Food With Weird Names

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I really like food, and I really like to write. This blog is all about interesting and unusual food with weird names, strange ingredients and even stranger recipes. From pig tongues to sheep intestines and grasshoppers to snails there is something for everyone in this blog.

Food With Weird Names

From blood pudding to spotted dick, thereโ€™s a chance the names themselves would keep evenย the most adventurous foodiesย at bay. For one, most of us arenโ€™t keen on eating blood, while anything โ€œspottedโ€ seems downright dangerous. You know, in the medical sense.

Spam? Bangers and mash? Weโ€™ll pass. I mean, what is going on here? Why not just use words like โ€œsausageโ€ or โ€œmystery meatโ€? Well, because it just wouldnโ€™t be as fun โ€” thatโ€™s why. So, letโ€™s take a look at some of the weirdest food names out there โ€” some of which are accompanied by even weirder ingredients.

1. Spam

AKA, Americaโ€™s favorite mystery meat in a can.

This food will probably go down in history as both the most ubiquitous and the grossest. Known lovingly butย not entirelyย inaccurately as a โ€œmystery meat,โ€ย Spam is actually made fromย pork, potato starch, sugar, water, salt, and sodium nitrate. But really, whoย knows?

And where does its name even come from?

They say its name comes from โ€œShoulder of Pork and Hamโ€ or โ€œSPiced hAM.โ€ Clever. Even Spam itself started calling its name an abbreviation โ€” in 2019, Spam began makingย advertisements containing the definitionย โ€œSizzle Pork And Mmmm.โ€

2. Coddled Eggs

Save20 best recipes for one person: part 1the GuardianCoddled egg Ivanhoe, from โ€œThe Sunday Night Bookโ€ by Rosie Sykes

Does this mean we cuddle with them?

Coddled eggs are actually eggs that are lightly steamed or baked in a โ€œhot water bath,โ€ so that the white part of the eggs are slightly cooked. Theyโ€™re called โ€œcoddled eggsโ€ because an egg coddler is a โ€œporcelain or pottery cup with a lidโ€ that is used to prepare the dish.

3. Bubble & Squeak

SaveBubble and Squeak –mummyonabudget.com.auBubble and Squeak

Bubble and WHAT? Does this food squeak?

Before you start to wonder if this food includes a living, possibly squeaking animal โ€”ย no, thank youย โ€” this U.K.-based dish actually just contains fried leftover veggies, and itโ€™s beloved by Brits all over. According to Spruce Eats, the origins of the name are not known, but many believe that the name comes from the fact that foodย bubbles up and squeaksย while over the fire.

4. The Imam Fainted

SaveWhy The Priest Fainted: An Ode To EggplantNPR.orgImam Bayildi

What is โ€œthe imam faintedโ€ even made from?

Now, this name is even weirder than โ€œBubble and Squeakโ€ or โ€œSpam,โ€ we think. Without even the remotest indication of what could possibly be in this dish, this name (also known as โ€œthe priest weptโ€œ) throws us for a loop. Itโ€™s actually a dish from Ottoman cuisine, and is generally made from whole eggplant, garlic, and tomatoes. According toย legend,ย it is so yummy that it makes imams (a person who leads prayers in a mosque) faint.

5. Century Eggs

These eggs are over 100 years old.

Just kidding. This isnโ€™t wine weโ€™re talking about. Thereโ€™s no way youโ€™ll be eating a 100-year-old egg. But when you eat aย century egg, youย willย be eating an older egg โ€” as in, itโ€™s a rotten, black egg. Yep, the century egg recipe calls for eggs being preserved in clay and ash for a few months. When itโ€™s ready, itโ€™s savory comfort food. Yeah, aย comfortย food.

6. Bangers And Mash

SaveIrish Bangers and MashLisa BattisHungry Hippo

Itโ€™s not a mixtape.

This English food (are you catching onto the pattern yet? The English have a fondness for weird names) is basically a dish of finger sausages alongside a pile of mashed potatoes drizzled with gravy. Itโ€™s a dish youโ€™ll find anywhere in the U.K., including fancy restaurants and pubs โ€” and itโ€™s super delicious.

7. Witchetty Grub

SaveThese Australian Grubs Taste Like Scrambled EggsAtlas ObscuraBarbecued or raw, the outback’s witchetty grub is a foraged treat.

Hint: Itโ€™s not food for witches.

This Aussie food comes from the Indigenous Australians โ€” and itโ€™s the larva of a moth โ€” a moth that feeds on the Witchetty bush. Itโ€™s a super protein-packed treat that can be eaten raw or cooked. It takes on a sort of almond-y or chicken taste, depending on how it is eaten. Theย name comes from โ€œwitjuri,โ€ย given by the Adnyamathanha people of Australia.

Surprisingly Odd Food Names

Neither sweet nor bread.

Sweetbreads are the thymus or pancreas of some young animal, usually a calf.

(A prettier name, certainly, than “offal”.)

Headcheese

top 10 surprising food words headcheese

A jellied and compressed loaf made from the head, feet, and often heart and tongue of a pig.

Cheddar it’s not.

Welsh Rabbit

top 10 surprising food words welshrabbit

Photo:ย Jeremy Keith on Flickr

A dish that a vegetarian could safely order: melted cheese poured over toast or crackers.

The name may have originated among the English as a dig against their neighbors, the Welsh. Rabbit was a much more expensive dish than cheese and toast, but if you were Welsh, that’s probably what you made do with.

Since there is no rabbit at all in this dish, folk etymology created the variant Welsh rarebit, which upgrades it from a poor man’s dish to a purported delicacy.

Rocky Mountain Oysters

top 10 surprising food words rocky mountain oysters

Photo:ย Vincent Diamante on Flickr

These oval delicacies are the testicles of any of various animals – sheep, bull calf, mountain goat – found in the Rockies.

The mountain men of the Old West were known for robust humor.

Boston Cream Pie

top 10 surprising food words boston cream pie

It’s really a split sponge cake filled with custard and topped with chocolate glaze.

Delicious, yes, but not pie. (It originated at Boston’s Parker House, and nobody really knows how it got its name.)

Ladyfingers

top 10 surprising food words lady fingers

With apologies to Hannibal Lecter, these are merely sponge cakes in a delicate fingerlike form.

Because these biscuits are dry, they’re best soaked in something. That’s how they’re used these days in tiramisu – and also how they’re used in this 1820 poem by John Keats:

“Fetch me that Ottoman, and prithee keep / Your voice low,” said the Emperor, “and steep /Some lady’s fingers nice in Candy wine”

Tripe

top 10 surprising food words tripe

The stomach lining of a ruminant, like an ox or sheep.

The fact that the word tripe has developed a second meaning as “something poor, worthless, or offensive” might tell us something … although some cultures make it a delicacy.

Scotch Woodcock

top 10 surprising food words scotchwoodcock

With an odd name that is probably a dig by the English against the Scots, this dish is actually buttered toast spread with anchovy paste and scrambled egg.

The woodcock is a game bird, but there’s none of that here.

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