Disgusting or delicious? It’s all a matter of taste, right? At least, that is the take-home message at the Disgusting Food Museum in Berlin, where they believe disgust is a human emotion, although not one that is necessarily uniform amongst humans.
While some people might look at dried cockroaches in disgust, there are people who look at it as a delicacy, and a particularly tasty one at that. At the Disgusting Food Museum, you can find dishes from all over the world, most of which would be considered “disgusting” by most people's standards.
The exhibits include bull penises, frog smoothies from Peru and maggot cheese from Sardinia, amongst other things. However, while these exhibits are fascinating due to their unappetising nature, they also give an insight into different cultures around the world and their culinary habits.
The Disgusting Food Museum aims to challenge people’s perceptions of what is disgusting, as well as on other cultures and societies around the world. The exhibits aim to enlighten visitors as to what is possible with food, and what people can and do eat outside cultural norms. The exhibits also aim to make visitors question what they know about food: where it comes from, why we think certain foods are more disgusting than others and what we will eat in the future.
Of course, to help you answer these questions for yourself, the museum offers visitors the chance to taste disgusting food from all over the world. So, if you’re bored of normal German food, why not try the malodourous surströmming (herring) from Sweden, or some crunchy cockroaches? Who knows, you might even find you enjoy a few of the disgusting dishes. And if you do, you can take away samples of your favourite revolting dish.