Bar eggs. You've seen them in their jars, pickled in that murky liquid, all nasty-looking. Who eats these things? Why do they exist?

Bar eggs got us thinking: What are some of the grossest foods you can find in Tampa Bay? So we set up a taste test of a few supposed edibles that most folks — especially white-bread American types — would never consider putting in their mouths.

Before we begin, permit me a disclaimer. I was raised on meatloaf, burgers, baked chicken, mashed potatoes and the like. Over the years, my palate has expanded — I'll eat moderately spicy stuff, most ethnic cuisines, and in the last five years have even conquered raw-fish sushi. Count me out for most raw shellfish and other slimies.

I tell you this so you'll know that when it comes to true culinary adventurism, I'm basically a rube. Is a pickled pig's foot intrinsically disgusting? No. It's in the mouth of the beholder. Our taste-test entries — revolting to many of us — are delicacies to people from other cultures.

That said, consider me your faithful stooge. I was joined by food critic Brian Ries — a far more intrepid eater than I — in a Creative Loafing conference room. Associate editor Joe Bardi looked on, grimacing. Operations manager London Fajkus videoed the event, which you can click to at right.

As we began, I remember thinking: How did I get myself into this?

Chocolate-Covered Insects: An eww-gross classic, so much so that it's not that much of a challenge anymore. Still, I'd never tried one, so I picked a couple up in the gift store at Boyd Hill Nature Park in St. Pete.

These little buggers presented the mildest challenge. Brian wanted to suck the chocolate off to see what kind of insect was inside, but I willingly ate one; it tasted like a small morsel of chocolate with just a few dried fly wings mixed in. A little bug residue hung around in my mouth, so I opened a 20-ounce Coke and took a big swig. We never got to examine the insect carcass. "It's really disintegrating," Brian said. "I don't think I can keep the bug intact. It tastes like a tiny slab of pork rind covered in chocolate."

BBQ Mealworms: I also got these at Boyd Hill; they came in a small box, the larvettes (as the packaging called them) long dead and dried out. They looked wormy enough. Eating these was a cakewalk. "'Cause they're fried, all you're tasting is the crunchy outer layer of the worm," Brian said. "There's no meat to it." Uh, what a pity. "It tastes like a really, really tiny Frito," Joe said. "I've eaten worse things out of bowls on bars." Basically, the mealworms dissolved in our mouths instantly. Our biggest complaint was that the barbecue flavor was too faint.

A Bar Egg: If someone walked into St. Pete's Emerald Bar in the year 3610, they could probably pull a pickled egg from the same jar that I retrieved mine from a couple weeks ago. These things must have a half-life of 800,000 years. I kind of expected the pinkish egg — shelled, hard-boiled and vinegar-sogged — to be surprisingly tasty.

I was wrong. Very wrong. I could discern no real pickle taste — just vinegar, which had turned the egg into something akin to a Superball wrapped in leather. The white (turned pink) part was particularly tough and unpleasant. I grimaced, let out an "ugh" and reached for the Coke. Brian opted for understatement: "It really doesn't taste good at all."

Bar Sausage: I picked this up at a small grocery store on Floribraska in Tampa. We called it a palate cleanser, because pickled sausage — which you can also find at dive bars — doesn't present much of a test. "Oh, that's good," Brian said, chewing, as I lunged to spit my bite in the trash. Whereas good sausage spurts juices, this one was a dense blob of bad, vinegar-soaked meat. Its texture was simply not food-like.

A Pickled Pig's Foot: My first flash of genuine trepidation. This fucker was scary; it looked like … the foot of a pig, all pink and hairless. Brian cut me a slice with a knife. I stared at it for several seconds; little round knobs of gristle stared right back. It smelled wretched. I thought about running. I sniffed and took a nibble. "Aggh. Aggggh," I groaned before spitting it out. "It's really not that bad at all," Brian, the lunatic, said. "It's got that j-j-jelly thing going on," I countered. "Yeah, it's gelatinized fat," Brian said. "Listen, who doesn't like pig fat?"

"Me-eeee!" I cried.

Durian: I walked into Oceanic Market in Tampa and asked a member of the staff to suggest something that a Westerner would probably find truly repugnant. The woman took me to a freezer case where two white cores of a Southeast Asian fruit called durian sat in a packet. "It tastes of the shit," she said, "but some people like."

The durian stayed in the CL break-room freezer for a few days, and a faint trace of its odor started seeping into the room. On the fateful day, I let it sit out and thaw, and co-workers begged me to eat it, throw it out, just get rid of it.

Trepidation had given way to terror. But wait, man, I thought, it's a fruit. Brian began to remove the mushy orb from its plastic wrap. When it was fully exposed, Joe practically dove under the table to escape the stench. There's no way to describe the smell: "Toxic waste" doesn't do it justice; neither does "raw sewage" or "shit."

We forged on. I put a dab on the end of my knife and slipped it into my mouth. The durian had the texture of grainy pudding. I paused, tasted, and looked at Brian. "You know something?" I said. "It's kinda sweet?"

But I was fooling myself. The odor had been so overpowering that the taste by comparison was merciful. I took another dab. This time it rolled around on my taste buds and I got to experience its true awfulness. I reached for the Coke, tried to swallow, but no: another dive for the trash can was in order. I spewed it out, and for the first time, Brian was equally repulsed.

We ate pizza to try and kill the aftertaste. My stomach stayed vaguely queasy the rest of the day, and as I write this, a couple of weeks after the fact, the mere thought of durian can get me a little woozy.

Bar eggs are starting to look good again.

More to your taste

OK, we went to extremes. There are, of course, some very good tastes associated with Tampa Bay. Tell us your most memorable at senses@creativeloafing.com, or comment on this story by clicking the "comments" link at the bottom of the page.

Urban Explorer's Handbook 2007

Sensory Overload Edition

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