Wish chew were here?

The unusual foreign foods we've 'enjoyed' on our travels.

- By Nigel Thompson

Going on holiday abroad has many pleasures - new horizons to explore, new cultures to embrace and new food to try. But when you order off an unfamiliar menu more in hope than expectation, it’s possible to end up with a plate of mystery morsels.

So, in the spirit of culinary curiosity, we asked our journalists (a pretty well-traveled bunch) for their foreign food memories.

To start the undercooked meatball rolling, I'll contribute braised jellyfish with 'century egg’ (fermented for months until a gelatinous greenish-grey) for an awful eggs-over-queasy breakfast in China, whole baby frogs in Thailand, guinea pig in Peru and rattlesnake with bison testicles in Texas. The rattlesnake wasn't too bad. A bit like chicken...

Peter Rickman (production): “Octopus cooked in its own ink in the then Yugoslavia. Now I like a bit of octopus but this was like chunks of rubber floating in a watery black broth with two sad looking school dinner boiled potatoes... no thanks”

Ben Rankin (editors): “Horse intestines - never again. We were in a lovely restaurant in Kazakhstan, with a feast of food served to us, including special occasion dish Beshbarmak.

“The noodles and the horse meat were fine but the smelly, chewy, white intestine bites were difficult to, erm, stomach. I couldn't get enough of the Kumys (mare's milk) to wash it down and the Baursak (puffy bread) to get rid of the taste!”