Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
This collection reveals the strange, the bizarre, and sometimes the downright gross experiences of those who dared to try food that most people wouldn’t even consider.
A ladybug flew into my mouth when I was riding my bike as a kid. Ladybugs secrete a yellow bitter goop when they get eaten as a “don’t eat me” mechanism, so that happened. Had to run inside and rinse out my mouth, which didn’t really help.
18 Molar Sulphuric Acid. Back in the day, you sucked things into a pipet. Sometimes I sucked too hard. This time I got a mouth full of acid. I tasted sweet for two weeks.
My own cooked flesh. I had laser oral surgery. Couldn’t help it. Coulda used salt.
Termites, and they were surprisingly good. Minty if I recall correctly.
Actual battery acid. Stupid, I thought the stickiness I suddenly had on my finger was from the candy I just ate. NOPE, it was from the TV remote I used.
Cow dung. I was explaining something to fresher farm workers when the cow decided to stomp into a pile of it.
Possum was really common in rural New Zealand back in the 70s. It’s disgusting I was four and still remember the taste.
The inside of my mouth got burned so badly it blistered my gums and tongue so that everything boiled up and shed eventually. Healing sucked because when I talked, I’d accidentally bite down and pop a blister…. tasted like pus. Hated that time of my life.
I was injured in a rocket attack in Afghanistan. I remember lying in the dirt and my ear felt weird, like swimmer’s ear. I have sensitive ears, so I stuck my finger in my ear to try to drain it, only to have my finger come away with a thick syrupy substance. It was dark, so I couldn’t see what it was, and my nose was broken and bleeding. I decided, what the heck, I licked it. It tasted mildly sweet. It was cerebrospinal fluid. From my brain.
My dad made Rocky Mountain Oyster stew every summer after the calves were old enough. Made us eat it and swore we’d appreciate it one day. He was dead wrong.
Bronze Age cremated human bones. Had my coffee cup standing right next to the tub; I was cleaning them after excavation. Scrubbed the sediment off of it with a toothbrush and it sputtered together with tiny fractions of the bones all around, and also in that coffee. The last sip felt a little coarse and on the bottom of the cup were still white particles between the sand and coffee grounds.
Elephant. For context, it wasn’t hunted. It was already dead. Got hit by a train. So technically, it was roadkill. So that’s two things I guess…
Rat droppings. I used to have pet rats when I was at school, and I was once carrying one of them from one dorm to another. He left a few droppings in my jacket pocket. I didn’t notice, and few weeks later I forgot about it at all, put some nuts in the same pocket and started eating them, until one of them tasted really weird.
My daughter ate a stink bug once. That was an intense experience. Stank on the way in, and on the way out.
Used a glass of water to put cig bottoms in when I smoked. Woke up in the middle of the night desperate for a drink and swallowed two chugs before I realized what was going on. It tastes even worse than you might expect.
Muktuk, musk ox, caribou stew. The great Tojo’s omakase.
Pig excrement. I’m not proud of it, but sooner or later in every livestock farmer’s career you’re going to get some of it splashed about. And someday some of that splash will unfortunately hit your open mouth. And you will internally cry. God I wish I didn’t know this. It’s kinda like the smell of death though I’ve found that to be somewhat more common.
Rattlesnake. Not much flavor, very stringy, and has a lot of bones.
The asphalt on the crosswalk in front of the Flatiron building in NYC. Potholes are the worst.