Steak Tartare I’m particularly fond of. It’s unlikely you’ll have tried a beer stronger than 8% though Ben – such beers are rare and usually only surface at beer festivals. I personally can’t stand them.

I forgot to count on the way through but had eaten loads of these things either through them just not being that special in the uk, or on my various travels (including to north america so covered some of those). I’ve also had home-made versions of some so not sure whether to count them.

As for the 3 Michelin star taster menu, I live less than ten miles from the Fat Duck and have done for five years. I have been dropping unsubtle hints to husband that I’d like to go for some birthday/anniversay/other occasion dinner (hints even a bloke would understand: “Why don’t you book us a table at the Fat Duck for our anniversary next year?”) and still haven’t managed this. Next year should be the first wedding anniversary we’ll have had when I’ve not been pregnant or wrangling a newborn so I’m going to book the blasted table myself – if I do it soon there might even be a table available for august.

Notable things included:
1. Venison is common enough that I’m having burgers for tea tonight…
Black pudding ditto. I wouldn’t consider a cooked breakfast complete without it.
Chicken tikka masala is like fish and chips or bacon and eggs nowadays – has ANYONE in the UK not had it?
Fugu was a yes, but I had it in Tokyo and was the only gaijin in there, so it doesn’t count as “stunt”, ditto Kobe beef.
I had tempura frogs legs in Malta last month – not horrible, but fiddly and not worth the effort.
Criollo chocolate – had it when I was Willy Wonka, pure for research you understand…
Lobster thermidor – you simply MUST.
Blue Mountain – spoils you for other coffees. It’s entirely possible that it won’t give you cramps, even if every other coffee you’ve tried has. Simply unparallelled.
Quite a lot of things on the list I’d not only not eaten, I’d not even heard of.

What’s interesting to me is that the UK is in some ways incredibly well integrated, multiculturally – Chinese food and curries, especially the latter, are so common nobody even thinks of chicken tikka masala as exotic. In other ways, we’re quite sheltered – there are so many things to eat out there, good things, and yet we know nothing about them, not even their names.

For the record, I’ll eat pretty much anything. Some people qualify that statement with phrases like “anything that can’t crawl off my plate”, or “anything that’s not looking me in the eye”, or “anything smaller than my own head”. I, you may note, offer no qualifications.

I’ve eaten things you wouldn’t step in. I’ve eaten fish so fresh it was twitching on the plate.

I’m 100% confident that in a survival situation I could and would eat anything, including other people.

But I’m never, ever eating dill pickles again. Why do McDonalds put those things on their burgers???

Oh, believe me, you’d know if you had. It smells like a cross between dirty diapers and feet. The actual taste itself is quite good, though, to the extent that you can ignore the smell.

This, however, probably counts as a stunt food, seeing as its native habitat is the South Pacific, and even there it would appear that locals try to discourage each other from eating it in confined spaces, on account of the smell.

(a) only fed to tourists in the places where it’s a natural foodstuff or
(b) actually used locally as a foodstuff but used to import an entirely spurious exoticism to a rather dire menu in the UK.

I developed a particular loathing for the sorts of pubs in the 1980s which would offer ostrich or kangaroo steaks, the worst of them let you cook them yourself on a hot stone.

By this entirely subjective definition, sea urchin risks being stunt food in the UK, but as you rightly say, it isn’t in New Zealand.

I would consider deep fried mars bar to be a stunt food, though myth has it that it is eaten by locals in Glasgow. Kangaroo or Ostrich in the UK is stunt food.

Thanks for your comment – it’s helped me clarify my thinking, er my prejudices.

Cheers

Aphra.

I think it’s vile, but I have watched many people happily downing the stuff with great enjoyment.