One culture’s culinary trash can be another’s sought-after treasure, but according to the users of one food website, there are plenty of dishes that shouldn’t even make it to the table.
Taste Atlas has released its annual list of the 100 worst-rated foods on the planet — and even to a reporter who’s sampled bull testicle soup and 17-year cicadas, many of the offerings sound too disgusting to even contemplate.
Ranked based on 335,106 ratings from users of the site, the wretched results have reportedly been meticulously vetted to filter out “bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings,” editors said.
The ralph-inducing roundup apparently isn’t supposed to be viewed as the “final, global conclusion,” per the site, which insists that the list exists to “promote excellent local foods” and “instill pride in traditional dishes,” while encouraging readers to be curious about dishes they haven’t tried.
Still, many will agree that some of the entries are enough to push even the most kevlar-bellied epicure to the limit.
Grab your barf bag — here are the top ten grossest gourmet offerings from the stomach-churning list.
Blodpalt (Lapland)
Want to know what Santa eats the other 364 nights of the year? Most likely less cookies and milk, more this Dracula-evoking rye or barley flour dumpling filled with animal’s blood — a delicacy in Old Saint Nick’s original stomping grounds.
Think a blood sausage combined with a potsticker. If you dare.
While traditionally filled with reindeer blood, modern regional varieties feature pork blood and other types of animal plasma.
“They are sometimes filled with a mixture of sautéed onions and diced bacon, and are commonly cooked in flavorful meat broths,” Taste Atlas writes. “Blodpalt dumplings are usually enjoyed as a side dish accompanied by fried bacon or pork, butter, and lingonberry jam.”
Hakarl (Iceland)
Fermented foods rank high on people’s palate blacklist, but perhaps none are quite so odiferous as Iceland’s national dish, starring the cured flesh of a Greenland shark — the world’s oldest species, per Atlas Obscura.
The Vikings invented this dish after burying the toothy predator underground for weeks to purge it of its toxins and make it edible. They’d then exhume the interred shark and hang it up to age it even more.
This process combined with the fish’s uric acid infused it with a flavor profile that’s best described as blue cheese with a urine aftertaste.
While the dish is now fermented in a container rather than the earth, it still retains its pungent essence. Perhaps it’s no wonder that the late gastronomer Anthony Bourdain described the dish “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing.”
Fortunately, adventurous eaters can nullify Hakarl’s essence with a shot of Brennivín, the local grog.
Bocadillo de Sardinas (Spain)
A Spanish sandwich filled with canned sardines is the new “it” food on TikTok. It’s generally served on the local style of baguette (barra de pan) that’s sliced lengthwise and topped with peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, lettuce, onions, avocados, olives, boiled eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, yogurt sauce, mushrooms, sautéed vegetables and olive oil.
The Taste Atlas didn’t specify why this tinned fish dish is so maligned — sardines are more popular than ever outside of Europe, where they’ve always been a favorite.
Czech bread soup (Czech Republic)
This traditional Czech soup is prepared with a combination of stale bread, water, onions, and spices in flavorful broths with various root vegetables that are sometimes thickened with eggs.
We’re not sure why this nourishing repast made the blacklist — maybe Czech it out for yourself before passing judgment.
Yerushalmi kugel (Israel)
This dense, Jerusalem-style casserole cake served on Shabbos and various Jewish holidays dating back to the 1700s is made from egg noodles coated in an olive oil and sugar mixture seasoned with a lot of black pepper. Maybe you wouldn’t eat the whole pan, but it’s unclear what makes this such an inedible dish.
Thai fish entrail soup (Thailand)
This dish requires some serious intestinal fortitude — come ready to eat fermented fish entrails, served in a smoldering curry paste made from chili peppers, galangal, turmeric, shallots, and lemongrass.
Just in case the fish viscera were not funky enough, there’s plenty of dried shrimp paste in there, too.
No guts, no glory.
Luther Burger (US)
The US is a veritable Dr. Moreau in the realm of artery-clogging fast food combos — Double Big Mac, anyone?
One of the most unhealthy of the Frankenfoods is this cheeseburger topped with bacon and other ingredients — bookended by two glazed donuts.
It clocks in at over 1,000 calories.
One could argue that this dish’s grossness has since been surpassed by this souped-up version featuring eight donuts and more than three times the calories.
Jellied eels (UK)
In the years before gummy bears, Cockneys in London were feasting on eels that were chopped and boiled until gelatinous.
They were a cheap and readily available snack — due to the critter’s abundance in the River Thames.
This eel jelly is often seasoned with white peppers and vinegar to accentuate the flavor, which many have compared to pickled herring.
However, they apparently make a lot of people squirm.
Chapelele
Is boring such a crime?
This Patagonian bread is about as spartan as a dish can get — not that there’s anything wrong with that. It contains only two ingredients, potatoes and flour. Traditionally, it’s steamed in a hole in the ground called a curanto, but it can also be fried or baked.
This versatile carb can be “consumed on its own as a snack or it can be used as an accompaniment to stews and meat dishes,” Taste Atlas describes.
Aginaras salad (Greece)
It might seem strange that something as harmless as Greek salad would rank among the most hated foods, but here you have it.
As they said in ancient Greece, don’t kill the messenger.
This compilation, which hails from Crete, consists of artichokes that are trimmed and boiled in a mixture of water and lemon juice.
These pangolin-like veggies are then quartered, halved, massaged with lemon and then anointed with a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, and garlic.
A sprinkling of chopped dill, salt and pepper, completes the dish.
