What makes even the devil? What tastes like a lonely death? What is the animal that is eaten almost a year after its funeral?
I know how, in this subjective world of political correctness, most of you feel about the word “most.” You can’t just drop a “most” lightly. And I am not. I have eaten pig ears, every part of the goat (including the penis and brain), fried ants, guinea pig, crickets, worms, snakes, frogs, toads, whale, kangaroo, puffin, spiders and most of these were delicious. But there is one food, so disgusting, so unpalatable, so unforgivable, that I am going to just have to be totally dismissive to the few Iceland people in the world who find Hákarl not only edible, but delicious and type in bold that Hákarl or fermented shark The Most Disgusting Food On the Planet.
The people who like it are to using taste buds as Captain Hook is to tying his shoes. After all, what are our taste buds for if not to guide us away from eating have been buried and dead longer than an NFL season?
Enough bluster, what the hell am I talking about? What is Hákarl? In Icelandic, Hákarl simply means shark. But its usage is rarely used to talk about the swimming kind. Rather, it is mostly used to talk about the been-dead-a-long-time kind, which, yucky, many Icelandic people put in their mouth.
The Greenland shark cannot be consumed by humans. It is poisonous due to its high levels of urea (the chemical that your urine is named after) and trimethylamine oxide. But humans have a way of getting around nature, and the Icelandic people have found a way of getting around the inconvenient fact that eating the Greenland shark leads to death (the most inconvenient thing of them all). The way around it is to let it rot in the ground for three months where it ferments (read: decayed). Then they rob this shark’s grave and hang it to dry for four months. Then, only then can it be safely consumed.
See Nick try and fail to like fermented shark:
It may not kill your body, but it is likely to destroy your soul. It is the single worst food on the planet. The aroma will haunt your mind for days after. They say it is an acquired taste, but who the hell is stepping up for a round two after round one? Don’t take my word for it. Our pal Anthony Bourdain described it as “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting things” This from a man who has tried an awful lot of things.
Icelandic people, I love you, but seriously, shame on you on this one. Historically, I realize you needed all the calories you could get to survive, but sometimes it’s better to die than to taste the pungent piquancy of death in-decayed-carnate.
