In Episode 4, ‘Discover India’s True Impact On The Ancient World’, we talk to Nick Collins, author of ‘How Maritime Trade and the Indian Subcontinent Shaped the World’ about the weirdest foods he’s tried in over 100 countries he's travelled to!
Monkey brains to sea squirt - we chat about the things you may never eat!
Monkey Brains in China? Whale meat in Japan? And things you may never have heard of like Sea Squirt and Umeboshi! Read on and we hope satisfy your curiosity!
Here is an excerpt from Mike & Chet’s conversation with Nick Collins:
What was Tokyo like 50 years ago?
Chetan
That's super interesting. I did notice that also in Tokyo, I don't know how you feel about it, Mike, but a lot of this stuff feels like it's from the nineties - which made me think in the nineties, it must've been space age to go to Tokyo because it's still quite modern.
Nick
I was there in the late seventies. Yes, it was. One of the first things I did was get myself a super hi fi system. You couldn't possibly get in the UK. So, yeah, it was fun. It was definitely fun.
Chetan
What were your feelings of being in such a distant place at that time. Did it feel, did it feel more distant back then than it does now? Did it feel more a far away adventure than now? Because right now it's still quite a far away adventure.
Nick
Oh it was an adventure. It was fun. I liked Japan. I liked living there. I think the Japanese are very different from us, in fact, very different from most nationalities. But the culture was interesting, deep, interesting fun and the nightlife was fantastic! And, still is, or was in 2017, when I saw Mike,
Michael
I took my dad to a shot bar in Roppongi I remember.
Weird Japanese Foods
Chetan
Roppongi is a lot of fun.
And I'm always curious about food. What's your favourite Japanese food? Cause you've eaten a lot of it, I assume by now.
Nick
That's a very difficult one to ask to answer because it is so varied, you know, you automatically think of sushi and sashimi, but there's, there's so much,!
Chetan
What don't you like?
Nick
I don't like umeboshi. That's about it, everything else I love.
Chetan
So umeboshi for everyone listening is I believe a plum and it's pickled. It’s very, very sharp.
Michael
But you know, you can get really sour ones, you can get salty ones but you can get sweet ones as well. I like this, I love the sweet ones. I can eat five at a time on their own.
Nick
Okay…
I'd rather not you know.
Chetan
Yeah. The weirdest Japanese food. I, well, it's not so much a Japanese food as maybe it is. It's also food, I think in South Korea, but it's sea squirt. I'm not sure if you ever had that sea squirt.
Nick
Oh, is that the same as sea slug.
Chetan
No, it's not even a cucumber. I think this is worth Googling. It's kind of like a very old ancient sea creature. It's basically just a mass of cells with an intestine inside and you eat the intestines. That's the part that you eat.
And you eat it raw with a bit of soy sauce, but it's the most foul thing. It looks really bad, liike orange slime
Nick
I was offered this once and I did eat it. And I had to drink an awful lot of alcohol to take the taste away.
Chetan
That sounds about right. It was like putrefied vomit, it's just terrible.
Eating Living Seafood & Monkey Brains
Michael
There are  a lot more off things as well. There is Odori Ebi, which is shrimp that is still alive and you eat it alive as well.
Nick
That was an experience.
Michael
Have you had that?
Chetan
How's that?
Nick
It's very fresh but as you put your teeth through it you can feel the….uh because it's still alive. It's just had his head ripped off it's, it's still, well it's still alive, basically.
Chetan
Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm trying to get my head around, in fact, because I know it's a thing in East Asia, I think all around Southeast as well to eat animals whilst they're alive. It's not a common thing, but it is a thing even in Korea to eat live Octopus and in Japan living shrimp. Well, what's the buzz around that? What do you think?
Nick
I just think it's freshness, but I mean, I think it's also a fashion, a little bit silly really…
Michael
Haven't you had a strange experience? Is it something that I heard from you or was this something I watched on TV or something to experience in China? Where you had some brains or something, or is that not an anecdote from you?
Nick
Well I've had brain's in a number of countries. Brains are good.
Michael
Monkey Brain?
Nick
Yeah. They slice off the top of a monkey's head and then spoon out the brains.
Which is disgusting.
Chetan
I think they also have a hole in the table, which they put the monkey through and then they rivet it in and then they chop off the head
Nick
I'm sure that's illegal now, but it probably still happens anyway.
Michael
That's what I was thinking. But I couldn't remember if it's something that you told me you'd experienced or you heard or something like that.
Nick
I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that.
Eating Whale
Chetan
Oh, but speaking of controversial foods in Japan, I think whale has to be on the menu. Have any of you guys tried whale meat?
Nick
I have once. It's nothing really to write home about, pretty fatty.
Chetan
It's just like a big deal for Japanese lunches, I think.
Michael
Yeah. Last night when I was out, at dinner, one guy I was there with was like, oh, I want to order some whale meat. Because it was on the menu and he was asking around . ‘Do you want, you want some?’ I was like, no, I don't want to.
Chetan
It's like how people come to Columbia and look for cocaine and go to Japan and just look for whale meat.
I remember Whale meat was in front of me and it smelled, it smelled like pork and it smelled fishy and I wasn't into it. So I didn't think it was worth putting a demand on it. And I was kind of still very vegetarian back then. So it would've been a big ask.
Nick
I only had it once when I was living there andI just wanted to try it, but ethically, it's not a great thing to do.
Chetan
No, no, no, not so much. Okay. That's pretty interesting. Maybe we should do another podcast where it's just talking about Japan and our experiences there and our travel there. Because it seems like something that we could easily do.
Thanks for reading,
If you want to catch this conversation and more please check out the first part of this podcast
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