10 Bizarre Delicacies of the World (PHOTOS)

Lorraine Boissoneault

Bird's Nest Soup

A bowl of bird's nest soup. (Wikimedia/Tzahy Lerner)

From hot chocolate in the winter to a scoop of ice cream in the summertime, certain foods just seem to go well with the changing seasons. But climate and geography have more of an effect on what we eat than simply seasonal preferences. According to research done by the International Food Policy Research Institute, climate change will create new problems for the major crops cultivated in different regions of the world. Even though these changes in the future might seem scary, our environments have always had an impact on the foods we eat and the way we eat them -- and these cultural preferences have led to some interesting biases.

"We tend to think of other people's food as bizarre and our own as normal," said anthropology professor Sonya Atalay in an interview with "I try to turn that around. I give the example of groups who think of honey as being a bizarre thing because essentially it's bee vomit, and when you think of it as bee vomit it's really grotesque, but we think of it as normal."

Atalay teaches a course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst that asks students to question why some foods (like insects) seem disgusting to Americans, when culturally accepted foods (like Twinkies) can have ingredients that seem just as unappetizing to others. 

As far as climate change goes, Atalay says it's hard to predict what the future will look like. 

"People may go back to more traditional foods or maybe we'll get this movement toward more processed, chemical uses of food because we taint our food supply. At this point it seems like a crossroads in many ways," Atlay said. 

In the following slideshows, explore some of the unusual delicacies that are eaten around the world and consider your own cultural biases -- would you try these foods?

The name of the first delicacy, bird's nest soup, might bring to mind images of a soggy mass of twigs and leaves steamed and served in a bowl. But even though the Chinese use real swallows' nests for this soup, the nests aren't made from sticks -- they're made from swallow spit. The strands of bird saliva dissolve into a gelatinous, spaghetti-like mass after being cleaned with rock sugar and cooked in a broth. The soup is so renowned for its health benefits that a single kilo of nests sells for nearly $10,000, according to The Telegraph. While the dish might not sound as appetizing to Americans as a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup, the nests are remarkably healthful. They contain all the essential amino acids, six hormones, carbohydrates, and substances that can enhance tissue growth and prevent influenza, says LiveScience. Because the nests are so valuable, they're harvested across Asia, and some people have even built condos for the swiftlets to make harvesting the nests less hazardous, reported the Buffalo News. If you want to try out this 400-year-old delicacy, be prepared to spend anywhere from $30 to $100 for the bowl

NEXT: A cheese with an unusual filling

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