HeWhoseNameMustNotBeSpoken says:

huitlacoche is a naturally occurring mold that happens on corn and is considered quite a delicacy by many Latin American cultures…meso Americans (think Mayas and Aztecs) are generally credited with having started cultivating this type of fungus as a foodstuff.

Nathan says:

Christ… that canned chicken is beyond disgusting. In all honesty that was the most disturbing thing for me.

Sam says:

What is so disgusting about all these things?
you must have an awful diet to not think some of these things would taste nice.

Tracy says:

Most of what’s pictured here isn’t any grosser than what McDonalds or KFC has to offer…just looks bad. If you really want to know what you eat…better cook it from scratch yourself.

kimmeh says:

I like liverspread. And fish balls. And those luncheon meat stuff.

Warren says:

Huitlacoche, Mexican truffle, corn smut, or whatever name you choose, is quite common in Mexican cuisine in Southern California and Arizona. Most people who have been bold enough to venture beyond taco bell, or the street vendors, have probably eaten it. I admit the canned stuff is not very visually appealling, but the flavor is still good. The fresh product is much better in texture as well as taste. The fresh huitlacoche can be found here fresh at various farmers markets in the summer, and is even grown as far north as Wisconsin. Try it!

myk b says:

Actualy Heinz hot beans with balls are great on toast

Jackye Chan says:

That grass jelly is used in Vietnamese desserts. You serve it chilled with some coconut milk.

Lard (from pasture-raised animals) is actually good for you. “Lard, although commonly misidentified as a saturated fat, should really be classified as a monounsaturated fat. According to Mary Enig, author of Know Your Fats, lard is about 40 percent saturated, 50 percent monounsaturated, and contains 10 percent polyunsaturated fatty acids. It is also one of our richest dietary sources of vitamin D. ”

“In 1956, an American Heart Association (AHA) fund-raiser aired on all three major networks. The MC interviewed, among others, Irving Page and Jeremiah Stamler of the AHA, and researcher Ancel Keys. Panelists presented the lipid hypothesis as the cause of the heart disease epidemic and launched the Prudent Diet, one in which corn oil, margarine, chicken and cold cereal replaced butter, lard, beef and eggs. But the television campaign was not an unqualified success because one of the panelists, Dr. Dudley White, disputed his colleagues at the AHA. Dr. White noted that heart disease in the form of myocardial infarction was nonexistent in 1900 when egg consumption was three times what it was in 1956 and when corn oil was unavailable. When pressed to support the Prudent Diet, Dr. White replied: “See here, I began my practice as a cardiologist in 1921 and I never saw an MI patent until 1928. Back in the MI free days before 1920, the fats were butter and lard and I think that we would all benefit from the kind of diet that we had at a time when no one had ever heard the word corn oil.”

AngelicDirt says:

The question becomes… who the hell cans bacon and why?

zoy says:

THATS DISGUSTING i want to vomit who is their right minds eats any of this??????

Zachary says:

Some truly disgusting looking food! I eat the hotdog sausages in a can, they’re tasty. Check out Steve Sneed’s blog for a review of Huitlacoche and some other weird food.

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000344.php

Ammie says:

As people have been saying some of the food here are generally normal.
Also I must include powdered eggs. It is generally used in certain recipes which require raw eggs (and the dish itself is not cooked) so instead the powdered form can be used due to the whole Salmonella raw eggs scare.
No one eats the egg powder on its own (from what I know at least).

Howie says:

The armadillo and possum are novelties- I believe sold empty in crap holes like Stuckey’s and South of the Border( pedro says !)

John B. says:

Most of this stuff isn’t that bad. Americans tend to be wusses when it comes to food. Europeans, Asians and other cultures use as much of an animal as much as possible. Other items on this list such as powdered eggs are quite common, you just don’t know it’s used quite a bit in restaurants. Canned roast beef is common – just go to Costco! But some of these labels look like they’ve been Photoshopped (fake) but I bet the vast majority of these are real (I think the Reindeer Pate, Heinz balls and Creamed Armadillo are faked). I guess people here haven’t visited Asian or Latin markets before? 90% of this stuff isn’t new to me. I don’t eat this stuff, but it doesn’t gross me out either.

Brittany says:

I’ve eaten the canned bread. It’s just uncooked dough in the can. You take it camping, open up both ends and cook it on it’s side…voila bread. They also make cinnamon rolls like this for camping…think of it as longer lasting pillsbury stuff.

Byrdie says:

Earthworm dirt AND moldy cardboard?

FN host responses: “Yummo!” “How bad can that be?” “Off the chain!” “Start with two sticks of butter”

Real world response: gack

Loqe says:

That “squid herring” is actually a delicious, if smelly, dish in northern Sweden called “surströmming” served with potatoes, onions, sour cream, flat stone-oven baked bread and a Lot of schnapps.

Nazreel says:

And people wonder why I’m a vegetarian!

Amanda Damron says:

Dude, there is totally a restuarant about 15 miles from my home at the Breaks Interstate Park called the Roadkill Kafe.. thankfully, they don’t serve roadkill

? says:

What’s so unusual about canned hot dogs…? Well, I know hot dogs are just disgusting anyway, but isn’t it normal for them to come in cans?

nathan says:

I hate to admit it but I have eaten the caned pork brains its popular with hillbilly’s like my grand mother and father
my grandfather ate them every morning with eggs
its hard to imagine but they are pink and gray at the same time and never change in appearance no mater how long you cook them but they don’t taste bad sorta like the stuff inside a bone

Fat says:

I live in England, i think about 5% of that stuff is pretty normal, at least for here. :P

Canned hotdogs – Tastes just like any other processed meat, like ham/spam.

Tinned baked beans – How is that weird?

Lard – used for cooking, durdurpdur?

Jellied eels – Yes, i’ll admit, gross, but not unusual to see over here.

Luncheon meat – For sandwiches, not something i like personally.

Fish Balls – Doesn’t your country have chinese takeaways? Though i have to admit i’m not sure they’re always in cans.

Honestly, i’ve seen worse over here… so many choices of canned foods, some is alright (about 10%, lol)… some, like tinned burgers, not. I’ve seen a few ‘meals’ in cans too like beef, potatoes and gravy in a can, yuck.

Sarah says:

Surstromming isn’t “Squid” herring, it’s FERMENTED herring.

MindStrider says:

As an Englishman I find quite a lot of those things to be not in the least odd or disgusting! It’s all relative, I guess. Jellies Eels are a tradition. Tongue meat? Sure, I love it. Have it in sandwhiches. Luncheon meat? Yep, that too. Sausages and meatballs in cans, with beans… nothing new there either. Sauasges and baked beans in cans are a good way of getting lunch quickly and easily… what’s wrong with them?

Guess it’s all about what you’re used to, huh?

Rabbit says:

I think the thing Americans find odd about the canned beans with balls, and “Bangers” isnt so much what is in the can as how it is labeled. My own juvenile sense of humor had a laugh at the “balls” and “bangers”. Its just not how we would label them, as for the other things, jellied eels? Gross.

Lizzie says:

I fail to see what’s so gross about any of that stuff. My step-daughter brought home a box of Chinese leftovers that included jelly fish, only reason I turned it down was I was still really hungover from girls’ night. I’m pretty adventurous with food most of the time though.

As for the beanz and balls, what gives? That sounds quite yummy. Bangers and mash is a really good meal; what could be wrong with sausage and mashed potatoes? Gotta love the British for calling big ass sausages bangers.

My grandparents who grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, had canned pork brains in their pantry pretty much all the time until they had to stop eating them because of the cholesterol content. They also kept canned bulk sausage, Vienna Sausages and Potted Meat Product in their pantry and stopped buying those for the same reason.

Chunja says:

Grass jelly ain’t that bad. It’s not that disgusting either.

Russian herring scares the crap out of me, though.

Brian says:

No matter what the food is, canning makes almost everything look less palatable, often very unappetizing to the eye.
If you haven’t eaten pork in many weeks or months, then open a canned pork product, it smells like pure Hellish death! Before you critisize the food that you are not familiar with, try that experiment with pork first. It will give you a whole different perspective on “how can anybody eat that?”
Several, but far from all, of these contents are not only actually tasty, but to me not even as odd as the post would suggest. I’d like to try the reindeer in making a spaghetti meat sauce as I know the venison version can be very good.
Insects can be very similar to shrimp tails, that doesn’t sound so bad now does it? Lobsters are the sea versions of cockroaches; same family, look it up, it’s true!

matteo says:

wow molto buono!

Cake says:

Sorry i meant “food that people around you wouldn’t eat”

ajz says:

There’s nothing wrong with grass jelly!! Just an unfortunate translation from its Chinese name. It makes a hell of a dessert.
But seriously… what happened to eating un-canned (??) hot dogs, beef… whole chicken??!!

robb says:

yikes !!
they’re just gross !!
did anyone really eat those ?

Larry Kanyonga says:

No sabía del huitlacoche estaba enlatada. Se consigue fácilmente en los tianguis en donde venden productos del campo pero no imaginé enlatados.

kokesh says:

Squih Herring is swedish Surstromming ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming ) – fermented fish in a can, which smells like hell. Must be eaten far away from house :)

saaikodetsu55 says:

I LOVE GRASS JELLY
that stuff rules
it’s not made from grass
it has no relation to grass
it’s just made from a plant whose name is literally translated into immortal grass
that doesn’t mean it is grass
someone decided it was just grass though
:(
The horror
:D
I know this because I am an asian
muahahaha
anyway
I like it in black tea
everything else on that list looked disgusting
but the last three were just funny
:D

Alex says:

Quail eggs are a quite popular dish here in Brazil. We don’t buy them canned, but sometimes pickled. I don’t think there’s anything disgusting about them, they look just like chicken eggs, but smaller.

And well, fish balls are just like meat balls, but made of fish, of course!

But my favourite is the buzzard. dunno why though

Ed says:

Where’s the store that sells all this good stuff? Want to go down a stock up now!!!

Tyler Peel says:

Hmmm… Reindeer Pate! I know a 8 y/o who’s getting something special in his stocking this year! (He’s affectionately referred to as Son of Satan)

abby says:

its so awfull

lordofnothing says:

Huitlacoche is a kind of mushroom, tipically from mexico, and the yellow things on it are corn,as a lot of things on these pics it looks as nasty cuz its canned, its actually pretty tasty.

wendy says:

Huitlacoche is corn smut, which is a disease of maize caused by the pathogenic plant fungus Ustilago maydis. It is usually eaten as a filling in quesadillas and other tortilla-based foods.

Andrew M says:

Most delicious food , i have ever seen…

D says:

I’ve had the canned squid (too salty) and canned quail eggs (rubbery) before. The canned possum and armadillo grossed me out. I agree with what people said about the fishballs (ground up fish not actual “balls”). They sell those frozen in the Philippines as street food, deep fried on a skewer, then dipped in your sauce of choice.

Ali says:

I want to see someone eat surströmming on Fear Factor.
they have to be the ones to open the can too. No airing that out, ever. I DARE them!

Sarah says:

I’ve actually had quail eggs and grass jelly. Quail eggs are sort of like chicken eggs, hust smaller with a “squishier” yolk. Grass jelly doesn’t contain real grass, the “grass” is a kind of herb and it actually tastes good. :)