Grossopedia: A Startling Collection of Repulsive Trivia You Won’t Want to Know!. Rachel Federman
can’t get enough of blood and guts or the ones, like me, who tend to feel a little woozy just hearing the plot of a Stephen King novel. The 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, nailed it when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It’s an interesting physiological phenomenon that the fear of something happening might make that very thing more likely to happen. The trick is not to be afraid of what might happen, and then chances are high that the thing won’t. Like making a mistake at your piano recital, failing a test, ruining a friendship, or letting down your teammates by missing a crucial goal.
In order not to fail, you have to be okay with failing. It’s paradoxical. But you can’t trick yourself into believing that it’s okay to faint, or fail, or fall down on the ice, or give a terrible speech. You can’t say, “Okay, yeah, it’s fine, no problem; I don’t mind getting a big giant F. Now, hurry up universe, Give me an A.” You have to really be okay with falling with a big, giant thud right in the middle of your solo piece at the end of the year ballet recital. Even if your crush is in the audience. Because, as long as you don’t get seriously hurt, it really is okay.
Luckily for now, all you have to do is read about gross horrible stuff in the comfort of your own living room with a nice fluffy pillow under your head. (Don’t give any thought to the fact that the pillow is teeming with dust mites.) Read about icky animals, killer insects, piles of earwax, hearts preserved in jars, and people swallowing live mice.
Let your imagination take you where hopefully your feet never will.
Read on, brave Grossophiles!
Why is caviar considered the height of gross food? We eat eggs all the time—on their own or in cakes, cookies, quiche, and in a million other places. Is the problem we have with caviar the number of offspring all in one place? Or the fact that they come from fish? The color? In South America, quail eggs are common—they’re smaller than the ones from chickens but taste essentially the same. Still you may find yourself turning your nose up if offered one on top of a hot dog in Columbia or pickled in Vietnam. Funny how much taste depends on custom and familiarity. Many Asian dishes, such as those that include canine, strike Westerners as barbaric; meanwhile we have no problem with chomping down on a cow, an animal treated as sacred in India. Still other dishes seem merely gross rather than cruel or disrespectful—you won’t see many in the Western world run to all-you-can-eat python, scorpion, dried jellyfish, or bear paw. (We’ll stick with the pupu platter!)
Protein Power
You thought beef and tofu were high in protein? It’s true they’ve got a little, but if you really want to stock up, you’re looking in the wrong place. In fact, you might not need to look in the kitchen at all. How about the basement, attic, or garage instead? Winding your way down to a cold, dark cellar? You’re getting warmer: spiders, houseflies, and grasshoppers are where it’s at.
Did You Know? Dried grasshopper-stuffed tacos are called chapulines. You can get them in New York City at the Mexican restaurant Toloache.
Walks Like a Chicken, Tastes Like a Chicken
How many things that aren’t chicken are described as tasting like chicken?
• Chicken cutlets made of soy protein
• Wendy’s chicken sandwich (contains beef)
• Frogs
• Goose
• Pigeon
• Alligator
• Rabbit
• Iguana
Be an Expert! Feeling hesitant about taking the leap to insects? In Leviticus 11, the Bible advises people to “Eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.”
If you’re afraid to try something exotic, maybe you don’t have to be. There’s a pretty good chance it will—you guessed it!—taste like chicken.
Did You Know? For your next big event, you can hire a New York City-based band named Tastes Like Chicken.
MOUTHWATERING FRIGHTS
Keep that extra spoon that you never use handy. You may just need it to gag yourself after sampling some of these mouthwatering delights from around the world:
• Ants’ eggs
• Boiled locusts
• Chocolate-covered cockroaches
• Crayfish head
• Dog liver
• Dung beetles
• Flour beetle larvae
• Garlic waxworms
• Grilled snake
• Longicorn larvae
• Rat meat
• Rattlesnake salad
• Raw worms
• Roasted guinea pigs
• Seahorses
• Spiced giant waterbugs (3 inches long!)
Oh, and let’s not forget dry-roasted crickets, which we’re told taste just like smoked nuts!
(Which, of course, begs the question:
Why not just eat smoked nuts instead?)
I Scream for Ice Cream
Sushi has become a hot trend, with or without the raw fish, and the sea lovers among you may even enjoy seaweed alone for a nice crunchy, mineral-filled snack. But most everyone has surely consumed seaweed in an unlikely place: ice cream. See “carrageenan” listed on the back of your favorite tub of Ben & Jerry’s? It’s extracted from boiled seaweed. (So, maybe you’re not as picky as you thought.)
It’s All in a Name
Horsetail tangle, bladderwrack, and sea otter’s cabbage sound more exotic than they are. Turns out, they’re all types of edible seaweed.
Everything in Moderation—Even Fly Larvae
Swear you’ll never eat a bug? Chances are you already have—hundreds of them! The U.S. government allows 30 insect parts for every 100 grams of peanut butter. Similar legal amounts of accidental ingredients apply to all processed food. (Hey, everybody makes mistakes!). The Food and Drug Administration Defect Levels Handbook lists all this stuff as passable, in moderation: mold, insect infestation, rodent hairs, worms, excrement, fly eggs, and maggots. So don’t