Gross Foods - Top 5 Most Disgusting Food in North America

Introduction

“Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern” and other shows about disgusting food mostly travel the street-side food stands of foreign countries when plenty of the grossest food in the world is in North America.

Here are five of the grossest foods on the North American continent, in my humble opinion. I’m only writing about widely eaten, popular regional foods, not specialty items such as a fried cockroach or something served in one café somewhere in Wisconsin. Also, you might love these foods (they are all popular somewhere) but most of them sound and look disgusting.

1. Crawfish “Head Juice”

I’ll start with a disgusting food I love to eat, just to show I am playing fair. During a traditional Cajun crawfish boil (also pronounced “berl” and “bole”), true Cajuns suck on the crawfish heads after eating the tails. It never fails to elicit strong reactions, but only suckers get the best spicy boiling water.

2. Prairie Oysters

Also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters, they’re not oysters at all (which are also a disgusting food in my opinion). They are bull or buffalo testicles - peeled, battered and deep fried. They are good for shock value, urban cowboy “cred” at festivals and Western-themed restaurants and for winning macho dares.

3. Poutine

Blame French Canadians for ruining perfectly good French fries. The famously gourmet French palate apparently didn’t migrate to Quebec. All of Canada now pours cheese curds and gravy over fried potatoes. They swear by it, and I swear I’ve eaten the unappetizing mix. I’m still not sold.

4. Pickled Pigs Feet

Another Southern specialty (and one I can’t bring myself to try) is pickled pigs feet. Smoke up a hog, cut off the feet and drop them in a jar with some vinegar. You’ve got yourself a well-preserved snack. And Americans turn up their nose at chicken feet and duck feet in authentic Chinese restaurants?

5. Spam

No list of disgusting food is complete without the most embarrassing U.S. export until David Hasselhoff recorded an album. Time and sales don’t make Spam any less disgusting. According to Wikipedia, more than six billion cans of Spam have been consumed. That’s nearly a can for every human being on earth. Everyone’s eating it, I guess, but it sounds gross, looks gross and tastes gross (to me). Even more gross is the variety of disgusting foods made of Spam — Spam sushi and fried Spam on a stick, for example.