Dedication
For my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. McInerney, who pushed us way beyond our comfort zone in a magical classroom where we were encouraged to experiment, learn from failure, face our fears, and prioritize true growth over outward measures of success—an approach to teaching that was rare then and, thanks to dwindling funds for public education and current testing mandates, is now all but extinct.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Bizarre Cuisine
Outlandish Animal Land
Wickedly Weird News
Fetid Festivals
The Horrors of Modern Science
To Each His Own (Disgusting Habits)
Unnatural Wonders
The Indecent Tourist
Creepy Crawlies
Icky History
Around the (Roach-Infested) House
Eco-Unfriendly
Barbaric Bodies
Farts & Culture
Gross Rebellion
Postscript: What is Disgust?
Selected Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Copyright page
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
I get really easily grossed out. So easily—and dramatically—in fact, that I used to faint because of it. The first time was when our amazing fifth-grade teacher, Mr. McInerney, mentioned that we’d be dissecting a sheep’s eye. Or maybe he just had a sheep’s eye in a jar of formaldehyde. I only heard the first part of the sentence, but I don’t think I myself ever laid eyes on the eye of the ewe.
I also lost consciousness briefly when he told us to collect cells to examine under the microscope by running a little wooden stick against the inside of our cheeks. I woke up to the sound of Mr. McInerney’s voice asking, “Are you with us?” I was, but it was touch and go from there—through junior high and most of high school. In chorus, I once fell off the back riser during a holiday show while the rest of the choir finished singing Billy Joel’s “And so It Goes.” I don’t even remember what it was that initially bothered me. My mom heard the thud of my head hitting the stage but didn’t realize I was missing until the end of the song. Another time, I ended up in the nurse’s office after reading a story in English class about a boy who swam underwater so long that his blood vessels burst.
Some people said what I had was a “real thing,” and that it even had a name: blood-injury phobia (see You Look a Little Pale,). Others just said I had a weak stomach. In biology lab, everyone around me wielded scalpels and seemed remarkably brave, while just I prayed for the bell to ring. I started to realize something funny, which was that hearing disturbing stories bothered me more than actually seeing something gross. It was my imagination, in the end, that really got the best of me.
After a while, the other kids started to look out for me. They let the teacher know when a news topic of someone finding a severed hand in the woods or Ozzy Osbourne chewing the heads off bats came up that maybe they should change the subject—either that or give me a pass to study hall. They’d tell me not to look at a slide showing a giraffe carcass being torn apart by leopards. Sometimes they caught me in time, and I put my head between my knees before I blacked out. Most of the teachers understood. I learned to get used to spinning rooms. And to sit by the exit signs.
Family members joked that after all that fainting, I’d grow up to be a surgeon. That didn’t happen. But I did grow up to write a book about blood, guts, gaping wounds, giant cockroaches, earthworm soup, flying mucus, belly lint, and dead bodies piling up on Mount Everest.
So here’s the million-dollar question:
Did I faint during the writing of this book?
I did not—although that would have made for a good story. But the truth is, I finally outgrew the phobia when I realized that what actually made me faint wasn’t the sense of disgust or horror I felt when picturing the pile of severed limbs at Gettysburg—it was the fear that I would faint.
Here’s what actually happened: You faint when your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. For some people, a drop in blood pressure is the body’s natural response to seeing blood or, in my case, hearing about it. Scientists aren’t sure why, though some think that it may have once been adaptive, causing people to faint in battle or during an attack, to be passed over for dead by the enemy. The drop in blood pressure leads to light-headedness and, if it persists, to fainting, where you end up in a horizontal position and blood levels are restored to your brain. So basically, fainting is the body’s way of correcting the oxygen deficit to the brain. When you think of it that way, it’s not as scary as it seems—as long as you don’t bang your head too hard when you land.
For me, fainting became a bad habit. When I heard about some guy getting a hole in his carotid artery, before I even had time to think about the blood spurting out, I started to panic about fainting. My blood pressure would drop, the room would spin, and away I’d go. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. To train myself out of that cycle, I had to stop worrying that I would faint. Eventually I did. Now I don’t even have to sit by the exit signs—but it took a while.
So that’s a good lesson for all of you out there who just can’t get enough of blood and guts or the ones, like me, who tend to feel a little woozy just hearing the plot of a Stephen King novel. The 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, nailed it when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It’s an interesting physiological phenomenon that the fear of something happening might make that very thing more likely to happen. The trick is not to be afraid of what might happen, and then chances are high that the thing won’t. Like making a mistake at your piano recital, failing a test, ruining a friendship, or letting down your teammates by missing a crucial goal.
In order not to fail, you have to be okay with failing. It’s paradoxical. But you can’t trick yourself into believing that it’s okay to faint, or fail, or fall down on the ice, or give a terrible speech. You can’t say, “Okay, yeah, it’s fine, no problem; I don’t mind getting a big giant F. Now, hurry up universe, Give me an A.” You have to really be okay with falling with a big, giant thud right in the middle of your solo piece at the end of the year ballet recital. Even if your crush is in the audience. Because, as long as you don’t get seriously hurt, it really is okay.
Luckily for now, all you have to do is read about gross horrible stuff in the comfort of your own living room with a nice fluffy pillow under your head. (Don’t give any thought to the fact that the pillow is teeming with dust mites.) Read about icky animals, killer insects, piles of earwax, hearts preserved in jars, and people swallowing live mice.
Let your imagination take you where hopefully your feet never will.
Read on, brave Grossophiles!
Why is caviar considered the height of gross food? We eat eggs all the time—on their own or in cakes, cookies, quiche, and in a million other places. Is the problem we have with caviar the number of offspring all in one place? Or the fact that they come from fish? The color? In South America, quail eggs are common—they’re smaller than the ones from chickens but taste essentially the same. Still you may find yourself turning your nose up if offered one on top of a hot dog in Columbia or pickled in Vietnam. Funny how much taste depends on custom and familiarity. Many Asian dishes, such as those that include canine, strike Westerners as barbaric; meanwhile we have no problem with chomping down on a cow, an animal treated as sacred in India. Still other dishes seem merely gross rather than cruel or disrespectful—you won’t see many in the Western world run to all-you-can-eat python, scorpion, dried jellyfish, or bear paw. (We’ll s
tick with the pupu platter!)
Protein Power
You thought beef and tofu were high in protein? It’s true they’ve got a little, but if you really want to stock up, you’re looking in the wrong place. In fact, you might not need to look in the kitchen at all. How about the basement, attic, or garage instead? Winding your way down to a cold, dark cellar? You’re getting warmer: spiders, houseflies, and grasshoppers are where it’s at.
Did You Know? Dried grasshopper-stuffed tacos are called chapulines. You can get them in New York City at the Mexican restaurant Toloache.
Walks Like a Chicken, Tastes Like a Chicken
How many things that aren’t chicken are described as tasting like chicken?
• Chicken cutlets made of soy protein
• Wendy’s chicken sandwich (contains beef)
• Frogs
• Goose
• Pigeon
• Alligator
• Rabbit
• Iguana
Be an Expert! Feeling hesitant about taking the leap to insects? In Leviticus 11, the Bible advises people to “Eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.”
If you’re afraid to try something exotic, maybe you don’t have to be. There’s a pretty good chance it will—you guessed it!—taste like chicken.
Did You Know? For your next big event, you can hire a New York City-based band named Tastes Like Chicken.
MOUTHWATERING FRIGHTS
Keep that extra spoon that you never use handy. You may just need it to gag yourself after sampling some of these mouthwatering delights from around the world:
• Ants’ eggs
• Boiled locusts
• Chocolate-covered cockroaches
• Crayfish head
• Dog liver
• Dung beetles
• Flour beetle larvae
• Garlic waxworms
• Grilled snake
• Longicorn larvae
• Rat meat
• Rattlesnake salad
• Raw worms
• Roasted guinea pigs
• Seahorses
• Spiced giant waterbugs (3 inches long!)
Oh, and let’s not forget dry-roasted crickets, which we’re told taste just like smoked nuts!
(Which, of course, begs the question:
Why not just eat smoked nuts instead?)
I Scream for Ice Cream
Sushi has become a hot trend, with or without the raw fish, and the sea lovers among you may even enjoy seaweed alone for a nice crunchy, mineral-filled snack. But most everyone has surely consumed seaweed in an unlikely place: ice cream. See “carrageenan” listed on the back of your favorite tub of Ben & Jerry’s? It’s extracted from boiled seaweed. (So, maybe you’re not as picky as you thought.)
It’s All in a Name
Horsetail tangle, bladderwrack, and sea otter’s cabbage sound more exotic than they are. Turns out, they’re all types of edible seaweed.
Everything in Moderation—Even Fly Larvae
Swear you’ll never eat a bug? Chances are you already have—hundreds of them! The U.S. government allows 30 insect parts for every 100 grams of peanut butter. Similar legal amounts of accidental ingredients apply to all processed food. (Hey, everybody makes mistakes!). The Food and Drug Administration Defect Levels Handbook lists all this stuff as passable, in moderation: mold, insect infestation, rodent hairs, worms, excrement, fly eggs, and maggots. So don’t worry about a stray rat hair dropping in on your Fluffernutter; there are bugs aplenty put in food on purpose. (chapulines)
Did You Know? On average, most of us swallow about a pound of insect parts every year.
Champagne and Fish Eggs
Caviar—the go-to disgusting food for various dares and challenges—are fish eggs: unpasteurized sturgeon roe to be exact. Is it the fact that they’re uncooked that’s repulsive? Or maybe it’s just the visual—kind of like how one ant alone is fine, but hundreds teeming around the dropped lollipop is horrid. A Japanese company sells edible fake caviar that is pretty convincing. Help endangered fish populations: eat more fake caviar!
Mmmm...Civet Droppings
Forget Sumatra, when it comes to quality coffee, civet droppings are all the rage. The beans are called Kopi Luwak, but don’t let the name fool you. They come from the backsides of civets (In the Know). And don’t worry, they’re fermented by the time they’re dropped off. You can pay up to $600 per pound for these partially digested berries. According to the New York Times, they are reported to be “smooth, chocolaty, and devoid of any bitter aftertaste.”
IN THE KNOW
Civet: a generally nocturnal animal found in Southeast Asia that resembles a cat (called “toddycats” in the U.K.).
The Bone Truth
You may know that Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies, but why stop there? The fish’s bones are also thrown in for good measure. (As far as we can tell, anchovies themselves don’t even need bones. Why they feel compelled to bring them along to the Worcestershire sauce is anybody’s guess.)
A Single Scoop Will Do
Rainy summers in England led to this innovative cozy cone as an alternative to traditional frozen treats served from ice-cream trucks. Aunt Bessie’s “Mash Van” tours the U.K., serving up a familiar combo with a twist: mashed potatoes, sausages, and peas inside a cone traditionally reserved for ice cream. Instead of dinner for dessert, why not try it the other way around?
Tails, You Die
A fugu fish (also known as a puffer fish or blowfish) is sometimes toxic, but that doesn’t hurt its reputation as a delicacy in Japan and, increasingly, in the United States. Its effect on approximately 300 unlucky people a year, however, is rather indelicate. Victims croak—and we don’t mean imitate the sound a frog makes. Instead, consumers get snuffed out, breathe their last breath, hit the junkyard, land in their final resting place. After eating this fish, some people go swim with it.
From a consumer advisory on the Food and Drug Administration’s website:
“The liver, gonads (ovaries and testes), intestines, and skin of some puffer fish contain the toxins tetrodotoxin and/or saxitoxin. These toxins are 1,200 times more deadly than the poison cyanide and can affect a person’s central nervous system. There are no known antidotes for these toxins. Puffer fish must be cleaned and prepared properly so the organs containing the toxins are carefully removed and do not cross-contaminate the flesh of the fish. These toxins cannot be destroyed by cooking or freezing.”
Hmm. We think that puts puffer fish pretty safely in the “not worth it” category when it comes to extreme eating.
Biting Back
If mosquito season is making you hungry, you’re not alone. Marc Dennis, founder of Insects Are Food, believes that mealworm French fries and chocolate-dipped crickets are examples of “what sushi was two decades ago”—rather exotic, but about to go mainstream. As defined on his website, “entomophagy” is the practice of eating insects, including tarantulas and centipedes. Dennis believes a bug diet is nutritional, sustainable, and delicious and simply requires changing preconceived Western mindsets about what constitutes a meal, given that eating insects is common practice the world over.
Did You Know? There’s a popular dish in Nepal made from bee pupae. It’s called bakuti and tastes like nuts. Sometimes you feel like bakuti, sometimes you don’t.
Grubby Grub
Need some inspiration for your newfound love of entomophagy (Biting Back)? Get into the practice of eating insects with The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook: 33 ways to cook grasshoppers, ants, water bugs, spiders, centipedes, and their kin, by David George Gordon. One online reviewer originally bought it as a prank but ended up enjoying the recipes. I wonder what dinner guests say? “I’ll have the thigh. No the other thigh. No the other thigh.” Bugs for Lunch by Margery Facklam and Sylvia Long is a rhyming picture book on the subject just for kids.
Did You Know? The Insect Club in Washington, DC is now gone, but it once served up some really
fine mealworms. (Don’t worry—they tasted like chicken.)
Odd Combos
Sometimes preferred foods alone aren’t inherently gross, but the combination of unlikely flavors is not everyone’s cup of vinegar tea. Need some unusual snack ideas?
(We found people who liked each one of the above specialized blends; though no one person could honestly say he or she liked all of them. Do you?)
How about:
• Peanut butter and mayo
• Beans and chocolate
• Pickles and peanut butter
• Popcorn and mustard
• Ketchup on pancakes
WORLD’S STRANGEST ICE CREAM FLAVORS:
• Cold sweat
• Caviar
• Spaghetti and cheese
• Lobster
• Guinness
• Horse
• Sea slug
• Bacon and egg
• Wasabi
• Avocado
(To the makers of the above concoctions—Guys, you’re kind of missing the entire point! If we wanted something that tasted like an avocado, we’d eat an avocado! Not ice cream. This reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch, where the actors are eating ice cream that tastes like yogurt and keep saying, “I can’t believe it’s not yogurt!” How would you sell the stuff on the list above? “I can’t believe it’s not lobster! Twice the fat! Twice the calories! And half the taste.”)
Did You Know? The Japanese eat ice cream made with squid ink. At least you know you’re getting the real thing! (Oops—cancel that. You can’t be sure you’re getting squid. Turns out the ink is sometimes extracted from its cousin the cuttlefish.)
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