We've never tried THAT before... the Previously Untried Food page

Here's where we have listed all the new foods and drinks we're trying on this trip, along with a few pics of Susan enjoying her food!

(including foods that are new for Josh but not for Susan)









Thailand:
-Rambutan: spiky red fruit that looks straight out of Star Trek
-Mangosteen: One of Susan's favorites. A garlic-shaped bulb that tastes like heaven.
-Pomelo: A giant grapefruit, but sweeter
-Persimmon: the fruit that looks like a tomato but tastes like a cross between a peach and an apple (Susan likes it, Josh doesn't)

South Africa:
-Amarula: a lovely liqueur made from wild fruit that tastes like Bailey's but better
-Biltong: dried meat made from wild game, such as Eland and Gemsbok - really tasty, even though it looks like a cross between dried mushrooms and cobwebs. Susan's new favorite snack food (see picture above)
-Rooibles tea: A lovely healthy tea made from a plant whose name we can't pronounce

Uganda:
-Crayfish from Lake Bunyoni: (only Susan tried this one): a lovely fresh shrimp-like seafood which was served in the halves of an avocado, in a lovely curry sauce.
(the avocados in Uganda, by the way, are the best Susan has ever tasted)
-Matoke: a variety of banana that is a huge favorite among Ugandans. After eating it, literally, for a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we will both be happy if we never see another matoke gracing our plates
-Atapa: Ugandan sweet potatoes that are sliced, dried, rehydrated and served as a thick porridge. If this doesn't sound appetizing, you're right. Has the taste and consistency of semi-old play-doh.
-Raw sugar cane: Going for the sweet stuff right from the source. Stripping the sugar cane is a real test of the incisors (see pictures above)


East Africa (Uganda/Kenya):
-Grass-fed beef: Ok, we've had steaks before but NEVER like this anywhere in the world. The finest EVER. This grass-fed, free-range, hormone-free beef is simply out of this world. We keep trying more and more to see if it's consistently delicious. It always is. Even the meat-on-a-stick variety that we have bought from street vendors -- if its beef, it's incredible. If we end up moving to East Africa it will be because of the beef!
-Chapati: an African flat bread. A bit like the offspring you would get by breeding a soft tortilla with a pita bread. Josh is wild about it. Given his bread cravings, this is yet another reason to move to East Africa.
-Barbecued goat ribs - Susan was really excited to try this - the final result was so-so. Meat was tough and pretty fried.

Kenya:
-Tilapia: famous fish from Kenya. Susan really loves it. Josh tasted it and thinks it tastes like fish--go figure.

Tanzania:
-M'chicha: green veggies, a bit like spinach, and cooked with lovely spices.
-Ugali: a starchy, white tuber, served as a sticky mash. Eaten with the hands and used to sop up any juices on the plate. In a role reversal, Susan goes crazy for the starchy foods and Josh is agnostic.
-Masai fruit - tasty little fruits plucked straight from the trees. Real name unknown, but the Masai guides who accompanied us insisted that they were called Masai fruit. We really didn't have the strength to argue.

Zanzibar:
-Coconut bread - bread obtained from the local fish market. Very spongy and moist. Proper roles regained, as Josh leads the cheers for the bread
-Local donuts - also obtained at the fish market. Tasty but not exactly clear if these are dessert items or another type of bread.
-Cigale - a small, 'slipper' lobster that Susan had at one of their few fancy meals. Tender, soft and delicious... although not QUITE as good as Maine lobster (is anything?).
-Sugarcane juice - concoction of hand-squeezed sugar cane, ginger and lime. Susan loves it, Josh will stick to lemonade

Namibia:
-Biltong (meat jerky) - we tried this before (see South Africa), but we purchased it in copious quantities in Namibia to get us through some very long car rides. Unfortunately, the best kind of biltong comes from the cutest kind of animal: springbok. Springbok is an incredibly charming animal with a very springy jump, in which it jumps on all four legs to catapult itself high in the air. This fact aside, it is also, in biltong form, delicious.
-Guava juice - made from guava, very tasty and we assume healthy too
-Gemsbok steak - made from a large antelope with very long and pointy horns - tasty!

South Africa (second time around):
- Assortment of game meats grilled on a skewer including: Kudu, Ostrich and Eland (Kudu, which is the largest antelope in all of Africa, is also the most delicious)
- Assortment of game meats served carpaccio including: Crocodile, Ostrich, Springbok, and Gemsbok
- Warthog ribs - several Africans told us that this so-ugly-that-it's-cute animal made the best ribs of all. Susan's opinion: not so much.
- Traditional Xhosa soup - just like the bushmen eat!!
- Cape Gooseberries - this fruit (which Susan tried, not surprisingly, in Capetown), is a yellow berry, shaped like a tomato, but smaller and sweeter. It tastes NOTHING like Chinese Gooseberries, which are another name for kiwis.
- Peri Peri sauce - this is a lovely sauce in South Africa that gives meat a serious 'kick'
- Peppadew (TM) - this is a vegetable INVENTED BY SOUTH AFRICANS that is a cross between a pepper and a tomato. According to the "Peppadew International" website, it is an "intriguing and endearing" fruit. We don't know how intriguing or endearing it is, but it is tasty on a pizza.