While tantalizing our tastebuds through visual feasts on Instagram is one thing, experiencing the same dish in person is an entirely different realm. In a similar vein to the audacious 'Cooking For Bae' Instagram account, there exists a place where the line between culinary curiosity and repulsion is daringly blurred.
Welcome to the Disgusting Food Museum, which opened its doors in 2018 in the enchanting city of Malmö, Sweden. With an unwavering mission to showcase the most revolting gastronomic creations from across the globe, this peculiar museum pays homage to traditional dishes, no matter how bizarre they may get.
In order to learn more about this fascinating museum of culinary horrors - with all due respect to their respective cultures, of course - Bored Panda spoke with Andreas Ahrens, a former I.T. entrepreneur and the museum's director. The idea for such a museum started happening right when his long-time friend Samuel West was about to close his Museum of Failure in 2019.
As fate would have it, the timing aligned perfectly, as Ahrens had recently sold his company and was seeking a thrilling new project to sink his teeth into. "I called him up and said, 'Hey, let's do something fun together. Basically, he said, 'I have a little bit of an idea of something that could become something," Ahrens recalled. And so, over the course of six months, he and Sam toiled side by side, shaping the embryonic idea into a one-of-a-kind concept for a museum that would redefine the limits of gastronomic exploration.
Currently, the Disgusting Food Museum has around 20,000 visitors every year and 80 of the world’s most disgusting foods, ranging from maggot-infested cheese from Sardinia to Durian, infamously stinky fruit from Thailand (which “smelled like socks at the bottom of a gym locker, drizzled with paint thinner,” a food photographer told New Yorker once) - some of which you can try for yourself in their tasting bar which is included in the ticket price.
Of course, we can't say that we're really surprised that the curator of such a museum understands the appeal of stinky, culturally appropriate food. "Disgust is an evolutionary function that every culture in the world has developed. Even cultures that have no connection with the rest of the world - even they feel disgusted because disgust is there to protect us. It's an evolutionary function that makes sure that we don't eat something that can kill us," Ahrens said.
"I think it's a little bit fascinating to see something disgusting. Like riding a rollercoaster. You feel a sense of danger, but you know you're in safe hands," he added. "That's the appeal of having a strong emotional reaction while knowing that you will not die from trying the things that we have in the tasting bar."
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Crafting the menu for the Disgusting Food Museum, however, is quite a challenge with many factors to consider. "It has to be something new that is interesting to taste, interesting to smell - something that people generally haven't tasted already. It also has to taste or smell quite strongly in a way that makes you remember it afterward," Ahrens explained.
Accommodating practicality, all menu items must be amenable to refrigeration or drying, ensuring ease of preservation and service. "So it is a bit challenging to make sure that we have a tasting bar that checks all of those boxes."
