Welcome to the Gross Food Olympics! 🏆 We’ve scoured the annals of history to find the most disgusting, bizarre, and downright stomach-churning foods ever created. From ancient condiments to modern-day delicacies that will make you question everything, we’re ranking them all on our official “Would You Eat It?” scale.
Our scale ranges from 1 (Okay, maybe after a few drinks) to 5 (Absolutely not, I’d rather eat my own shoes). Let the games begin! 🤢
What is it? Sausage made from pork blood, oatmeal, and spices.
The Gross-Out Factor: It’s blood. You’re eating cooked, congealed blood. While it’s a breakfast staple in the UK and Ireland, the thought of it is enough to make most people squirm.
Would You Eat It? Scale: 2/5 🤨 It’s fried, it’s seasoned, and people have been eating it for thousands of years. It’s probably not that bad, but we’re still a little squeamish.
What is it? A molded gelatin salad, often lime-flavored, containing things like tuna, olives, mayonnaise, and celery.
The Gross-Out Factor: The unholy combination of sweet, jiggly Jell-O with savory, fishy tuna is a crime against nature. The texture alone is the stuff of nightmares.
Would You Eat It? Scale: 3/5 🤢 It’s just… wrong. So deeply, deeply wrong. Our grandparents were not okay.
What is it? Dried whitefish treated with lye (a corrosive chemical used in soap-making), then soaked and boiled.
The Gross-Out Factor: The lye gives the fish a gelatinous, translucent, and jiggly texture. It’s famous for its pungent, offensive smell. It’s literally chemically-altered fish jelly.
Would You Eat It? Scale: 4/5 🤮 We’re getting into serious gag-reflex territory here. The smell, the texture, the chemical bath… it’s a triple threat of disgusting.
What is it? A duck egg preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, and quicklime for several months.
The Gross-Out Factor: The white turns into a translucent, blackish-brown jelly, and the yolk turns a dark, creamy green. It also has a strong smell of ammonia and sulfur. It looks like a rotten alien egg.
Would You Eat It? Scale: 4/5 👽 Visually, it’s terrifying. But it’s a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, so maybe it’s an acquired taste? We’re not brave enough to find out.
What is it? The ketchup of ancient Rome, made from fermented fish intestines, blood, and salt left to rot in the sun for months.
The Gross-Out Factor: It’s ROTTEN. FISH. GUTS. The smell was so bad that production was banned within city limits. And they put it on everything, including their desserts. 😭
Would You Eat It? Scale: 5/5 ☠️ Absolutely not. No way. We draw the line at rotten gut sauce.
What is it? A national dish of Iceland consisting of a Greenland shark which has been fermented and hung to dry for four to five months.
The Gross-Out Factor: The shark is poisonous when fresh, so the fermentation process is necessary to make it edible. It has an overpowering smell of ammonia and is described as having a “fishy, cheesy” taste. The late Anthony Bourdain called it “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing” he’d ever eaten.
Would You Eat It? Scale: 5/5 ☠️ If Anthony Bourdain couldn’t handle it, we’re not even going to try. This is a hard pass.
What is it? A Cornish pie with whole fish baked into it, with their heads and tails sticking out of the crust, looking up at the sky.
The Gross-Out Factor: Your dinner is literally staring at you. The sight of a dozen dead fish eyes looking up from your plate is pure nightmare fuel. It’s like a horror movie, but with pastry.
Would You Eat It? Scale: 5/5 😱 We can’t. We just can’t. It’s too creepy. We’d be apologizing to the fish with every bite.
What is it? A traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese that contains thousands of live insect larvae (maggots).
The Gross-Out Factor: It’s cheese… that is actively infested with live, writhing maggots. The maggots digest the cheese, making it soft and creamy. Oh, and they can JUMP up to six inches. It’s banned by the EU for health and safety reasons.
And the winner for the Grossest Food in History is… Casu Marzu!
Would You Eat It? Scale: 10/5 🚨 NO. A thousand times no. This is not food. This is a science experiment gone horribly wrong. We surrender. You win, Casu Marzu. You are the undisputed champion of gross.
1.Wikipedia: Casu Marzu - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_martzu
2.CNN: Casu Marzu: The world's most dangerous cheese - https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/casu-marzu-worlds-most-dangerous-cheese/index.html
3.Wikipedia: List of delicacies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicacy
