Why the World’s Scariest Dinners Are Also Its Most Status-Laden

From black-market maggot cheese of Sardinia to fugu — fish banned by the Japanese emperor — the last from this Taste Trail series offers information on the science, economics and history of the most famous foods in the world. So all the items mentioned — witchetty grubs, snake wine, escamoles, balut and kumis — fall under ‘scary food’ only due to unstated ingenuity.

Every society is associated with a meal that intrigues people to experience it. The interesting fact about it is that it is not only the shame factor that matters, but also the fact that each of these seven exotic delicacies is aimed at solving different issues: survival, prestige, chemistry and pure determination. All of that will be explained below without any advertisements.

Witchetty Grub, Australia: Ancient Protein Science

Forget about cricket-flour protein bars, which can be found in health food stores – Aboriginal people of Australia discovered high-nutrition foods thousands of years ago. This caterpillar of Cossid moths that can be found in the roots of the witchetty bush in Central Australia has 38% protein and around 40% fat – an experience that would bring any sports nutritionist to tears. People who gather the grub have to keep to the rules, which are not written down but should be known: people are not allowed to dig too deeply into the roots of the bush because it will result in the death of the plant.

Snake Wine, Southeast Asia: When “Dead” Isn’t Dead

In the case of snake wine from Southeast Asia, it’s not so much the poison that’s the problem — ethanol has the effect of stopping the toxic proteins from being effective after the snake has been soaking in the wine for several months. The poison is safer than the snake itself. In 2013, a resident of Heilongjiang province in China was bitten by a cobra after she had been under the impression that it had died three months before. Snakes can go into a state of subdued activity due to a lack of oxygen and make it look like they’re dead. However, there is also a quieter economic story to tell about this. Conservationists believe that there is a connection between the snake wine trade and the issue of rats in Vietnam. Conservationists suspect that snakes are the natural enemies of the rats, who are currently damaging rice plantations in Vietnam. That means that each bottle of snake wine may result in certain damages for the economy of the country, which is the second-largest rice exporter in the world.

Fugu, Japan: The Poison Now Bound for Oncology

There is a detail that most articles on fugu tend to leave out: the emperor of Japan cannot eat fugu. There are no exceptions, and this rule has remained in place regardless of the person on the Chrysanthemum Throne. But this is not the end of the difference in treatment between the emperor and other people. To become a licensed fugu chef, one must distinguish five species of pufferfish among the 22 accepted species in Japan within five minutes and cut a whole fish in half within an hour. The twist, however, is that the tetrodotoxin that causes asphyxiation and is regarded as the most dangerous poison in Japanese cooking is now being tested as a non-opioid pain-relieving medicine in clinical trials.

Escamoles, Mexico: The Five-Year Lead Time

Escamoles in Mexico are popularly known as “Mexican caviar”, but the exact local-dialect nickname is la hormiga pedorra, which means “the farty ant”. It is because of the smell that escamoleros are able to search for them. Escamoles are nothing short of a genius in terms of their profitability because with 100 grams alone, one gets around 45 grams of protein, beating even chicken and beef, though the nests can take about five years to cultivate.

Balut, Philippines: An Industry Built on One Snack

Balut in the Philippines is generally known for the moral dilemma it raises, but not many people are clear about the industrialisation of the dish. Pateros, in the Philippines, is the first place where balut production was industrialised, and almost 80% of the duck eggs produced in the country are contributed by it. Nutritionally, this rare food is quite high – 188 calories and around 14 grams of protein per egg. However, from 1936 to today, the yolk contains about 25% more cholesterol than the FDA’s recommended intake for this ingredient.

Casu Marzu, Italy: A €3 Million Black Market

The Guinness World Records has officially recognised this cheese from Italy, made from the milk of sheep, as the most dangerous cheese in the world, which is confirmed by facts, because the larvae of Piophila casei can jump as far as 15 centimetres when disturbed. That is why it is customary to eat Casu Marzu with the eyes closed and the hand placed under the chin. It has been outlawed in Italy since 1962, with the possibility of being fined €50,000, but families in Sardinia still manage to sell approximately 100 tonnes of it per year on the black market, which makes around €3 million from illegal sales. Not so many products in the world can demonstrate cultural stubbornness better than these traditional delicacies.

Horse Milk, Central Asia: Older Than Written Language

Horse milk has been brewed in Central Asia for a long time, as kumis (or qymyz) can be called the world’s first functional drink. Traces of horse domestication for milking purposes were discovered in the Akmola region of Kazakhstan. There is evidence that horses started being milked in this area around 3500 BCE, which is considerably earlier than the development of writing. From the point of composition, mare’s milk is more like human milk than cow’s milk — lactose-rich and fat-poor. No wonder kumis is still considered a therapeutic drink in ex-USSR countries, which were using it to treat tuberculosis, among other things. Currently, Kazakhstan is killing around 30% of its horse population for meat and dairy production yearly, so it is the second biggest producer of horse meat in the world, which may surprise most Western eaters.

Seven meals and an immeasurable amount of creativity presented in the form of sensationalism. The story was never about the level of bravery demonstrated. Rather, the question had more to do with financing, given that every culture responds differently to the inquiry of what is worth taking a risk for.