Dark fermented food, nicknamed "public toilet", even foodies will tremble

Fermentation is a food processing method with a long history.

People throughout history have invented many fermented foods. Everyday foods such as beer, yogurt, and kimchi are still popular today, but some fermented foods are unconventional.

They were either stinking, or solid as a rock, or at best, crawling with maggots…

They are all real fermented foods, but I don’t know if you can eat such hardcore foods?

01

Hongyu Sashimi: Nicknamed "Public Toilet"

There are many "suffocating" and smelly members in the fermented food family. The world's recognized "three stinkiest foods" are all fermented foods. The first is canned herring, the third is kivyak, and today I will introduce to you the second-ranked Hongyu sashimi.

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Hongyu sashimi, also known as stinky stingray, is a specialty food made from fermented stingray in the Jeolla Province of South Korea. It emits a strong odor and its taste is often described as "an uncleaned public toilet."

How bad is it? Some restaurants recommend that customers seal their clothes in a bag before eating Hongyu Sashimi, and spray deodorant liberally after eating.

There is one thing that makes stingrays different from others - they don't have a bladder, and the metabolites in their bodies are discharged through their skin. When stingrays are fermented, the urea in their bodies will decompose and release ammonia, which is discharged through their skin. This is the source of the stench of Hongyu sashimi.

02

Bonito knot: Tempered into steel

Bonito flakes are made from bonito (also known as dried bonito), a smooth-bodied marine fish. There is nothing special about it in itself, but after being smoked and fermented with mold, it becomes very hard. At first glance, it looks like a piece of "wood". When two pieces of bonito flakes are knocked against each other, they make a crisp sound, showing how hard they are from the side.

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Bonito flakes are considered to be the hardest food in the world, and the way to eat them is also very interesting. They need to be shaved into thin slices using a special "shaping box" like shaving wood. These slices are called bonito flakes or katsuobushi flakes. They can be used right after shavings and can be sprinkled on hot dishes or rice.

The process of making bonito flakes is very complicated. The bonito purchased by modern processing plants must first be thoroughly thawed, and then the fish head, internal organs and other unnecessary parts must be removed. The remaining bonito meat must be boiled in boiling water and then cooled. Next, it must be smoked and dried in a dryer and then cooled.

This process is repeated for more than ten days, and then the dried bonito is exposed to the sun, and then placed in barrels for fermentation.

03

Casu marzu cheese: cheese with maggots, are you scared?

There are many types of cheese that are "so stinky that they have no friends", such as blue cheese, Limburger cheese, and old Boulogne cheese. Although their taste is comparable to that of aged stinky feet, they are considered the ultimate delicacy in the eyes of cheese lovers.

But if I tell you that there is a kind of cheese that is fermented by maggots and can be eaten with live maggots, can you accept it?

Image credit: Shardan/Wikimedia Commons

This cheese is called Casu Marzu, a traditional goat cheese from Sardinia, Italy. Anyone who knows a little about cheese knows that fermentation is an important step in the cheese-making process, but Casu Marzu cheese is not an ordinary cheese. It is not fermented with a certain bacterial flora, but with cheese fly larvae!

When making this kind of cheese, cheese flies need to be attracted to lay eggs on the goat cheese. After the eggs hatch, they eat the cheese directly and grow into lively maggots. The eating and digestive behavior of the maggots can ferment and soften the cheese and add flavor.

04

Pufferfish: Fermentation can also remove toxins

When it comes to pufferfish, everyone's first reaction is probably that it is poisonous. The ovaries and liver of pufferfish are the most toxic parts of the body. One pufferfish ovary usually contains tetrodotoxin, which can kill 5 to 6 people. However, in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, the highly poisonous ovaries are used to make a fermented food called "pufferfish".

Image credit: Takoradee/Wikimedia Commons

It takes a long time to make puffer fish. First, the puffer fish ovaries must be pickled in salt for one year to allow the toxins to seep out and be diluted through salting out. Then they are pickled in rice bran and koji for another two years. At the same time, a special sardine sauce is poured in and waited for it to ferment. It takes a total of three years to ferment.

The fermented puffer fish ovaries will turn golden yellow and can be sold after undergoing toxicity inspection. If they are pickled in sake lees for a month, they can be made into another flavor of puffer fish.

05

Durian wine: This is the taste!

Durian is a "notorious" fruit, with people who love it and those who hate it clearly divided into two extremes. But what would it taste like if durian were fermented into wine?

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Many fruits with high sugar content can be used to make wine, and making durian wine is not much different from other fruit wines. Durian itself contains bacteria that can ferment it, and it will ferment on its own even without adding yeast.

This is also why if the durian you bought is left for too long, when you open the package, you will smell the strong smell of alcohol.

06

Sour bamboo shoots: so delicious you can’t stop eating them

The soul of snail rice noodle lies in the stinky sour bamboo shoots, which also come from fermentation.

Sour bamboo shoots are mostly processed using traditional methods, which mainly include selecting bamboo shoots, peeling, cleaning, steaming, dehydrating, and fermenting.

The fermentation process mainly relies on the natural fermentation of microorganisms in the air. Through the cooperation of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, the sugars and proteins in the fresh bamboo shoots are fermented and converted into various amino acids and organic acids, aldehydes, alcohols and other substances.

At the same time, cysteine ​​and tryptophan in fresh bamboo shoots are also metabolized into other products - hydrogen sulfide and skatole, which have the smell of rotten eggs.

Of course, hydrogen sulfide and skatole are only part of the source of the smell of snail noodles. The flavor of snail noodles is composed of a variety of alcohols, aldehydes and acids.

By the way, which of the above foods would you like to try?

END

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