Disgusting Food

That food of one culture is not appetizing to people of another is nothing new.


This article, You Eat That? in the Wall Street Journal is more than about food. Of the different foods described, this my favorite disgusting food.
Worse than snails.

My favorite fermented challenge, because I'm a cheese lover but am mortally repulsed by worms, is casu marzu. Casu marzu is a sheep cheese popular on the Italian island of Sardinia. The name means "rotten cheese" or, as it is known colloquially, "maggot cheese," since it is literally riddled with live insect larvae.

To make maggot cheese you start with a slab of local sheep cheese, pecorino sardo, but then let it go beyond normal fermentation to a stage most would consider infested decomposition (because, well, it is). The larvae of the cheese fly (Piophila casei) are added to the cheese, and the acid from their digestive systems breaks down the cheese's fats, making the final product soft and liquidy. By the time it is ready for consumption, a typical casu marzu contains thousands of larvae.
Locals consider it unsafe to eat casu marzu once the larvae have died, so it is served while the translucent white worms, about one-third of an inch long, are still squiggling. Some people clear the maggots from the cheese before consuming it; others do not. Those who leave the maggots may have to cover the cheese with their hands—when disturbed, the maggots can jump up to six inches.

Disgust is one of our most basic emotions—the only one that we have to learn—and nothing triggers it more reliably than the strange food of others