‘I was tricked into eating dog': Travel writers reveal their worst-ever holiday meals

Telegraph

4 hours ago

Culinary experiences are often the highlight of a holiday. We're thinking of Seville's atmospheric tapas bars, sun-soaked (and cat-filled) Greek island tavernas and aperitivo hour in Milan. But they can also serve up the lowest of lowlights; gut-churning moments that linger in the memory for a lifetime.
Here, seven of our well-travelled writers reveal the worst meal they've ever eaten abroad.
'I was tricked into eating dog'
Living in a small Chinese city in my early 20s, I ate all manner of excellent foods: steaming hand-pulled noodles; five-spice smothered meat skewers; thick hotpots; piles of morning glory spiked through with chillies and black sauce. I would eat anything put in front of me – with just one exception: dog meat.
A traditional winter delicacy, in the colder months you'd often see – on a long table, alongside other huge plates of raw fare from which customers could pick – a dish of meat with, frequently, the front paws laid across its edge as proof. I am a dog lover – at the time, I even had a dog whose breed hailed from Tibet. There was no way I was going to feast on one of his – or any dog's – relatives.
My Chinese friends found this comical: you eat every other animal, they'd say (and I had); why not this one?
So one evening, as we gathered around a big communal table, they conspired. Beer and baijiu flowed, the huge glass lazy Susan spun, and finally, without realising, I ended up picking at an unfamiliar meat. A howl of laughter erupted – 'it's dog! You ate dog!'.
Wary not to cause offence, I shook my head and laughed along – but the chewy, beef-ish meat in my mouth tasted like ashes, and I've never really forgiven myself.
Gemma Knight-Gilani
'It had the aroma of an overflowing urinal'
I like to think I've eaten pretty much everything that walks, crawls, slithers or even just hangs there harmlessly in the ocean bothering nobody. (The latter was whale blubber, in Greenland – so glutinously, gelatinously fatty that I may have expended more calories trying to gnaw it than I gained digesting it; the former was 'Foraged Cornish Ants' in, of all places, posh Surrey country-house hotel Beaverbrook.)
Only one dish has ever defeated me, in fact: hákarl, the Icelandic 'delicacy' (because 'vomitacy' is not a word) made from poisonous shark buried in sand until it starts to putrefy. Its high urea content gives it an aroma almost exactly like that of an overflowing urinal, and it tastes every bit as good as it smells.
Worse still is the texture: smooth but chewy, so that as you gag – and you will gag – you're not sure if it's in your mouth on the way down or the way back up.
'It's ok', said the waiter, collecting my barely-touched plate, 'not even Icelanders actually eat it.'
Ed Grenby
'The giant carcass was covered in a thick layer of grey jelly – which quivered as the elderly restaurant owner shuffled it over'
As soon as I saw the chicken, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. It lay sprawled on a platter, legs and wings akimbo, its giant carcass covered in a thick layer of grey jelly – which quivered as the elderly restaurant owner shuffled it over. There was no doubt it was for us: my then-boyfriend and I were the only two diners, watched over by a stern official from the Taiwan tourist board, our 'minder' for the entire stay.
We were bog-eyed from the 14-hour flight, and when I'd spotted braised chicken on the menu it had sounded so comforting amid this bizarre scenario – nothing like the fridge-cold, ashen hunk of flesh and fat before me.
The owner and official lingered at the tableside, and I forced a weak smile. But by the time I'd forced down two mouthfuls, I was in the danger zone. There was no way I could manage another, let alone finish the beast.
'I just can't…', I murmured to my boyfriend. Spotting my pallor, he wordlessly slid the platter to his side of the table and started to work, giving our companions a thumbs-up for good measure. I knew at that moment that he would be the man I'd marry – and he was. You can keep your diamonds, your roses: the man ate the chicken for me. It was so horrendous, that not even the chicken anus skewer I mistakenly tried a few days later eclipsed it – but that's another story...
Hazel Plush
'I came home a stone lighter'
Everyone we knew who'd gone to Cuba had a culinary horror story to tell, so we played it safe at a reassuringly expensive rooftop restaurant on our first night in Havana.
We were young lovers and the setting was suitably romantic. Candles flickered in the Caribbean breeze as the old town twinkled below us and salsa drifted from a nearby club. A perfect evening, and then the food arrived.
On first inspection, my chicken looked – if anything – carcinogenic, its charred skin evoking memories of 1980s barbecues.
Inside, though, it was all blood and raw flesh, a red sea of salmonella, prompting the inevitable 'a good vet…' joke. Only getting decent food in Cuba is no laughing matter.
Having initially claimed that the chicken was cooked, the waiter agreed to source a replacement, which turned out to be the same raw piece of mutilated meat, just flipped over. We left hungry, with no apology, paying only for booze. I'd dodged a bullet, but it was an omen. Days later I was floored by food poisoning so violent it made me nostalgic for Delhi belly. I came home a stone lighter with a culinary horror story of my own.
Gavin Haines
'We chomped for what seemed like hours attempting to get through the gristle without retching'
Okinawa remains one of my favourite places in the world. This is the island that opened my eyes to emoji-shaped fireworks, lilting sanshin music and Japan 's incredible underwater world. Being adventurous about food meant I indulged in the local crispy pigs ears and purple potato ice cream too – and both were delicious.
But everyone has a line. And mine was firmly crossed when I found myself facing a plate of giant sea snails, each bigger than my fist and served in its shell, without a whiff of garlic or butter to mask its gelatinous ooze. These molluscs (also known as Turban Shells) were the star turn in a meal put on by the tourist board for visiting journalists, all of whom were far too polite to decline the dish.
So on we chomped, for what seemed like several hours, attempting to get through the gristle without retching over each other. Thank goodness for the Asahi, which not only helped wash them down but also rendered me drunker with every mouthful.
Amanda Hyde
'In less time than it takes to tell, there was more of me outside than in'
I've had more run-ins with street food stands than you'll care to read about. Worst of all followed the eating of a chicken tamale in a small town outside Orizaba in Mexico. I was seeking traces of my Lancastrian grandfather, who'd had a textile business there decades before. And I was snacking because I'd lost much of my money. An exuberant pickpocket had squeezed in next to me on the bus, chatted gaily and got off with my cash.
Initially tasty, the tamale counterattacked a couple of hours later, as I wandered the town. I hadn't booked a hotel, so had no room to return to. There was, though, a park nearby with, thank the Lord, tall, shielding tropical vegetation. In less time than it takes to tell, there was more of me outside than in.
I collapsed on a park bench. A young shoe shine boy approached. Could he shine my shoes? No, I said, and if he didn't move briskly, he'd have more than shoes to clean. 'You're unwell,' he said. I nodded, and dashed once more for the bushes. 'Follow me,' he said. I staggered off behind him. Some minutes later we arrived at a white-washed, one-storey house.
The young man went in and returned with his mother, Maria. She took me into a tiny bedroom at the back where I stayed for three days and nights, attended by Maria with bottled water and towels.
As soon as I could move, I left. Maria, naturally, would take no money. She gave me to understand that looking after people was what women like her did. I left what cash I had left at the local grocery store, that Maria's next shop might be subsidised. And I wonder: if a random, exploding Mexican turned up at my house, would I be so unquestioningly generous? I hope so, I really do.
Anthony Peregrine
'We dined in silence on rubbery gizzards'
Over the years, I've had disgusting dinners across the world – from fried mopane worms in Namibia to confit of cow's udder at a gourmet restaurant in Bogota. Top of the gut-wrenching charts, however, was a Madagascan Christmas meal at a hostel in the highlands.
Boiled more brutally than a Tudor-era traitor, my chicken had long passed on to several next lives. Rubbery gizzards were washed down with 'burned rice tea' – a fancy name for spent water used to soak old iron pots. Dining in silence, we listened to rusty church bells peel as beetles sizzled to death in blinding strip lights overhead.
But food is only 50 per cent of a memorable dining experience. That night, my partner and I stayed in separate single-sex dorms wondering who might be first to barricade the loo. While I slept soundly, he was kept up by an elderly traveller farting and ranting about spies from MI5. The following morning, the old man shrugged off his unsociable behaviour, retorting: 'It must have been something I ate.'