It Is A Glorious Day: Visit the Disgusting Food Museum. A Real Story

When I was a kid, going on a field trip was an exciting time. We would go and see the zoo, a science center as well as the museum and more. Museums had neat things like rocks, dinosaur bones, moon rocks and more. Part of our visit always involved a trip to the gift shop. This was a special place where we could spend money cheap stuff including everything from a dinosaur bone key chain to a fake moon rock with a picture of the moon behind it and more. Things are sure different now. In Los Angeles, there is the disgusting food museum. I remember growing up what adults thought was disgusting to us kids often seemed sort of neat. Putting ketchup on macaroni and cheese could make my father nauseated and was forbidden. I once put mustard on my french fries. My parents felt I may have some sort of food preference disorder I inherited from my cousin who lived in Eastern Europe. I don't know what it would be like to visit the Disgusting Food Museum, but I bet they have some really neat and cheap things in their gift shop based on their displays.

“Uugh, this is a picture of macaroni and cheese with ketchup. That is disgusting.”

“Do you not like it?”

“No, but my son will love it. I'll take two and throw in that picture from Eastern Europe of french fries with mustard.”

“Oh, okay.”

Below are excerpts from the story with my valuable insights in italics.

Escargot. Cow brains. Turtle soup. Rocky Mountain oysters. Depending on where a person’s from and what culture they were raised in, these foods either sound delicious or supremely unappetizing. Then again, lots of Americans subsist on deep-fried nuggets of molded pink meat slime, so what qualifies as disgusting is pretty subjective. But there’s an old rule of thumb in the food world: Never yuck someone else’s yum.

They forgot a few things my father would eat. He would dine on something called tripe. Should you have had the benefit of never experiencing this type of food, it is the lining of a cow's stomach. I was told tripe was for the discriminating palate and was made into the French dish Andouille. There are many things people eat if you cook it and put a French name to it. It is almost like you can prepare any disgusting animal or animal part, but if you put a French name to it, the dish is refined. That is probably the reason people are willing to kick out some serious cash for cooked snails known as Escargot.

“Oh, tell me garcon, what is the special tonight?”

“Ah, monsieur et madame, our special of the house tonight is cerveaux de vache served with a white wine sauce, a vegetable and cheese potatoes.”

“Wait a minute, isn't cerveaux de vache cow's brains?”

“So it is, maybe I could interest you in some jarret de cochon.”

“Hey, isn't that pig's knuckles?”

“Yes it is, but it is prepared like all tasty French cuisine and comes with a French sauce and an appetizing French name.”

“Okay, we'll take two.”

“Excellent choice monsieur et madame.”

Consumed in China as a health tonic for ailments including asthma and liver diseases, the drink recipe requires a handful of day-old, blind, and hairless baby mice that are drowned in a vat of rice wine and aged for up to a year. Critics have described the brew as tasting like gasoline, with an aftertaste of rotting animals (which makes sense). The smell is pungent and not for the faint of heart. Don’t expect to find this concoction on the wine list of your local Chinese joint.

I think if I had to drink a concoction made from hairless and blind baby mice, I may choose to have liver disease or asthma. I realize these are not just any hairless and blind baby mice, these mice have been aged for a year in rice wine. I wonder if they have exterminators in China going around with vats of rice wine in their vehicle so they can have a side business selling liver disease and asthma cures. They could tell potential customers, they won't just exterminate the mice in their dwelling, they'll exterminate their liver disease and asthma as well.

Sheep Eyeball Juice

Also known as a “Mongolian Mary,” this concoction is prepared using tomato juice and pickled sheep eyeballs, and is a hangover helper said to Genghis Khan. The jelly-like organs suspended in the drink are said to be highly nutritious when consumed in generous helpings.

(Sarcasm Alert)

I suppose if you wonder why Genghis Khan was able to conquer so much of the world, I believe sheep eyeball juice was probably part of his success. You may be one tough soldier, but you probably don't know tough until you've had a generous helping of sheep eyeball juice. I'm sure it works to cure hangovers. I doubt someone such as Genghis Khan would tolerate anyone giving him a concoction that didn't work. He may then have had, the idiot who provided me a faulty hangover cure eyeball juice. It's good to know that sheep eyeball is something that is nutritious. I would hate to think legions of blind sheep lost their sight in Mongolia for nothing.

Fruit Bat Soup

This delicacy from Guam may reek heavily of urine, but the sweet, final product is purportedly so rewarding that the native Chamorro people had nearly hunted the flying mammal to extinction. Exotic food connoisseurs beware—the bats can be carriers of dangerous toxins which, when consumed by humans, may lead to neurodegenerative disease.

So, I guess if you can get past the smell of urine, it is something great to have as a snack or as part of a meal.

This makes me wonder if the Chamorro people are immune to the dangerous toxins found in the bat or if they love it so much, they're willing to risk developing a neurodegenerative disease. I suppose it is sort of like eating Spam. You know it may not do wonders for your health, but when cooked over an open fire, it is difficult to resist. Twinkies are similar, but with all the preservatives it has, I often wonder if it could be helping preserve those of us who eat them.