organized from time to time, so you can try them and never ever forget the taste.
We’ll start with simple. Then, slowly be going down to gastronomic hell.
Licorice
This Scandinavian treat opens the list. Tolerated and even loved by many. A simple treat made of licorice root is not only a candy, but also good medicine for the stomach and many-many more aspects of the human body health.
Let’s go to something slightly more horrible, shall we?
Kumis
Made by fermenting raw unpasteurized milk for several days, it is a traditional beverage for Kazakhs. It is stirring and churning for a while, and the fermentation process (Lactobacilli bacteria) makes it an alcoholic drink through acidification and yeast.
Feels tough already, doesn’t it? Let’s move on.
The next cocktail catches your eye.
Sip it up – it’s tomato juice with a sheep’s eye floating in it! This juice is popular in Mongolia as a hangover remedy.
Mopane worm
Women harvest those worms once or twice a year in most rainy seasons. Several weeks of harvesting. Then comes the cooking process: it’s getting gutted, boiled, then dried. Sometimes there is a necessity to remove hairs and outgrowths and make sure that there are no poisonous plants feeding worms.
The rest are to be soaked, stewed, or fried and eaten like chips with onions and tomatoes. Crunchy!
Casu marzu, Sardinia
Some say that this cheese recipe is hundreds of years old. There is a version that kasu martsu appeared when they were making pecorino. They left it for a while until it rotted. And, well, it was expensive to make cheese in those days – so they gave it a try.
Cuy (pronounced “kwee”). A poor guinea pig.
The cooking process is fast and easy. They marinate it in a mixture of onion, green pepper, chili, and cumin, then cook it for about 20 minutes over hot coals until a crisp golden crust. Tender and juicy, it tastes like rabbit…
Deep-fried tarantula
Well, it’s just a deep-fried tarantula… Maybe it’s a way for arachnophobes to overcome their fear by eating the enemy? However, we do not think that this poor thing is too small for a decent meal. Perhaps, a quick snack to have during a lunch break.
Callu de Cabrettu
Don’t let that pretty name fool you.
Callu de Cabrettu is one of the oldest types of cheese. The recipe is more than 6000 years old.
At first, they slaughter a young little goat and take out the stomach that is still full of mother’s milk. Then they wail till it turns into cheese by the acids and rennet. A warm and dry place to let it lose moisture. One of the cruelest dishes on today’s list.
Mice wine. Korea.
They do not have mercy on Jerrys.
Making it in the countryside, they take a bottle of rice vodka and throw a newborn mouse while it’s alive. Within 3-4 days the wine is ready to be served.
Koreans believe the drink is an elixir for all diseases.
It is better to go to the museum on an empty stomach. As it’s the collection of the most extreme, hardcore cuisine.
“Your ticket is a bag of vomit with our logo on it,” says Samuel West, the museum’s founder.
