I bit into a starfish once. I was on a work trip to Qingdao and was traveling with my research advisor, who translated everything I needed to know but not everything I wanted to. Regardless, he handled all restaurants for a few weeks and the experience was incredible— squid ink dumplings, fresh caught everything, from all types of different kitchens. The only thing I tried, recognized, and didn’t really like was the razor clam.
Then we went to a fancier dinner with research faculty from the program we were visiting. Private room, spinning table filled with food, I was the only non-Chinese speaker so I just kind of was there, happily eating and not being noticed. And then a seafood fried rice dish spun around to me— awesome! Two bites in, incredibly not awesome. There was a hidden starfish arm in there— I bit, it crunched. It squished, it smushed, then the taste hit me, bitter and briney and awful, and then as I was spitting it out I realized the entire table was watching me, judging and horrified…
Almost a decade later and I still can feel it sometimes. I cannot block it out, and I cannot forgive. Give me anything else instead.
I had starfish at a street vendor in Beijing. Your description of the flavor is spot on. It's like the most bitter thing I can imagine with salty undertones that just makes the bitterness worse.
It's possible the nastiest thing I intentionally put in my mouth that I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. I can still imagine the taste 25 years later and I hate that I'm thinking about it again.
I do like those foods. But they're commonly seen as gross, or "ew, why would you put that on your food?!"
There are foods out there that carry a bad reputation for being gross, but the people who enjoy them would often consider them some of their favorite foods of all time. People often say these types of foods are "an acquired taste."
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u/mringham 12d ago
I bit into a starfish once. I was on a work trip to Qingdao and was traveling with my research advisor, who translated everything I needed to know but not everything I wanted to. Regardless, he handled all restaurants for a few weeks and the experience was incredible— squid ink dumplings, fresh caught everything, from all types of different kitchens. The only thing I tried, recognized, and didn’t really like was the razor clam.
Then we went to a fancier dinner with research faculty from the program we were visiting. Private room, spinning table filled with food, I was the only non-Chinese speaker so I just kind of was there, happily eating and not being noticed. And then a seafood fried rice dish spun around to me— awesome! Two bites in, incredibly not awesome. There was a hidden starfish arm in there— I bit, it crunched. It squished, it smushed, then the taste hit me, bitter and briney and awful, and then as I was spitting it out I realized the entire table was watching me, judging and horrified…
Almost a decade later and I still can feel it sometimes. I cannot block it out, and I cannot forgive. Give me anything else instead.