The Weirdest Snacks People Have Eaten Throughout History

If you think the ’90s had some weird (and thankfully discontinued) snack food, you should really travel a little farther back in time. As they say, the food of any place or time truly reflects the people who ate it and the culture in which it was made. And, well, there are many, many years of human history and culinary cuisine.

From the Victorians to the Ancient Egyptians, people have chowed down on some wild foods. Birds were a definite go-to, people carb-loaded like crazy, and a lot of unexpected animals were consumed. While some of these snacks were served at banquets or fancy events and others were sold on the street, they all seem pretty bizarre looking back.

Even though we have access to decent snacks these days, people didn’t always have a corner market or bodega to pop into.

Many people were at the mercy of poverty, too — resulting in meals people might not ordinarily want to eat. We also have to remember that across continents and cultures, what sounds delicious to one person might sound like an actual culinary nightmare to another — so don’t judge too harshly! Except for the Victorian era’s rancid slice of congealed calves foot jelly. You can totally judge that one.

Morbidly curious? We recommend putting your lunch aside while you read this! There are a lot of not-so-appetizing dishes throughout the ages…

For one, the Victorians really knew how to take food to the next level.

Building on the horrors of calves foot jelly, the Victorians sure aimed to shock.

Disgust? Feed themselves? For a society that was obsessed with dead things and used thin slices of raw beef as a face mask, it’s not surprising that they had some weird snack foods. As for the Victorian era’s congealed calves foot jelly, this oddity was an English dessert — ugh — made from boiling a calf’s foot. The gelatin is then mixed with wine, lemons, and other spices, and is then cooled.

Somehow, this is even more gross as a dessert.

Unsurprisingly, gross dishes like congealed jelly were made for the poor.

Think that’s weird? Check out saloop, which has been around since the 1600s and was beloved by the Victorians. Saloop was a “nutritious” drink substance that was both hot and sweet, and was made from orchid roots. However, in the 1800s you could get one with sassafras bark. It sounds like something made in an upscale apothecary-themed bar these days, and that’s maybe a good thing? Except that it was possibly made from used tea leaves out of the trash, according to ChowHound.

Ever just fancy a fish on a stick — otherwise known as a bloater? Sure ya do!

If you lived two hundred years ago, and got hungry wandering around the marketplace, you might stop by a vendor stall for a little snacky-snack.

The bloater was a salted herring, with every single body part intact, shoved onto a stick with toast. You could be walking around with a floppy, intact snack fish whenever you’d like! And coming from a street vendor, you just know there’s no way you could contract a horrifying disease.

Then again, are you in the mood for fish, but you don’t want an entire fish on a stick? WE GOT YOU. You could get some water souchy, which simply means “fishy water.” Really. Apparently, the Victorians would throw their fish into a pot and boil it with water. Bones, spices, and whatever got into the pot was good to go.

Talk about a makeshift meal.

Water souchy was like an ocean-flavored tea, if you will. Slurp!

Moving on from fish, there is another weirder and equally as vegan-unfriendly cuisine du jour. This wasn’t available at the market, but Victorians also loved themselves a little bit of liquid life force. And by that, we mean animal blood. If you weren’t feeling so well, you could go full-on vampire and imbibe the fresh, warm blood of a newly-killed animal. This would perk your spirits and keep consumption at bay, we hear.

Oh, and if you weren’t in the mood for BLOOD, you could go for a toast sandwich. A toast sandwich is a carb-on-carb-on-carb masterpiece including a piece of toast sandwiched between two other pieces of bread.

Which is actually genius.

As for their soup, it certainly wasn’t Campbell’s Chicken Noodle.

People in the 1700s and 1800s also loved a bowl of turtle soup. If you were at a banquet in England, chances are you were slurping down on turtle soup. People also ate something called mock turtle soup, which was soup with a calf’s head inside of it. Apparently, the flavors are very similar.

Mock turtle soup also contained brains and organ meats for texture.

It was sold in cans back then — and for some reason, it still is. Remember how we said not to judge these foods too harshly? And the Victorians weren’t the only people with weird tastebuds (or strange ideas of what could actually count as food — which is basically anything. Even garbage!). Enter the Tudors.

The Tudors also had an interesting culinary palate.

A few centuries earlier, the Tudors were wowing with their interesting kitchen visions, deciding to make hybrid foods that they could eat. What this really means is that the Tudors combined two animals in one and then cooked them. They especially loved cockentrice, which is a dish made of a pig and a rooster tied together in one edible abomination. Apparently, “it was not just a dish, but a spectacle that baffled and amused noble crowds,” according to The Vintage News.

The first hybrid-animal dinner was made for King Henry VIII — of course. That is, when he wasn’t eating swans or peacocks.

With a glass of ale, this maybe, maybe, maybe could taste not horrifying.

The Tudors also snacked on the basic birds — you know, good old swans, larks, peacocks, and gooses. For some reason, birds of these sorts were not off-limits — although, many are now protected birds. According to one food expert, who has actually tried peacock meat and says it’s “very dry,” peacocks and swans were popular foods because they were so beautiful, especially when they spread their feathers.

Yikes!

Again, certain foods were seen as symbols of royalty.

Birds such as peacocks were seen as being the food of nobles, and not that of the poor, according to Coquinaria. Instead of a meat and cheese dish, if you were attending a medieval party, you’d be drinking ale and eating peacock. Would you try peacock meat? Yeah, didn’t think so. And interestingly enough, even medieval kids drank ale, since the water was so filthy and disease-ridden.

Ever hear that famous children’s nursery rhyme, “Sing a song of sixpence/A pocket full of rye/Four and twenty blackbirds/Baked in a pie”?

Sure you have. The lyrics say it all: They’re referencing a beloved snack that also happens to be the stuff of nightmares: The Tudors also ate pies… baked with animals and people inside of it. To clarify, they’d fill a pie with living birds (don’t ask us how), which would fly out once cut open. They also once filled a pie with a living child. This may sound like a surrealist painting, but Charles I chowed down on it.

Folks in the 1500s were not playing around, either. Consider their appetite for beaver tails.

The early 1500s also saw people snacking on beaver tails. This one’s confusing, because it was considered “fish.” We’ll explain: At the time, much of England fasted around half the year, according to Catholic rule. On fasting days, you couldn’t have animal products. AND YET, fish was included. Somehow, beaver tails made the cut, since they were slimy and beavers liked water. Brilliant justification, guys.

When medieval folks weren’t being totally gross, they ate flower petals — specifically elderflower, roses, and violets. They also used dandelions to make a special kind of wine!

The Ancient Romans also did a pretty good job of creating, let’s call it, inspired culinary creations.

The Romans loved something called garum, according to National Geographic, a fermented fish sauce that contained blood and guts — left to dry in the sun for three months. If fish that sits out in the sun for months doesn’t say “healthy,” we’re not sure what does! However, fermenting fish wasn’t allowed to be made within city limits, since it reeked, so if the ancient Roman people fermented their fish, they’d have to do it outside city walls. Which makes a lot of sense! The paste that was made from the fermented fish was then put onto literally everything, including bread.

It was also known to cure stomach ailments, but we have (understandable) questions about this.

Of course, the Romans also loved stuffing their mice (dormice) to get them nice and fat before eating them.

But not just any dormouse would do! According to Atlas Obscura, Romans captured their creatures in special containers filled with food. Once plumped up, the Romans would make their delectable mouse dinner. It was largely an upper-class treat, which might come as a shock to people who assume that only the poor would eat mice.

The Romans also ate sterile sow’s womb.

That is, they ate virgin piggies — piggies who had no babies to speak of. They would spay their pigs, then cook ’em. They ate them with pepper, celery seed, dry mint, honey, vinegar, and broth. Huh. Sounds like an oddly specific recipe that was apparently a delicacy to the ancient Romans at the time.

More along the lines of “weird snack” and less “virgin blood” or “living human baked inside pie,” the Egyptians snacked on bread beer.

That’s because bread and beer were Egyptian staples. No matter your standing in society, you were guzzling beer and chomping on bread. (Sounds pretty good, if you ask us!) According to History, beer bread was made from very yeast-y dough. Then, the bread was broken apart and put into vats, where it fermented naturally. What resulted was a cloudy, alcoholic bread-beer.

The ancient Egyptians often added dates, spices and honey to their brew, too, since hops were not available to them. We’d actually try this one. Cheers to the Pharaoh!

The Egyptians also munched on honey-roasted gazelles, spit-roasted ducks, and cranes.

Between the Egyptians and medieval feasts serving up swans and peacocks, it’s a wonder more birds aren’t extinct!

Thankfully, we’re not eating many of these dishes these days, especially the blood or the pies stuffed with human beings. Hard pass. And there’s nothing less appetizing than hot fish out in the sun and animal blood — and yet, even today we eat some strange foods.

For a country known for eating Jell-O Salad, deep fried butter, and scrapple, we sure have no room to judge anyone — from the ancients to the Victorians.

Of all the weird snacks listed above, which would you try?