The shark is by no means my favorite food - but I could keep it down (esp. since I washed it down with an ice cold shot of brennivín). I can't imagine a scenario where the same can be said about the soda you described. I pray it doesn't exist.

This does bring up the question of what would happen if one tried washed down the hákarl with an ice cold shot of broccoli casserole soda.

But maybe there are some things we really aren't meant to know.

Have you ever had a York peppermint pattie, then followed it up with a slug of Pepsi, diet or otherwise?

No, but that doesn't sound revolting. Is there something about this combination I should know?

It's maaaagic!

GNAGH!!!

*shudder*

Just, *shudder*.

---L.

So Chris made all that lovely food, yet the defining culinary memory which you will forever associate with our house is the broccoli casserole soda.

Yeah, pretty much. :-)

I told him it's his own fault for trying to unload that horrible stuff on unwitting houseguests.

But it led to such an interesting intellectual discussion! ;-)

Huh, I really want to try rotten shark now. Broccoli casserole soda, not so much.

The hákarl is, on reflection, the more interesting of the two.

I've tried rotten shark once and I just couldn't believe how revolting it tasted. The only thing that I've ever found as revolting is 'kæst skata' (rotten stingray). I've no idea what was going through the heads of the people who thought it was a good idea to ferment shark and stingray and then eat it.

I have a pretty good idea: "God, I'm hungry. I wonder if this will kill me? Except, it looks like it's been sitting out on the rocks for a while ... God, I'm hungry."

---L.

Yeah, I'm guessing a lot of food creations can be explained that way. Including the fact that taro is under certain circumstances edible.

You know those Chinese/Vietanmese bubble drinks? Taro makes a bubble drink flavor. Fwiw.

I know. I like taro flavored bubble drink. It's one of the reasons I thought taro was a normal, edible food!

Makes a nice bubble drink flavor, I meant. Ahem.

There's rotten stingray, too? So, who decided that the shark should get all the press? :-)

I found I could get the hákarl down fine so long as I didn't think too hard about what I was tasting as I was tasting it. But I certainly didn't want a second helping!

The shark gets more press as you can it in smaller doses, therefore easier to convince tourists to try it (and I don't think the fact that you drink 'brennivín' with it, spoils it), plus most people only eat 'kæst skata' on the 23rd of December, which we Icelanders called 'Þorláksmessa'.

Being a vegetarian means never having to eat rotten shark.

It´s true. Non-meat products are oddly disinterested in decaying at a properly revolting rate. :-)

That sounds like a convincing argument. BTW, the wikipedia page for shark leads to lutefisk...

What I wonder is not just who tried it and why, but who in their right minds, when confronted with a fish turning into soap, will go out and try again.

Huh. When I click on the link I get the page for Hákarl (which is rotten shark) ...

Sorry, I meant that link contained a link to lutefisk.

I'll try a lot of different foods, but you are a far braver food adventurer than I. And I think I want to keep it that way.

Someone mentioned lutefisk (did I spell that right?). I tried it once and cannot for the life of me think why my Norweigan friends claim it's a must-have every Christmas. Is it a ritual cleansing of the mouth so you can start the new year with a clean slate/palette? Horrible stuff.

When I was a kid, I wouldn't eat anything if I hadn't already tried it before. I was the pickiest eater on the planet. Then sometime in college, I realized unfamiliar food wouldn't kill me, and since then, I've been willing to try most things at least once. :-) (Though not always more than that.)

I'm a "never tried either, and plan to keep it that way". But my reasoning is that there's some precedent for the shark in the anchovy / fish sauce / garum spectrum of flavours, whereas there is no excuse for broccoli casserole soda.

My mother had a bottle of artichoke liqueur which hung around forever, because even my brother's friends wouldn't drink it.

Artichoke liqueur?

Wait, I'm not saying that right. Artichoke liqueur? How -- ?

No. Never mind. Do not want to know.

---L.

Had to fudge my answer on the poll, because if I ever break my decades-long vegetarian lifestyle, it probably won't be for rotten shark. Or rotten anything. Or shark anything, for that matter.

But broccoli-something soda sounds rather intriguing. Wait; is it vegetarian?

Well, I'm pretty sure it's never made the acquaintance of real broccoli; whether it's met other real foodstuffs, I do not know. Seems unlikely, though. :-)