TheIronSpike's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
Whitebait Fritters
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Prepared Foods

Whitebait Fritters

It's fishy how close to an omelette this is.
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Gooseneck Barnacles
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Meats & Animal Products

Gooseneck Barnacles

These expensive and dangerous-to-harvest barnacles were once confused for goose eggs.
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3-D Jelly Cakes
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Sweets

3-D Jelly Cakes

These clear cakes house intricate scenes of fish, flowers, and more.
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Stinging Nettles
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Fruits & Vegetables

Stinging Nettles

Boil away this plant's poisonous hairs, and you're left with a tasty, spinach-like leaf.
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Funeral Potatoes
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Funeral Potatoes

A casserole of cheesy, corn flake–topped tubers offers comfort to Mormons in mourning.
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Dragon's Beard Candy
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Sweets

Dragon's Beard Candy

The ancient confection consists of wispy sugar-strands that look like dragon whiskers.
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Chicken of the Woods
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Ingredients & Condiments

Chicken of the Woods

This mushroom tastes just like chicken.
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Croquembouche
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Sweets

Croquembouche

This French wedding cake is a caramel-wrapped tower of pastry balls.
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Sannakji
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Meats & Animal Products

Sannakji

These severed octopus tentacles wriggle on your plate.
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Garlic Ice Cream
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Sweets

Garlic Ice Cream

In Gilroy, California, garlic flavors everything, including desserts.
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Acorn Jelly
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Prepared Foods

Acorn Jelly

The nut goes from oak tree to savory, sesame-topped side in a matter of days.
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Black Chicken Soup
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Black Chicken Soup

In Asia, the black-skinned silkie chicken forms the base of a medicinal broth.
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Maple Leaf Tempura
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Prepared Foods

Maple Leaf Tempura

Why not fry a year-old leaf?
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Chapulines
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Meats & Animal Products

Chapulines

Deep-fried grasshoppers make a tangy, crispy taco filling.
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Ambergris
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Ingredients & Condiments

Ambergris

Whale excrement once flavored ice cream.
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Cajeta
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Sweets

Cajeta

In the city of Celaya, goat's milk caramel tops everything from ice cream to cereal.
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Grass Jelly
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Ingredients & Condiments

Grass Jelly

Once a treatment for heat stroke, the herbal gel now flavors desserts.
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Surströmming
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Meats & Animal Products

Surströmming

The pickled Baltic herring has an explosive reputation.
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Chimney Cake
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Sweets

Chimney Cake

After rotating over hot coals, the Transylvanian treat unravels in a sweet spiral.
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Beaver
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Meats & Animal Products

Beaver

Catholics once circumvented meatless fasts by claiming the semi-aquatic rodent was a fish.
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Prickly Pear Sorbet
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Sweets

Prickly Pear Sorbet

A watermelon-and-bubblegum-flavored treat courtesy of Mexico's favorite cactus.
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Fugu
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Meats & Animal Products

Fugu

The toxic pufferfish steals hearts, despite its ability to stop them.
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Mangalica
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Meats & Animal Products

Mangalica

These woolly pigs produce the “Kobe beef of pork.”
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Morkovcha
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Prepared Foods

Morkovcha

The Soviet-Korean carrot salad is a sweet-and-sour testament to a diaspora's resilience.
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