Here are four foods that people have had to eat because there weren't many culinary options available to them. We have to say, someone would have to be pretty hungry to eat these willingly!
In No Random Order Of Deliciousness…
Hardtack
Hardtack is a simple biscuit made from water and flour, which is then baked till it's rock hard. The harder and dryer the biscuit is made, the longer it will last, making this fairly unappetizing dish a staple for armies and navies ever since there were armies and navies to need it. If kept in ideal conditions, it is claimed that hardtack will keep almost indefinitely (there are examples in museums that claim to date from the mid-19th century) but, as you might expect, on an old-fashioned wooden sailing ship, conditions were always far from ideal. This meant that if you were lucky, you got a flavorless, but seriously hard dinner, and if you were unlucky it was filled with bugs.
Kiviak
Kiviak is a dish eaten by the Inuit people of Greenland. To produce it, you need a dead seal and several hundred Auks, which is a kind of seabird. The Auks are packed whole into the hollowed-out seal (yes, whole), then the seal is sewn up, the remaining air squeezed out, fat rubbed on to deter flies, and then the whole thing is placed under a large rock to keep the air out.
Over a period of months, the birds ferment to the point where they can be removed and eaten safely without any other preparation. This is usually timed so that the food becomes available in the winter, when supplies can run low and the lack of light makes hunting difficult.
Fruit bat soup
Sometimes survival just means making do with what you have, and on the islands of Palau, what they have is bats. Fruit bats are preferred to the insect-eating bats because their diet is cleaner, and to prepare them, they are boiled for several hours in coconut milk, ginger, and spices. For some reason, the bat is left almost completely whole during this process, which results in what looks like a bat taking a bath on your table, but reportedly tastes something like chicken (surprise, surprise).
Penis fish
Otherwise known as Urechis unicinctus, the penis fish is not actually a fish, but a type of marine spoon worm. And as you might have guessed, it bears a striking resemblance to a certain part of the male anatomy. A common ingredient across Asia, the penis fish is eaten raw and cooked, whole and sliced, dried and powdered, and you might not be surprised to hear that it's sometimes considered an aphrodisiac. After all, “if it looks like a duck …”
People who have eaten it report a salty flavor, and a rubbery texture not unlike chewing balloons—neither of which sounds particularly appetizing.
Finished!
We hope we're never in a situation where we have to eat any of these foods. The penis fish sounds particularly unappealing, but apparently it has its fans.
Would You Ever Eat These?
Article Source: Grunge
yuck and yuck