The Many Different Foods Around the World
If someone asked you to describe food you could list lots of favourites very quickly. Food is everything we eat, including yummy treats like ice cream, pizza, strawberries or fresh hot French fries.
Would you list grasshoppers or fish heads as your favourite foods? Some people would because they like them.
Food choices are a result of where you live and your culture. People who live along the coast and on islands eat more seafood because it is easy to get. Jungle dwellers learn how to eat berries, plants and wild meat.
When protein is in short supply bugs and worms are a quick way to nourish your body. We might make a face and shake our heads, but if a bug is the only thing to eat when you are hungry then you do it. Okay, maybe I would hunt a little harder for some bird eggs or berries first.
People who live in very cold, icy places like the Eskimos eat blubber, and prefer raw or very rare meat. This is because they do not have a lot of other things available and it tastes as good to them as hot juicy burgers do to us. Every culture and country has something their people like to eat that is considered “Yucky” in other countries.
These people might think eating ice cream is disgusting. They would be surprised if we refused to eat a grasshopper or a snake. In some countries these foods are considered to be tasty treats. People often say that you should learn to like different foods.
If you thought that the eggplant, zucchini or raw vegetables on your plate were not good to eat… hold onto your hats. We are about to discover some of the Really Strange Foods people love to eat. Some Korean restaurants also serve bowls of silkworm larvae that are their version of peanuts.
There is a town in Mexico that prepares stews and tacos containing all sorts of bugs and worms. The people who live there use recipes that were written hundreds of years ago. Some of the worms and bugs are still moving when they serve you the tacos. You would be moving too if someone were trying to make you into a lunch. There is a lot of healthy protein in bug meat, but I will stick with hamburger meat.
Some restaurants in Chicago, Illinois serve crisp, hot grasshoppers that look like they could hop up at any moment. There are toothpicks to use because the grasshopper legs get caught between your teeth!
You can begin your meal with an ant egg omelette or fried meal worms in Chicago. It will cost about$15 to try both. Let’s not take the food away from our bird friends; they are welcome to my share of this meal.
There are some Eskimos who love to bury fish heads in the dirt and let them “ripen” for weeks before digging them up and eating them “raw”. The fish eyes are the best part according to the experts. Don’t you think it better not to eat something that is looking back at you?
Asian markets have many requests for “snake head fish”. I love Shrimp and Prawns, and so do many kids, but it’s easy to forget that these sea creatures are related to the millipede. If you order your shrimp whole and cooked in the shell you will see what they have in common.
In the Amazon they say that Piranha are very good to eat but you only get a little meat with each fish. I wonder who is brave enough to catch these “swimming teeth”.
In Hawaii you can try “Poi”, which is just the root of the taro plant that is smashed into pasty glue. Oh, did I mention that this root is poisonous unless it is smashed the right way?
Snakes and eels are eaten by many people throughout the world. Some restaurants charge hundreds of dollars for one of these special meals.
Seagull wine is another Eskimo specialty. It is made from a sea gull and a bottle. The sea gull goes in the bottle and the bottle sits in the sun. Yum …Yum… Yuck!
Raw fish eggs are considered a prized food.
In the southern USA you can find Fried Dill Pickles to eat. Indonesians eat fried potato chips with mayo, ketchup, peanut sauce and plenty of chopped onions.
Stinky onions (Durian) are supposed to be a fruit that is good for you to eat, but they smell so bad that hotels and some stores will not let you come in if you have one in your hand. These are found in Asia. People say that the taste is as bad as the smell…..not a good sign in my opinion.
This is an original news article © The Kids Window
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