Let me tell you something about us food scribes: Never underestimate the shit we’ll stuff in our mouths. We’re serving a number of gods here—our bosses, our curiosity and sense of adventure, Google Analytics, our Instagram feed, etc. I once ate at a restaurant in Beijing that only served a variety of animal penises (with Los Angeles Times/ESPN’s Bill Plaschke, no less), and I certainly didn’t do it because I was craving boiled dick.
There is an element of public service behind these “Will they eat this”-type of stories. Take The Seattle Times, which this week investigated a curious delicacy: a peanut butter and raw onion sandwich. Apparently it has its fans in the Pacific Northwest, where the town of Walla Walla, Washington, is famous for growing onions “so sweet you can eat it like an apple.”