Tell Us About Your Most Adventurous Meal

(Left: Dim sum dumplings, steamed rice in bamboo leaf, rice noodles, and chicken feet).




My mother would say that my most adventurous dining experience would be the snails that I plucked off the garden wall, scooped out of their shells and then ate raw when I was 2 years old. Or the tube of her lipstick that I ate. The most adventurous meal that I actually paid for however would be the chicken feet consumed at the dim sum restaurant. I don't know why this is considered such an unusual food to eat. It is after all just chicken. But, it's a part of the chicken not readily consumed in the US. I am sure that most of you can probably top this. So, my question is: What was the most unusual thing that you have ever eaten? What was your most adventurous dining experience?

Adventure Dining Books: The Hungry Planet

German family (top) displays one weeks food.

Ecuadorian family's weekly food supply (bottom).

For those of us who are nosey, Peter Menzel's books allow us to take our nosiness to global extremes. His book Material World permits us to view the possessions of "average" families around the world. It was the subject of a documentary shown on PBS many years ago and continues to sell on Amazon.com over 13 years after its release.

His newest book Hungry Planet, allows us to see what the world eats. Families from countries such as Cuba, India, Britain, Mongolia, and Chad, display one weeks worth of food for the family. Included are country statistics on population, caloric intake, life expectancy, number of McDonald's restaurants, and the cost of a Big Mac. Another interesting feature is the inclusion of family recipes. We have Bhutanese Mushroom, Cheese, and Pork; Dried Goat Meat Soup from Chad; Cuban rice and beans; Potato Soup from Ecuador; Roulades of Beef from Germany; and Seal Stew from Greenland. Recipe notes such as in this recipe from Mali: Broth made from Sumbala (spice made from nere tree pods), indicate that I won't be cooking Malinese for dinner any time soon.

The beautifully photographed (as are all of his books) Hungry Planet is highly recommended, not just for the cultural information that it provides but also because it is an opportunity for personal re-evaluation of one's own eating habits from a global perspective.