I have spent way too many trips chasing famous dishes only to walk away kind of confused about the hype. Some of these are textural nightmares, others taste plain weird to anyone that hasn’t grown up with them. None of this is intended to knock back any cuisine; food traditions are important to me all over the world. Are you looking to travel for a meal? Here are 17 dishes that travelers hike for, and then quietly leave on the plate.
Haggis From Scotland
Sheep heart, liver, and lungs mixed with oats and stuffed into a stomach lining is a tough sell honestly. The flavor is actually fine, but the moment people hear what is inside, half the table backs away.
Vegemite From Australia
Tourists slather it on toast like peanut butter and then make a face you can spot from across the cafe. The trick is using a super thin layer with butter, but most travelers find out way too late.
Lutefisk From Norway
This is dried whitefish soaked in lye until it turns into a wobbly, jelly like situation on your plate. Even many Norwegians admit it is more of a tradition thing than something they actually crave eating.
Century Egg From China
A duck egg preserved for months until the yolk turns dark green and the white becomes a translucent jelly. The ammonia smell hits first, and a lot of travelers cannot quite get past that opening note.
Hakarl From Iceland
Fermented shark cured for weeks and aged in a wooden shed until it tastes like very strong ammonia cheese. Anthony Bourdain famously called it the worst thing he ever ate, and most tourists tend to agree fast.
Surstromming From Sweden
This fermented Baltic herring is sold in cans that swell up from the pressure of the fermentation inside. The smell when you open one is so intense that most hotels actually ban opening it indoors anywhere.
Casu Marzu From Sardinia
Sheep milk cheese intentionally infested with live maggots that you are meant to eat while they are still wriggling. It is technically illegal to sell, and most travelers do not stick around long enough to taste it.
Balut From The Philippines
A fertilized duck egg with a partially formed embryo inside, boiled and eaten right out of the shell. The flavor is rich and not bad at all, but the visual really stops most first time travelers cold.
Stinky Tofu From Taiwan
Fermented tofu deep fried until the outside is crispy, with a smell that hits you from blocks away. Locals adore it, but a lot of visitors take one bite and just cannot finish the rest of it.
Durian From Southeast Asia
The king of fruits is banned in many hotels and public transit because of how intensely it smells. The flavor is creamy and sweet, but the aroma is famously compared to gym socks and onions mixed together.
Marmite From The UK
Marmite is so divisive that the brand literally built its whole marketing around the love it or hate it idea. Travelers who treat it like Nutella end up making sad faces in YouTube videos all over the internet.
Black Pudding From The UK And Ireland
A sausage made primarily from pork blood, fat, and oats that shows up on every full breakfast plate. The flavor is surprisingly mild, but knowing the main ingredient throws a lot of travelers off completely.
Escargot From France
Snails baked in garlic butter is a Parisian bistro classic that fancy menus love to charge a fortune for. Most travelers find them rubbery and somehow underwhelming after building the whole moment up in their head.
Jellied Eels From London
Chopped eels boiled and set in a savory jelly that wobbles on the plate like a fish flavored dessert. It is a working class London tradition, but the texture really pushes most modern tourists away pretty fast.
Andouillette From France
A sausage made from pig intestines that carries a very strong barnyard aroma the moment you cut into it. Even some French eaters find it intense, and travelers expecting regular sausage are in for a real shock.
Bird’s Nest Soup From Hong Kong
This luxury soup is made from the hardened saliva nests of swiftlet birds and costs an absolute fortune. The flavor is honestly pretty mild, and many travelers walk away wondering what they just paid hundreds of dollars for.
Kopi Luwak Coffee From Indonesia
Coffee beans that have passed through the digestive tract of the civet cat are sold as the world’s rarest. Now, most gourmets say that the fad has surpassed the flavor and that the ethics are pretty dubious too.
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