All human beings have the nature of greed, especially when it comes to rare items. One such item for which humans show greed is food items, particularly those which are delicious and rare. From pigâs snout to chicken feet, the list of strange stuff we consume is endless. Food items differ from place to place, for example, if a country considers a type of food as delicious, some other country might find it sickening. Well, if you are on a diet while reading this article, you might lose that appetite because here, we bring you the worldâs most uncommon foods which might sound weird but are quite delicious.
1. Birdâs nest soup
As weird as the name sounds, the food is made the same way – from the saliva of cave swifts. A food item made from bird spit, how does it sound? The Swiftlet bird uses its saliva to construct its cave which later solidifies to form the chief ingredient of birdâs nest soup. This is the worldâs most expensive animal product to be eaten by man. When the nest assumes a gummy structure, it is dissolved in water. The nests are quite expensive and cost you around $2,000 per kilogram but this is a food known for its medicinal purposes.
2. Caffé Raro
The Caffé Raro is a mixture of the two most expensive and rarest coffees in the world, the Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kopi Luwak. But it is the Kopi Luwak that has acquired great interest recently as it is made from cat crap. This rare coffee owes its rich flavor and strong aroma to the beans which have passed through the digestive tract of a mammal called Asian Palm Civet. So, if you are looking for these beans, then you have to go searching for droppings from these civets. And guess what, the price for a small cup is around $80. This coffee certainly interests those who like to experience rare flavors among coffee blends.
3. Square watermelon
The square watermelon was brought forth by the Japanese when there was a search for an easily stackable variety of the fruit. These watermelons were produced by a farmer by confining the fruit into a square shaped container. The main reason for doing this was just to stack watermelons easily as the ordinary round ones would just roll over and would be hard to store. As the square watermelons are rarer and more comfortable than the ordinary ones, they are quite expensive and are usually bought by the rich. But the watermelons are worth paying, they really look delicious!
4. Saffron
Saffron is the most expensive and rarest spices in the world. It is acquired by hand picking the stigma of a flower. Each flower produces about two to three stigmas and you will need a number of 225,000 of these for one pound of saffron. Thus, you will need thousands of flowers and at least 40 hours of lengthy process to gather one pound of saffron. This is probably one of the reasons why saffron is expensive, ranging from $500 to $5,000 for a pound. The price differs as to where you buy it from, but still, $500 for a pound is a generous sum of money for spices.
5. Vanilla
Though vanilla is not the rarest spice, it stands next to saffron in its price. Vanilla comes from a plant which is native to Mexico and is largely produced in countries like Indonesia and Madagascar. Vanilla is expensive because of three reasons – it is difficult to grow, the flowers are pollinated with hand and even the beans are hand picked. The picked beans are then dried for many months so as to strengthen the flavor. You can also get artificial vanilla as it is much cheaper than the real one. But the artificial variety doesnât have the same strong flavor as the real vanilla has. So, going with the real vanilla is good if you want the perfect taste and flavor in your foodstuffs.
6. Kobe beef
Kobe beef is delicious as it melts when kept in mouth. It is also known as Wagyu and is known for its tenderness, flavor and juiciness. You can purchase it from sushi restaurants, at butchers or other online retailers. A pound of Kobe beef might cost you around $150 or even more. American Kobes are also available with an affordable price. While a Kobe steak costs $110 per pound, the American Kobe will be available for half of that price.
7. Rare golden tigerfish
This food item was first introduced when a restaurant in China bought a giant rare golden tigerfish costing $75,000, believing it to be a sign of good luck. The fish was caught from the Southern Coast of China and it weighed about 105 pounds and was approximately 6 feet long.
