Also curious about things that are the other way around where they look really good but taste awful.
For the looks good but tastes awful category I’d go with fondant.
There’s a pie in that soup, isn’t there - digger?
Somewhere. Its not the best example.
Haggis
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I’m going to say Sviðasulta með rófustöppu. You take sheep head and turn it into whatever this is and serve it with a mashed orange beetroot and it’s A+ category food.
Jesuschrist, looks like the texture wasn’t applied correctly.
Sheep’s head, or sheep’s brain?
The former is fine.
The latter screams spongiform encephalopathy.
Poutine
As a Canadian: fuck, no.
Poutine isn’t visually unpalatable in the least. It’s just fries with curds and gravy. Unless the kitchen did a total hash of the dish and fucked it up six ways to Sunday, there ain’t no way it looks bad.
It’s even better with extras in it, like pulled pork, wiggly bacon chunks, or chopped onion greens.
Scrapple.
I first had it at a diner in Philly. I tend to try things I might not get a chance to try elsewhere and so I asked what scrapple was. I was told it was better not to know and just eat it. Delicious.
everyone I know who grew up in that area despises scrapple. I think it’s just PR and tourism keeping it around haha.
My sister would buy scrapple and immediately cover the ingredients with black marker.
Scrapple is parts. Sliced thin, fried up crispy, served with maple syrup. Mm mm mm. It’s still parts though.
Most British food, haggis, black pudding, kidney pie. Also tried marinated intestine once in Shanghai and got addicted to it, so now I’m always on the hunt for authentic Chinese restaurants that serve it.
Basically most offals or paste-like foods.
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No, I’m not a wendigo lol
Congee. It’s a Chinese rice dish. It’s not bad tasting, but it has all the looks and texture of regular boiled rice with equal parts runny snot. It even more closely matches the “runny snot” impression if it’s correctly salted.
Pork Shumai. Also Chinese, but actually delish AF. But like so many other Dim Sum foods, it also looks - if made correctly - like it’s dripping with gelatinous snot.
Chicken’s feet. Also Chinese, these are braised in soya sauce until they look like little clawed grave markers of an incompletely-buried avian body. You’re not Chinese if you don’t eat these with absolute gusto. Meanwhile I’m thinking if the barnyard poop indelibly buried in each crevice of that clawed monstrosity.
Sauce: married to ethnic Chinese first-gen for the last twenty years. I’ve been exposed to a lot of Chinese foods, especially those from the Canton region.
Escargots
Escargot is just a medium for butter.
And garlic. Yum!
I remember absolutely hating the look of sorrel soup
.Its murky bowl of swamp water
Ghanaian Shitto sauce. Silly name, looks like the output of extreme gastro-intestinal distress, but is an absolute God-tier condiment.
looks like the output of extreme gastro-intestinal distress
I love the way you describe it, ha ha. It seems to be pretty spicy, from what I’m reading?
Hungarian cuisine All of it
I used to have a tuna casserole recipe that came out of the oven completely grey. Grey fish, grey peas, grey cheese. Very tasty. Quite oily though, so probably best if I don’t rediscover the recipe.
Durian looks like it would be good, but it’s awful. The garlic aftertaste is the worst.
I found out after I tried it that there are different varieties. The one I had smelled kinda like rubbing alcohol but tasted somewhat like honeydew
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Monja doesn’t fit the criteria 100% because it looks bad but tastes OK at best. Seriously looks like sizzling vomit and I hate the way you’re supposed to eat it with that stupid ass spatula. All that for mediocre taste. Monja is my least favourite Japanese food.
Least favorite? You must really like those fermented squid guts
It looks like dead gagh. Gagh isn’t supposed to be dead.
What in the…?
Haha, shiokara is one of my go to counter examples also for when people claim Japanese food is bland. I tend to eat just about everything and actually like that stuff, along with things like shirako, horumon, and kusaya (and natto).
Still, I’m glad the inaka has a lot more foreign options these days. When I first moved to Japan even stuff like Indian curry was rare. It’s a good thing Japanese food is really tasty, because having that be the only thing to eat on top of it being terrible would’ve been a really difficult time.
Is that what it is??? I don’t think I’ve ever had it since these might not be very common where I live. I actually like shirako, horumon, and natto but I’ve never even heard of kusaya. It must be a mainland thing that we don’t really have here. Gotta try it some day!
