Across
- 2. Chewing on bones is bad for your teeth. Eating this tissue inside of them is good for your skin and bones, since it’s rich in collagen.
- 6. Soup made with this boxy reptile was too expensive for peasants in Georgian-era England. A cheaper “mock” version was created using calf heads instead.
- 7. Even if it didn’t cost $300 dollars a pound, we’d pass on the Kopi Luwak variety of these beverage beans, since they’re “passed” through the digestive system of civet cats.
- 8. A recipe from Georgian-era Britain called for these bell-shaped fruits to be stewed in a pewter-topped dish with wine and spices to turn them purple. It’s a good thing they looked too pretty to eat, because the lead poisoning from that pewter lid was often lethal.
- 11. Don’t let Canada’s flag fool you – the deep fried version of these tree sheddings, which take a full year to prepare, is a Japanese dish (two words).
- 12. Don’t worry about finding twigs or mud from these bird abodes, used in a popular Chinese soup. The recipe calls for ones made from dried saliva.
- 13. A staple of Inuit peoples is muktuk, the skin and blubber from various arctic whale species, including this “unicorn of the sea.” That pointy thing on its head isn’t a horn though, it’s a really big tooth.
- 14. These Icelandic birds shouldn’t “puff” out their chests with pride too often – eating their hearts raw is still considered a delicacy in the country.
Down
- 1. “Casu marzu” cheese can only be bought on the black market in its native Sardinia. This could be because this form of larvae is used in its fermentation process, but who can say for sure?
- 3. The “fat-bottom” variety of these colony-makers are known as Hormigas Culonas in Colombia, where they’re roasted and snacked on like peanuts.
- 4. If we were this crafty cephalopod, we’d use our camouflage and ink-spraying expertise to very, very slowly escape being eaten live in parts of Asia.
- 5. Since these buck-toothed mammals mainly live in or near water, the Catholic Church categorized them as fish in the 16th century. This meant their flat, scaly tales could be eaten on Fridays during Lent, since they weren’t officially meat.
- 8. More commonly referred to as “fugu,” this prickly sea-citizen’s skin contains a neurotoxin that’s 1,200 times more poisonous than cyanide. Make sure to tip the kitchen well if you make it through dinner.
- 9. Most people prefer plastic versions of these pink, long-legged avians on their lawn. Wealthy Romans preferred them braised.
- 10. Cambodians began roasting these hairy arachnids during a time of social and political uncertainty, but they’ve stayed around as a big part of the country’s food tourism scene.