No Fish-Guts, No Glory Trivia Quiz

Answer: Maggots

A pecorino cheese is a hard Italian cheese made with sheep's milk. In the case of casu martzu, a specific type of fly, known as Piophila casei or 'cheese fly', lays its eggs in the rind of the cheese. The presence of the cheese fly's larvae within the cheese cause it to decompose and become very soft and runny. Female cheese flies are prolific layers and hundreds - or even thousands - of maggots end up inside the cheese.

It is supposed to be eaten while the maggots are still alive, and traditionally spread on pane carasau (a type of Sardinian flatbread).

Although casu martzu is banned by the EU due to food health regulations - accidentally eating the maggots can cause a pseudomyiasis infection - it is still available on the black market, albeit for a heavy price.

Answer: Shark

Hákarl is described smelling of ammonia and having a 'strong fishy taste' (a friend of mine, who's been to Iceland a few times, described it as tasting like 'fishy cheese'). It is usually made from the meat of the Greenland shark, which cannot be eaten fresh as it is highly toxic, so it has to be cured and left to ferment before becoming edible. To make hákarl, the shark is decapitated, gutted and placed in a pit of sand and gravel, with stones on top to squeeze body fluids out, and left there for up to 12 weeks.

It is then cut into strips and hung out to dry for 4-5 months, before being cut into cubes like the picture here. Hákarl is traditionally served at Ţorrablót, an Icelandic midwinter festival, as part of a buffet.

Answer: Durian

Although durian certainly tastes pleasant enough - its taste has been described as sweet and nutty with a hint of vanilla - its smell is so offensive to many people that it is banned from public transport in Singapore, and to a lesser extent, in other Asian countries such as Hong Kong or Japan. Efforts have been made in Thailand to breed odourless varieties, but many fans of the fruit disapprove of this as they believe that the stronger the smell, the sweeter the taste. Thailand is the world's biggest exporter of durian, though it is also widely produced in Malaysia (the one in the photo was photographed in Malaysia).

In Indonesia, durian ice cream is a popular dessert, while a Malaysian condiment called tempoyak is made from fermented durian.

Answer: Seal

Kiviak consists of a seal skin stuffed with 500 or so little auks. The skin is sewn up and the fat of the seal is used as a sealant (no pun intended) and fly repellent. The dead seal is then left under a pile of rocks for three months to ferment, and its fat tenderises and preserves the auks within.

It is then dug up and eaten during winter. The cold helps to preserve it; a similar method called igunaq is used to preserve walrus meat, by burying it in the summer and leaving it to freeze over winter, to be eaten the following year. Only little auks should be used to make kiviak; in 2013, several people died of botulism poisoning in the remote settlement of Siorapaluk, Greeland, after eating kiviak made with eider, which do not ferment as well as little auks. One man had died from eating this contaminated kiviak and several others ate the same meal at his funeral; some also died of food poisoning, while others experienced hallucinations.

Answer: Snake

Some of the bottles of wine in this picture also contain scorpions, another toxic creature. In fact, the venom of a snake is what makes it the added ingredient of choice - the venom is dissolved in the alcohol, which 'unfolds' the proteins it contains, making it (in theory at least) safe to drink.

The snake is either inserted into the bottle and left to drown, or stunned, gutted and sewn up, and placed on ice, which temporarily wakes it up before it dies. Some snake wine varieties use snake bile or blood instead of the animal itself.

The wine itself is usually either rice wine or grain alcohol. Snake wine is available in China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa and the Indian state of Goa, amongst other places; it is believed to be an aphrodisiac and said to have health benefits.

However, the importation of snake wine is banned in several countries because some of the snakes used in its production are endangered species.

Answer: Balut

Balut is the Tagalog word for this rather gruesome-looking dish, but it is also available in countries such as China, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is a boiled and fertilised duck egg (usually a mallard duck), often sold as a street food, and was introduced to the Philippines in the 16th century by the Chinese. To make balut, the eggs are incubated and kept at a medium temperature, before being checked with light to see how the embryo within is developing. In the Philippines, the incubation period lasts for 14-16 days, though the Cambodian version is incubated for a little longer. The eggs are then boiled.

The other answers are also Filipino dishes. Bakpia are pastries, similar to Chinese mooncakes, stuffed with pork or sweet fillings; bahalina is palm wine made with fermented coconut sap; and balao-balao is a rice and fermented shrimp dish.

Answer: Testicles

Often associated with cowboys, Rocky Mountain oysters are battered and fried bull testicles (though they can often come from bison, pigs or sheep). In Canada, they are known as 'prairie oysters' and served in a brown sauce known as a demi-glace, while Texans and Oklahomans call them 'calf fries'.

The 'oysters' are a byproduct of castration and the dish was originally a practical way for ranchers to use up the testicles and avoid waste. Rocky Mountain oysters are often consumed at 'testicle festivals' around the US - the Montana State Society has held an annual Rocky Mountain Oyster Festivals in the town of Clinton since 2005 - and the villages of Ozjem and Lunjevica in Serbia are also home to the World Gonad Cooking Festival, where various testicular dishes are cooked.

Answer: Mexico

A chapulin (from the Nahuatl word 'chapolin') is a grasshopper from the Sphenarium genus which is native to Mexico. High in protein and low in fat, they are usually caught in the wild during May and late summer/early autumn, and prepared by toasting on a comal, a type of griddle, then seasoned with garlic, salt and lime juice.

They are particularly popular in the southwestern state of Oaxaca, where they can be purchased as a snack food at sports matches and are also sold at markets. They are said to taste crunchy and salty, and go well with beer.

The chapulines here are served as a taco filling, mixed with avocado, shallots and tequila.

Answer: Sheep

My Scottish dad used to tell me that a haggis was a bird with a square head, and I was disappointed when I found out what it really was! Instead, it's a kind of savoury pudding made of sheep innards, suet, onions, salt, oats and spices, and cooked in the sheep's stomach lining (though artificial linings can be used instead).

The 'great chieftain o' the puddin'-race', as the Scottish poet Robert Burns called it, is probably the most famous dish to come out of Scotland. It is one of the main foods of a Burns Night supper, served with neeps and tatties (aka swedes and potatoes) and is traditionally brought in to the sound of bagpipes, before the host recites Burns' 'Address to a Haggis'.

Some Scottish takeaways also sell battered and fried haggis. Scottish vegetarians need not feel left out, as veggie haggis - which uses pulses instead of meat - is available as an alternative.

Answer: Shiokara

Shiokara essentially consists of two things: pieces of the meat of a fish or other marine creature, such as a squid, and its guts. First, the guts have to be salted - malted rice is sometimes added as well - and then left to ferment, which creates a gooey brownish paste. The salted guts act as a preservative. There are several varieties of shiokara, such as uni no shiokara (sea urchin roe), shuto (tuna, which is sometimes sweetened with a mixture of mirin, sake and honey), mefun (salmon kidneys) and ika no shiokara (squid, which is the most common variety).

As for the other answers, gari is pickled ginger, shiruko is a sweet azuki bean porridge, and tsukune are chicken meatballs served on a skewer.