7 National Foods That Could Make You Vomit

Traveling the world and sampling a varied cuisine is something that many of us dream of doing. Having spent a few years living on a ship I had the opportunity to sample some of them and to be honest my personal mantra of trying anything once went a bit far in some of these cases. I've tried them so you dont have to.

1. Fried Locust - Thailand, Cambodia,

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Yep, those are real locusts.

Walk down any busy street in Thailand and you will find a store with more bugs than an entomology professor's office.

How do they taste?

For starters they are kinda crunchy, but only on the outside. Once you get past the flimsy outer shell you have a mouth full of slightly chickeny goop and a shell that disintegrates almost into nothing. It actually blends with your saliva and is really hard to swallow because you don't seem to have anything in your mouth. Whilst at the time there doesn't seem to be much in there you do gradually come to the realisation that those things are almost 90% legs, at least it feels like that. These legs will spend the next few hours finding their way into all of the little corners of your mouth and lodging between your teeth.

I would not recommend these unless you are lost in the jungle and have a camera pointed at your face.

2. Chicken feet - China

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Well It's from an animal that is actually food so its a start.

In the west we would normally have these removed before the chicken is shrink wrapped but the Chinese seem to enjoy these alot.

How do they taste?

I tried this with some friends in Hong Kong and I'm sure they bought it for shock value, they had a good laugh as I tried to bite the meat off the bone like a chicken leg. This really didn't work and all I managed to do was remove a few chunks of leathery skin from the pad of the foot. My friends laughing began to devour the toes one by one and encouraged me to attack it properly. I did and the only word I can think of for how it was is "Crunchy". The overall experience would be similar to eating a very fatty chicken wing with a few soft boney bits inside and a lot of stringy bits.

3. Durian Fruit - Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia

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Tastes like Heaven, smells like Hell: That is how Durian fruit was sold to me. A better description would be "Imagine eating a quite nice strawberry smoothie in a terrible public toilet."

These things are one of the strongest smelling things in the world, so much so that trying to take one into the Singapore Metro or into a hotel would land you with a fine costing several hundred pounds.

What did it taste like?

I bought a pre prepared tub of it from a small street vendor in Malaysia for a few pounds. apparently this is milder because it has had the chance to air for a while, thank God I didn't have a fresh one.

The smell is best likened to a backed up sewer, seriously this fruit is yelling "DON'T EAT ME!!!" at the top of it's voice. The texture was similar to the bit of a banana that has gone black and you would normally throw away, it feels quite oily and a bit like sweet fruity yoghurt and once it touches your tongue it is quite sweet and relatively nice for a while, it is after I swallowed that my problems started.

That smell is something that doesn't go away once you decide to get rid of whatever's left of that God awful fruit in the nearest trash can, no it stays with you on your breath for many hours afterwards no matter what you eat or drink to mask the taste, I'm told that even vomiting doesn't solve the problem.

I had flashbacks to that every time I walked past a fruit stand and felt the compulsion to throw up.

4. Chicken intestines - Philippines, Cambodia.

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In South East Asia they treat chickens in a similar way to how we eat pigs and have ways of preparing almost every part.

Those little bits that we in the west have removed and replace with stuffing they find an abundance of uses for, most disturbingly BBQed intestines.

How did it taste?

I approached these with interest, after all they are just another part of the chicken how bad can they be... The answer is pretty damn bad, even for something that costs around 7p a stick.

It wouldn't take a biology professor to know that intestines are basically a long thin tube of tissue. What you may not know is that even when cooked intestines are actually pretty tough and whilst there is a distinct chickeny taste the rubbery straw that gradually breaks down in your mouth is something is just thoroughly unpleasant and hard to swallow even when covered in sweet chilli sauce.

5. Stinky Tofu - Taiwan

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As the name implies, this fucking stinks. Imagine spending the hottest week of the year hiking wearing 3 pairs of socks and without taking off your boots and that gets you some idea what the smell is like. It's not as bad as durian but its still pretty strong.

It is basically fermented tofu, that white stuff that vegans seem to love that tastes of nothing but white.

How does it taste?

This is one of the many street foods that on it's own would taste pretty foul but deep fried and properly sauced it is actually quite nice. The crispy outside was pretty awesome and the inside whilst a little squishy was pretty good too. once it has been chewed a few times the smell isn't really an issue.

6. Squid on a Stick - China, Japan

I have tried squid a number of times in the west. I hated it every time, rubbery, bland and pointless is how I would describe it in general. However I thought that BBQed it might be a little better.

I was wrong

How did it taste?

I didnt realise that it was possible for something to be both crispy and rubbery at the same time. I managed only one tentacle and spat that out on the street. It had clearly been marinaded but was still bland but the clincher was that i could feel all the different suction cups in my mouth and suddenly a partially chewed squid leg was lying on the floor soon to be eaten by the rats.

7. Balot - Philipines

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Abortion is something that I tend not to take a moral stance on, but when it comes to duck foetus I am not so sure.

This is one of the most popular foods in the Philippines and is also one of the leading causes of gout in that country according to my friend who diagnosed several people with it within a few weeks.

As with most countries I visited the locals were desperate to see the weird white people eat their favourite food, yeah they do actually like this, one guy ate 3 a day.

How did it taste.

I was introduced quite gently my first sample was a 16 day old egg and I didn't really like it. I had no idea how to eat it so my fingers were covered with a horrible glutinous slime and the chicken was crunchy and tasteless and I tried to eat some white stuff that tasted like rubber.

A few days later I was informed that it tastes crap unless you add salt and chilli vinegar and you are supposed to drink the "soup" from a little hole before removing the shell. this time it was actually quite nice and the flavour actually made the fact I was eating a foetus bearable. That white stuff even the locals wont touch.

The last time I trolled my friend who hadn't sampled it and made the little guy dance before munching on him, she was not impressed, even after I called it Derrik