h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have eaten a sea slug. It looks like a garden slug, but is much bigger and sort of transparent and slimey.

The next course was prawns. Great big prawns, raw. The shell is removed from the back of the animal and hot sauce sprinkled on the flesh. You then eat it, so that the legs are still wiggling while you are sucking the flesh from the animal's back.

Why have you gone quiet???

Yes - sea slug is my all time worst thing ever. n-a-s-t-y!

Manioc also not good.

Is a sea slug really a sea cucumber ? I'm being serious !

Or am I just totally confused ?

Well, some sea cucumber are known as sea slugs so on a menu they could be either - but biologists (the only people who would be happy to see either) consider them different.

Thankyou Is ,so, marine biologists,know sea slugs are sea cucumbers really ..and love them,no matter what ..thats sweet isn't it ? Everyone should feel loved !

I know little of cucumbers. The thing was translated as a slug. It looked like a slug. It was slimy like a slug and - not that I have ever knowingly eaten a slug - it tasted like a slug.

I hope, for my sake, I was more than a little drunk at the time.

I hope you were too Phero..infact,I wish I was a little drunk now and I rarely drink alcohol ever...*sighs*

I was given sea cucumber at a Chinese Banquet in Beijing - and couldn't get out of eating it without causing great offence.
It was the most revolting thing I have ever put in my mouth but the Chinese see them as a great delicacy.
They're animal rather than vegetable - same family as sea urchins and starfish.

At another formal dinner I was given raw crab. That was actually not bad and I'd be happy to eat it again.
That same dinner introduced me to smelly tofu, a fermented and aged type of tofu which tasted as bad as it smelt. It reminded me of the smell you used to find in circus menageries. I won't be eating that again.

Pinky, you are surely allowed a little finger of wine from time to time. Even the most wondrous and beauteous of us (That'll be you, then) are allowed a small snifter of champers from time to time.

Teuchter. That's it. That's what I'm talking about. How, pray tell me do you eat something so horrendous without offending your hosts. It's a quandary I hope never to be in again. I hope never to eat another.

awww how very sweet 'Cheers' Phero ....*sips the beautiful champagne ,bubbles tickling her nose * mmmmmmm ,lovely ,thankyou !

I can understand your quandary Phero,I truly can ..the first time I ate octopus ( I know,I cringe now ) I had been invited to a friends home ,Chinese ,very formal ..the octopus had been especially sent over from China ,just for me.Now I'm not talking calamari here ,the little 'onion ring'shapes we so often say is octopus ,thats squid ..no,this was REAL octopus ,with huge tentacles and everything ,suckers ,everything ...to say,I almost dived onto the food carousel,in the centre of the table ..WANTING to be hurled around the room at great speed ....is a huge underestimation ..I understand.

I was drawn to this thread by dint of its being QOTD. It should have a warning on it about quite how disgusting it is! The most disgusting and tasteless thing I've ever eaten is humus in a falafel (bought from a roadside van somewhere in Israel. Totally ) But that's nothing compared to the things you lot have had to eat!

Hi TC. What exactly is a QOTD?

And how sick were you? What colour was the vomit? How long did the diarrhoea last?

I didn't say I was sick - I said it was the worst I've ever eaten but it pales when compared to sea slugs. No one in this thread has said they were sick after eating the sea slugs. (Thank goodness!)

QOTD is "Quote of the Day". On the front page, fairly low down, under "Mobile Guide" and "RSS feeds". Today it seems to have mutated to "question of the day"

I too have eaten sea slug at a formal banquet - twice. the second time it was called sea cucumber.
I agree with Dunx that manioc is pretty foul, imagine wallpaper paste wrapped in thick leaves. The only other thing I could never eat again translates as sinews. I think it's things like achilles' tendons. Like chewing rubber bands and impossible to swallow.
Howeverm none of these counts as a full meal. The worst whole meal I ever ate was a Thanksgiving dinner where everything was overcooked - the turkey was dry and the veg were all mushy. I didn't feel very thankful at the end of it.

I've never eaten a Thanksgiving dinner ,probably because we don't celebrate it here in England ...is it like our Xmas dinner ?

I'm a Brit and therefore don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but long years of travelling have meant that I've occasionally been invited to American expatriate houses. Very similar to a trad Christmas dinner, but the pudding tends to be pecan pie or something to do with pumpkins - very nice if properly cooked

WS, Is that really you?

Thankyou so much for you reply Wandrin..I have had pecan pie,nice,not traditional Xmas pudding of course ,but very nice ,nevertheless.

It is indeed I/me. have we really not crossed since your return?