Taste

I apologize to those of you reading this over breakfast! And Tesco has apologized to its customers in Weare, Somerset, U.K., who found a surprise in their salad. Paul Streeter bought a ready-to-eat baby leaf and rocket salad to serve to his family for dinner. He emptied the salad into a bowl and brought it to the table before returning to the kitchen to bring out the accompanying pizza. "Suddenly my girlfriend shrieked and couldn't believe what she'd found on her plate. She had ladled the salad onto her plate and thought she was cutting into one of the dark leaves and what she found was a dead bird." The diners had eaten much of the salad before the bird (1st image) was discovered.

Compare this to the Gastronauts, a group of adventurous American diners that has grown from 6 in 2006 to more than 1,000 today. Among the unfamiliar foods that they will sample at their upcoming gathering at Engeline's in New York is balut, a boiled fertilized duck egg (2nd image, more photos here). Balut is a delicacy in the Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia, and is even considered an aphrodisiac. "There's a reason why people eat this stuff. In many cases, cultures have had hundreds of years to make the food palatable or even exquisite," says Curtiss Calleo, co-founder of the Gastronauts. Tell that to Streeter's girlfriend...