Fresh seafood anyone?

People in Seoul yesterday had their tonsils tickled by tentacles. Visitors from across South Korea indulged in an annual live food eating contest in which they munched down on everybody’s favourite cephalopod mollusc, the octopus! Participants who invertebraved the challenge (yes I've seriously used that pun) had to contend with 8 sticky legs of clambering over their faces as the slimy squids struggled not to be consumed. Of course, very few succeeded.

This gruesome practice certainly seems alien to us, but it got me thinking, perhaps British culinary customs are odd when put through the prism of outside minds?

Haggis - The most obvious example would be haggis of course. Revered by Scots, so much so that it was once celebrated in a poem by Robert Burns, if we're being reductive the dish is little more than a bag of nasties. Made from a sheep's heart, liver and lungs and wrapped in a beautiful succulent stomach lining, the haggis doesn't at all resemble a malnourished brain. However, despite being wonderfully tasty if we're being honest, those of us south of the border, and just a few of those North too, still find this concoction a tad strange.

Black Pudding - A delicacy usually reserved for the pasty white, impossibly charismatic, and sometimes sparkly, blood is usually last on peoples list of what to put in your mouth. Yet a favourite across British breakfast tables and greasy spoon cafés nationwide, blood is eaten in the form of black pudding. A crumbly, dark brown sausage made from blood, oatmeal, onions and fat, for my money is the best thing about a Full English.

Lavarbread - Resembling a tiny bit of cud that a cow has vomited onto your best crockery (yes, ew) lavarbread is synonymous with the stunning welsh coastline. To create the Celtic delicacy seaweed is collected, cooked and minced. Traditionally served with cockles or bacon, it is deliciously salty and supremely good for you.

Battered Mars Bar - Finally, we return up north to explore this cuisine that eaten by approximately no-one. The battered Mars Bar is a deep fried dish is that, for the most part, is mainly sold to tourists looking for a true taste of Scotland. Essentially a cardiac arrest waiting to happen, this odd blend of sweet and savoury is partly to blame for Scotland’s unfair stigma of a nation of unhealthy eaters.

Okay, so there is probably a point I should make here about the oddest food we in the west we actually consume being the crazy amount of products packed full of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, so much so that what we’re eating is barely food in the traditional sense. However, I’m currently far too hooked on e-numbers to ever betray them...