A MUSEUM THAT’S HARD TO SWALLOW

The Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö, Sweden, introduced a drinks menu in the form of a temporary exhibition, which opened last September. Most of the drinks on display are beverages commonly consumed somewhere in the world, but which would revolt outsiders unfamiliar with the taste – including bitter herbal liquors like Gammel Dansk, drunk in Denmark, and Fernet-Branca, an Italian amaro.

The museum opened in 2018 with the intention of provoking reflection on how our notions about what is delicious or disgusting are culturally determined. Items on regular display include a bull’s penis, frog smoothies from Peru, a wine made of baby mice consumed in China and Korea, a strong Scottish brew poured from the mouth of a dead squirrel, and Sweden’s surstromming, an infamously putrid fermented herring – and, of course, durian fruit from southeast Asia, the smell of which has been likened to a blend of raw sewage and strawberry jam.

Many of the fermented beverages are equally stomach-churning, such as an ancient Korean “poo wine”, concocted from fermented child’s fæces and rice, once used as a medicine to heal broken bones and bruises, but not familiar to Koreans today. Other drinks include chicha de muko – spit-fermented corn meal beer from Peru, Finnish whisky matured in a herring cask, a Ugandan gin made from fermented bananas, and a wine made from an overripe orange fermented in the tank of a prison lavatory. Another liquid refreshment featured is an Icelandic beer made with whale testicles smoked in sheep’s dung.

One display tells what happened in the Soviet Union when the government closed alcohol stores to reduce drunkenness: people began drinking perfumes and varnish, leading to many deaths. At the entrance to the museum, marks on a blackboard indicate each time someone has vomited while visiting. At the time of the report, museum director Andreas Ahrens corrected a number to read “2 days since last vomit.” [AP] 4 Sept 2020.

Clockwise from top of facing page: The “Cuy” guinea pig, a culinary speciality from Peru; A “Bull Penis” from China; Mongolian “Sheep Eyeball Juice”; “Mouse Wine” from China; Balut, a boiled duck embryo popular in the Philippines; Japanese “Habushu” snake wine.