Twisted Gastronomical Twists

the Chinese will eat almost anything - from newborn rats to pink fat worms to animal genitalia & other unthinkable stuff you can imagine. i beg to differ, but that doesn't mean i've not eaten some pretty weird or disgusting stuff-

coral fish - believe it or not, i was once forced to take this. it wasn't something that i'm proud of & i told myself i won't do it again. nemo will always look cuter in water than in my stomach.

black egg - back in 2004 i visited the Owakudani Valley in Japan....it's a volcanic area with many hot springs. one of the specialties there were eggs boiled in the hot springs itself. the mineral content of the spring water was so high that the eggshells turn black by the time the eggs are cooked. i bought one & it took almost a whole day before i was convinced enough to eat it -

It's really an egg....

.......still not convinced???? .........


.....point proven. note the teeth marks muahahahaaa............

super-contaminated, half-raw pork - happened during my college days when bbq parties were the rage. the grill was set up in a backyard which was so dark that torchlights were used to "illuminate" the food, which made it worse coz we couldn't see if the meats were cooked right thru or just burnt on the outside. unfortunately for me, the piece which i took was the latter & let me tell u...when food is prepared at a rented house with no fridge, rest assured that it's party time for those unicellular critters called bacteria.

in the middle of the nite i was throwing up, running fever & chills n basically feeling like a shithole. went to the clinic like 4 times over the next 7 days but nothing which went down my throat stayed down...not even a mouthful of water. i had to sleep on a reclining chair as that's the only way i could keep from puking. the olympics were on that year...and rtm/tv3 just HAD to telecast weightlifting events the whole day. let me tell you, pot-bellied bald men in tights doing the clean 'n jerk are not a turn-on....more so when your stomach is on strike.

"i demand to be released!! i'm innocent. the bacteria made me do it"...

by the 7th day, my mom got so worried that she even went to consult a temple medium who confirmed that i wasn't possessed by something. she then took the last resort of going to a chinese herbal shop n bought me something called pin tsai wong in chinese....a herbal anti-toxin. it was in cube form, ground into powder n turned into capsules. 1 cube makes abt 8-9 capsules & they burnt a cool RM90 off the wallet. 1st dosage : 2 capsules each, 2nd dosage after 4 hrs : another 2 capsules....and i was up n running with the appetite of a lion. till today i still swear by that herb. lesson learnt : i can't stomach red meat which is not well-done. ever since that incident i've cut down drastically on porkers, sigh...

bug/worm/some creature-in-a-pea : during my days as an auditor, my assignments can get really stressful so i sometimes munch to beat the stress. on this particular assignment i had this bag of green pea snack with me which i'd grab a few at the same time n pop into my mouth without looking. so happened that 1 of those peas had a dead insect in it (either a bug or a worm). i crushed it in my mouth, it tasted funny but instead of spitting it out, i chose to swallow it....

same symptoms as super-contaminated pork above, it was pin tsai wong to the rescue again. but i was spared of the weightlifters this time 'round...

fresh, live, flying bug - this has gotta top all the above "foods". i was swimming at my condo pool in the early evening, sky getting dark, doing the breaststroke, strong technique n all. then i raised my head above the water, opened my mouth to breathe when i realised that i was in exact collision course with a bug which flew at the same level as my mouth.

hohoho....view from the bug's perspective....

before i could say "holyyy craaaappppp...." the critter's brake system failed & it flew straight into my gaping mouth. as there was no gripping surface at the back of my mouth, it slipped downwards into my oesophagus n ended up contributing to my body's protein stores. it really tasted like crap by the way.