Bizarre Foods

My neighborhood is filled with a solid variety of authentic ethnic cuisine, from the Turkish shop to the Russian market to the Brazilian bakery to the Afghan restaurant down the street, a true cultural mixing pot of international foods. Naturally I've delighted in perusing the different shops and exploring the different worlds of food, and discovered some strange things, even.

My recent visit to the Asian grocery store at the Super 88 foodhall was a trip through the "Real East Asia," wading through hundreds of imported products such as different sauces, pastes, different kinds of noodles, and even jelly-filled Asian candy - of course none of the packaging has any English translation to identify the contents so shopping here can be a kind of mystery meal game. In the seafood section they have huge vats (swimming pools, really) filled with live crabs, tilapia, and fishtanks filled with finfish swimming about, in such massive quantities the air smells overpowering of the docks at a fisherman's wharf. They have buckets of eels, jellyfish, even stingrays - imagine buying a whole jellyfish to bring home and cook for dinner. Wild.

I also saw an airtight case of durian, one of the smelliest fruits imaginable with a custard-like texture encased in a large spiky shell, a delicacy from Southeast Asia:

Anthony Bourdain says it leaves your breath smelling "like you've been frenching your dead grandma." That's lovely. (And explains why they had it in a padlocked cooler.)

Exploring the meat section I saw every part of the animals imaginable, from pig's heart to various tripes (cow's stomach) to chunks of loin with the skin still on, the make pork rind. I saw a whole skinned black chicken wrapped in plastic, head on and everything - apparently Asian cooks like black chicken for the deep, gamy flavor; and I discovered quail eggs, like tiny little speckled jewels or precious stones, they seem to me. Who knew all these seemingly otherworldly foods are literally a few blocks from my kitchen? What wonders to behold ...

Then a few nights ago I saw the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman - we don't have cable so this was a first for me - which was a perfect follow-up to my Asian market experience, especially watching the process to make stinky tofu ... gross. The Morocco episode was a lovely trip down memory lane for me, delving into the same market sights and smells I witnessed while backpacking through the exotic North African country. Here are some of the extreme foods I captured on film during my travels:

Live snails writhing in a basket, waiting to be boiled up on the spot and eaten right out of their shells.

Donkey's head.

Intestines of sorts, and clusters of hooves hanging above. The raw meat I saw in the markets - this one was in Fez - are swarming with flies in the blistering heat.

I'll never forget walking through the souks of Marakkesh and seeing a coup of live chickens, and a man who held one up and broke it's neck to spray the blood out in front of my face, to prove its freshness (and to tease me a bit no doubt.) I had a banana for dinner that night.