Page 32 - AT

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 1 November 2018

Gag! Rotting fish, maggots on menu at Disgusting Food Museum

By ALEKSANDAR LJUBO-
JEVIC and VANESSA GERA
Associated Press
MALMO, Sweden (AP) —
Sheep eyeball juice. Bull
testicles. Maggot-infested
cheese. American root
beer.
These are among the items
considered palatable or
even regarded as delica-
cies in some cultures that
the Disgusting Food Mu-
seum in Malmo, Sweden is
serving up.
The temporary museum,
which opened Wednes-
day, clearly braced for re-
volted visitors to gag at the
foods on display, most of
which can be smelled or
tasted. Tickets came in the
form of vomit bags.
Curator Samuel West said
the exhibition is meant to
entertain, but also to con-
vey a thought-provoking
message: what is consid-
ered appetizing or repul- In this photo taken on Sept. 22, 2018 a container of Mice wine on display at the Disgusting Food Museum, in Malmo, Sweden. Baby
sive is learned and can mice are drowned and brewed in rice wine and the brew is matured for up to a year before drinking.
change. He hopes visitors Associated Press
will be encouraged to try sumed in China and Korea, American foods on display Some of the delicacies are ator of the Museum of Fail-
more sustainable food and Sweden’s “surstrom- include Jell-O salad, made so smelly they are kept in ure, a successful showcase
products that are being ming,” an infamously putrid of gelatin and typically glass jars. At a museum of products that failed with
developed or marketed, fermented herring. fruit; canned pork brains preview last week, people consumers. It also opened
like insects and lab-grown Visitors are also introduced with milk gravy; and root took tentative sniffs of the in Sweden and will be
meat. to “balut,” partially devel- beer, a sweet soft drink displays before recoiling shown soon in Shanghai.
“Disgust is one of the six oped duck fetuses that are which Swedes say tastes with grimaces. Hakan Jonsson, a Lund Uni-
fundamental human emo- boiled inside the egg and like toothpaste. “Real food in the museum versity ethnology professor
tions, and the evolutionary eaten straight from the shell “I think that by turning the setting can be a problem,” who helped with research
function of disgust is to help in the Philippines, as well as lens onto ourselves, on said Andreas Ahrens, mu- for the exhibition, said no-
us to avoid foods that might “casu marzu,” a Sardinian Swedish or American food seum director and cura- tions of what people find
be dangerous, that are pecorino cheese infested culture, we are saying, ‘We tor. “You have to change delicious and disgusting
contaminated, toxic, gone by maggots. treat everyone the same,’” things pretty regularly. You are already changing.
off,” West said. “Disgust is Also included are items West said. have to make sure that it “A lot of big groups in (the)
hardwired as an emotion many Western visitors might West said he has managed doesn’t start to rot.” Western world are all of a
but what we find disgusting not consider disgusting at only to sample about half Or as West put it: “You can’t sudden thinking ‘Meat has
is culturally learned.” all. Swedish visitors are sur- of the more exotic collect- leave bull testicles out for become disgusting, some-
The idea of exploring gross prised to find salty licorice, ed consumables. Asked if too long.” thing that I could never
food came to him with popular in Sweden but he ever vomited while pre- West, a clinical psycholo- put into my mouth,’” he
awareness that the “single perceived as disgusting to paring the exhibition, he gist and researcher from said. “And that is some-
most impactful way we can many others. said, “Every day.” California, was also the cre- thing quite new in the his-
impact the environment tory here, where something
is by eating less meat,” he considered as being nor-
said. mal, and prestigious, be-
“It’s an exhibition that asks ing the thing that you were
visitors to challenge their aiming for Sunday, and all
notions of what is disgusting of a sudden that had be-
and what is delicious, and come a matter of disgust
the aim is to get people to for many people.”
understand there is no ob- The Disgusting Food Muse-
jective measure of disgust,” um is scheduled to run until
West said. “For some, the Jan. 27, 2019, at the Slag-
revelation might be that thuset MMX in Malmo.
‘maybe insects aren’t as Museum organizers said
disgusting as I thought.’” the museum shop offers
The 80 food items in the a selection of “unusual”
museum’s exhibit include In this photo taken on Sept. 22, 2018 a bowl of Natto a traditional Japanese food made from drinks and snacks and
a bull’s penis, frog smooth- soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis var, on display at the Disgusting Food Museum, in Malmo, promise a restaurant oper-
ies from Peru, a wine made Sweden. ating in the building is “not
of baby mice that is con- Associated Press disgusting.”q