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Today, I'm eating some of the most exotic or rare foods from every country that watches my channel and beyond, to find out what they look like, taste like, and finally rating them on an S-tier list to see which. are the best. From foods that I've never even heard of, some of which are actually alive, and others we may or may not have had to acquire. illegally. And we're starting off with - the Philippines. But first, we gotta change. Ayy, these are comfy. So, for the Philippines, exotic, also. iconic. You open the box. I think I know what this is. You know what this is.
What?! How did you- It's balut. Ugh. It's been a food fear of mine. The only person I would ever eat it for is you. For those who don't know, balut is a fertilized duck egg that's been incubated for 17 days, and to. eat it, you boil it for 20 to 30 minutes and you eat it straight out of the shell. You ready to eat some balut? Yes! He's not ready. This is the official setup to eat balut properly. We have the duck egg, we have some sukang pinakurat. This is a. spiced coconut vinegar from the Philippines. Traditionally, you're going to find balut in the street late night, either in a basket or like a little bicycle, and they're all- they're yelling is, "Balut!
Balut!" And then you come and you get these beautiful things, but people are very scared. We're gonna crack the top. So now it's soft enough for you to pinch that. Small pinch because you're going to want to sip the broth. It's gonna taste like a condensed chicken broth. No salt, no nothing. Cheers to your first balut experience. Cheers. Oh, that's actually- See? That's actually great. Now. you wanna peel it until the spoon fits, right? Put a little bit of vinegar in there, pinch of salt, and you're gonna scoop it.
The whole thing, dog? thing. Bro. You eat this, take your shot, enjoy your beer. Bro. The whole thing? The whole thing. Listen, it tastes great. It's just the visual of it is tough. You put weirder things in your mouth. Name one. I can't name those. Josh, the longer it sits, the colder the duck gets! So. what the duck, bro? Bro. Think of it as sardines. They're all soft. It's like soft-shell crab. Everything's soft. Bro! Do you want me to help set it up on your spoon?
I got you. Why do I have to eat so much, bro? Putangina, let's eat balut. 3, 2- I can't, I'm sorry. With the beer. I can't. I don't know. It's a mental thing. It tastes great. I will say thanks for trying it. Maybe one day you'll swallow. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just if you don't grow up with something like this, it's a lot. Here's what I'll say.
Flavor was an A for sure. The texture's actually not that bad, but I think there's definitely a mental hurdle for sure. I think it should be a B. B tier! We move on to the next country. Now we're in Mexico. It is huitlacoche. Oh my God! It is a fungus that grows on corn. The interesting fact about this is this happens very, very, very rarely. It is rare enough that it's also referred to as the Mexican truffle.
Less than 1 to 5% of a crop can be affected by this. And I guess when they saw it, they were like, let's eat it. It's exciting. Cheers. It's like a clean plant, almost like eating leaves. It doesn't taste like really that crazy. Whoa! I don't know if I should have did that. My body doesn't want to eat it anymore. Supposedly, the flavor intensifies when you cook it. So, let's cook it. We're gonna be utilizing the huitlacoche in a beautiful cheesy quesadilla.
First, the huitlacoche will be sautéed in some oil and salt, then removed. And we'll heat up a nice tortilla with the huitlacoche and some fresh. Oaxaca cheese. and a little bit of fresh epazote. Cook that down, fold it until cheesy and nice. But will the flavor of huitlacoche really come out once this comes all together? I don't really taste the huitlacoche. I couldn't tell if the corn is strictly from the tortilla or from the huitlacoche, but it is good.
You know, I just got a little pop of sweetness, like a black garlicky sweetness on that bite. Overall, like, I like huitlacoche, but generally speaking, it seems to vary quite a bit in quality. You know, I've had it in Mexico City, I've had it in Oaxaca, I'm having it right now again, and every time I have it, I'm just like, it's just kind of there. I'm not a hater, I just don't love it. I'm gonna make an absurd comparison. If you threw a really perfectly cooked Australian Wagyu skirt steak that was like sliced fresh and juicy in there, that's gonna taste good.
It's just like bang, there it is. And I'm not getting that bang, oh, huitlacoche's in here, and I'm, you know. No. Yeah. I think it's like a C. C for corn. On to the next country. We have moved on to. Indonesia, and this one is interesting because this ingredient, when served raw straight up, will kill you. It has large amounts of cyanide in it. This. is a nut that comes from Indonesia called kluwak, and this is the fermented. version. The fermentation process removes the cyanide.
I actually don't know how it works. Oh, it smells amazing. Mm-mm. It's like eating. ash and mold off a wall. I kind of like it. And it almost has like an umami- Almost like cigarette ash. No, no! You want to try mine? I don't want your slobbered up fucking- Eat it from the back. It's kind of got like an unsweetened chocolate with a hint of umami. I like it. There's something to it. I wouldn't eat this straight up, but I can see how this works as a base to something. As a matter of fact, it does work as a base to a very specific soup, which we will taste test and then rank.
Soup is called rawon. So, we have a kluwak paste that has candlenut and all sorts of spices that's gonna go into. a pan with a touch of. oil. You're gonna cook this. way, way down until super fragrant, which should take like a couple of minutes. Once that's toasty, I've got a beef broth with crosscut beef shank kind of reduced down. We're gonna take that nice rich broth. We're gonna pour this in here. I'm gonna whisk this together till smooth. And then this will come back over here.
We'll pour this into there. and then that will get reduced down. So going in there, we have lime leaf and lemongrass, a touch of bay leaf. This is going to simmer nice and light for an hour and a half just to let all those flavors condense. All right, we got our broth. We have some bowls of rice, little beef. Okay, mung bean, lime. Thank you, Chef. Maybe a little drizzy. No, you got to get the chunk. That's herby.
I really like this. Goddamn, with the beef too. I love like the- how. dark and. deep the flavor is. Like the flavor is rich, but the broth itself is super, super, light. You don't feel heavy. after drinking this. I think it's an S. I think it's an S too. Banger of an ingredient. Now we move on to our next country. This next one is. something that I had to smuggle into the United States of America. I didn't smuggle it. I had a friend who shall not be named. because it was. illegally smuggled into the United States from Poland. All right, here we go.
What could this possibly be? It is oscypek. I may not be pronouncing that perfectly. This is a sheep's milk cheese that is deeply smoked and can only be produced in a very specific region of Poland. If it is not produced in that region, it is not oscypek. You can eat this straight up because it's cheese, obviously, or there's a traditional preparation which I'll show you in a second. First, straight up. Smoky. It smells like smoked sausage. All right, I'm gonna split this bad boy. Here we go. Ooh, this cuts really nicely. I'm going for it.
Oh, it's drier. than I thought. It's like Manchego dry. This would be delicious grated. Dude, in a pasta. It's really salty. It's so smoky on the outside. It's almost too smoky, but not like necessarily in a bad way per se. After you finish eating it, it's like perfumes your whole mouth like you're sitting in front of a campfire. It's so smoky, smoke came outta my mouth. Christian, there are things that I don't know. or understand about you. Pretty nice.
Quite nice actually. The preparation. Here's how you do it. I have seen a few different ways that this is prepared. It can either be grilled. or it can go into a pan. In this case, we have a griddle here. I actually have two variations of oscypek. I've sliced this oscypek into. half-inch. rounds, but then I have another kind of oscypek which our smuggler has also brought in for us. It's the same. thing, it's just smaller and it's got this sort of crosshatch pattern. A little bit of butter, prevent it from sticking. The two sliced ones, and then we also have these mini ones. So these are ready for a good little flip.
We've got a nice little crust. Look at that. All right, now we're to let these crisp on the other side, and then we're going to plate them up with a very simple cranberry jam and give them a little bite. It's actually way better griddled. Mm-hmm. Before we get too excited, we also have these two beautiful ones. I'm like afraid to eat that. That is going to be molten lava on the inside. Let's burn our mouths together! Ah! Let's fucking eat them right now! Whoa. Wow. That might be one of the best cheese bites of the year for me.
The small one is definitely the winner. It's smoky beyond belief. Like immediate bacony campfire vibes. The texture is like both crispy and chewy. and soft and gooey. and spongy all at the same time. But because of those textures, you get. sweetness 'cause of the jam. There's a little bit of bitterness that I do like. It's a great cheese bite, man. It's got a cheese curd squeak too. Oh. dude, this is a fried cheese curd. This would be God-level cheese curd. Given all the different things that we tasted in this, I think we can agree. Big S tier.
We move on. Next up, Malaysia. This fruit is banned. from many places- public transport, taxis, airports- because of its smell. But it's supposed to taste like sweet cream, honey, and. almonds. It is durian! It's a hedgehog. This one really looks like a hedgehog. I've never opened a fresh durian before. Wow, you're really going for it. You didn't even hesitate. Surprisingly doesn't smell. I'm a little confused. I really don't like durian. You know, I respect durian. I don't, I don't like it.
Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna take a good piece for you and then I'm going to feed you it. Absolutely not, Christian. No, stand back! Should I just eat it? Can you explain the texture to me? Uh, scrambled egg meets towel. No, don't say that to me. Have you had durian before? Yes. Do you like durian? I do. It's really sweet. This is a good one. It's a good one? You're lying to me.
No, no, no, you're good. 3, 2, 1. All right. This is actually not bad. I was being a baby for no reason. That's actually pretty good. Texture-wise, I disagree with the scrambled egg note. It's like a starchier, creamier mango texture-wise. Flavor-wise, it's giving like- there's like a banana pineapple flavor to it, but there's also this element of like overripe. fruit. It's not bad. No, yeah, yeah. It's not my favorite though. Out of all the fruits out there, to me, this is not at the top of my list. Where's it at for you?
This is a C. I kind of want to give it a B. It was like surprisingly good. Malaysian food is wonderful. This specific fruit, on the other hand, is. contentious, and we are still going to give it a B. tier. Not too bad! Honestly, ranked way higher than I expected. Now. we move on. Next up, China. I've been to China. I went to multiple cities across China. It was one of the best trips of my entire life. But what we have here is not only an exotic ingredient, but it is one of the most important ingredients in Chinese medicine. that's been around for 2,200 years. This is Chinese. black. chicken.
So the craziest thing about this chicken is it naturally grows like this. Not just the skin, but the flesh. and the bones are an almost obsidian black. It has antioxidant and many medicinal properties, so it's usually treated as such. It's a healing thing. So we will treat it gently and with grace. We have some. light poaching water, some freshly sliced ginger going in, some goji berries, some Chinese yam. There's a lot of this stuff I do not know how to pronounce. It says Codonopsis pilosula going in, astragalus root, this.
Unfortunately, we do not know some of the names of these ingredients. So this is gonna go in feet side down carefully. into our poaching water. We're gonna add a lid. and very gently let that poach. No boiling, nothing aggressive. Very gently let it, release its aroma, create a nice chicken. soup. Wow, look how dark the soup base got. Look, the chicken got even darker. So we poured our broth in with the chicken and it was time for some healing. Oh, that's lovely. That's very nice. That's healing.
Heartwarming. Ooh. It's funny, the aromatics are so different, but it's just funny how they all have that like soul-healing chicken soup. It doesn't taste different than regular chicken, but it is more chickeny in a great way. It's just a little richer. I know what my rating is. It's definitely one of the best chickens I've had. It's healthy. Great for you. Doesn't blow my mind. I agree. I, personally think it's an A.
Phenomenal. Delicious. I would have this. again for sure, but it's not quite cracking the S-tier surface, so we move on to the next. Next up, we have Australia! So their item is exotic to many. They've become a little more popular, and it is finger limes! Now, although finger limes are produced in many other places, this is an. Aboriginal bush food that is completely and entirely native to Australia. It's called citrus caviar. for a reason. You have to see the inside of this. That's because if you squeeze this, you have these. little tiny pods. Okay,
so first we're going to taste it straight up by its- Oh, that one's sour. That's like an 8 out of 10 on sour. Ooh, that with some salt on its own? Yeah, so it's super acidic like a lime or a lemon. This is a little bit more acidic than a lime, I would say. But what I really noticed, it's super different flavor-wise from a. lime. If you just take one of these pearls, they're so firm. Yeah, and it does pop. Like, you bite down on it and it pop, pop, pop, pop. So we have a beautiful array of freshly shucked oysters. And a great way to serve oysters, if you want some more texture, you want little pops of crunch
and acidity, you can use a finger lime, which you actually will see pretty often. Put some finger limes in there just for some garnish to remind you that this is a finger lime forward dish. Cheers. That is lovely. Oh, I love all of that. Perfect texture on the oyster too. What do people usually not like about oysters? What do you think it is? Texture. I think texture's gonna be the first thing. I think it's texture for sure. This adds dimension to the texture. It adds crunch.
It adds like a structure to it that contains the gooeyness of the oyster, if you will. It makes it a lot more desirable in my opinion. I think it's like B plus, A. The flavor in and of itself is nice. I don't find myself using it that much though, even when it's in season. So yeah, I would agree. I think it's like almost an A, but I would give it a B. Let's go immediately B. Strong B, almost an A. We move on. All right, brother!
We got the United States of America right here, brother! And you might be wondering. what could possibly be the exotic food from America. This is a live animal. in this chest. It is one of the longest living. animals. Earth. They can live up to 160. years old. The name. is a Native American word for dig deep. It is Geoduck! This is essentially a large oversized clam. It's prized for many things. It has a sweet, delicate flavor and a chestnutty crunch, and I'm excited to taste it with you.
This bad boy is live, so we will dispatch of it properly and show you how to prepare it. We're gonna blanch the geoduck for 15 seconds, shock it, then sheath it. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Oh, whoa! Okay, nice work, Christian. So we shucked the geoduck, removed the shells and innards, and we're left with just this part. Here it is. So this is basically typically eaten as sashimi, so I'm gonna cut it accordingly. I think we cut it nice and thin. Okay, so I got a little nuoc mam. we're gonna dress this with. very simply. Just a touch of fat 'cause this is obviously really, really lean. Cilantro.
It's tasting time. Shall we? That's phenomenal. It has that texture of a slight water chestnut, but buttery and sweet. Really great texture. It's very, very like. deep oceanic flavor. Without overthinking because it's delicious, A. It's A. Yeah! America! Good job, America. But also, America's not the only one that produces these, but they do prominently get produced here. So. moving on. Next. up is. England, innit?! It's Tuesday. We all know what this is. I can almost smell it. It is only produced in a specific part. of England. And on top of that, it's only produced by. one maker. If it doesn't come from that place, it is not this thing.
Stichelton. cheese from Stichelton Dairy. It is a type of blue cheese. This cheese on this plate right here cost $200. Now, as many of you know, I. hate blue cheese. Why aren't you afraid of that? It's almost like smelling salts. From here, it smells like somebody's granddad's closet. This is traditionally enjoyed by itself, but we have two beautiful glasses of a high-quality port wine. Ooh. Oh, smell that. It's like peanut butter and jelly. Yeah, if you're on bath salts. By the way, I just wanna be really clear before I try this.
I actually love English food. I think it receives way too much hate. It's just, why does this have to be the exotic rare food? You first. Fuck it. It's umami. It's got almost like that pâté texture. That's sweet. Honestly, you're gonna love that. Knowing your palate, you're not gonna hate that. Mom, I love you. It's actually pretty good. Have a sip. Oh, but the aftertaste. Have a sip. That's what you're supposed to have a sip for.
Oh, the aftertaste is bad. And then because of the sweet that it is, you want a little bit more. I don't want a little more. You're right, it is peanut butter and jelly. It does pair well. The initial flavor is really nice. It almost gives like an aged Gouda. for like a split second, and it's like, ooh, that's pretty nice, and it's creamy. What kills me is the aftertaste of that. really. deep. woody. blue cheese flavor. Of all the blue cheese you've tasted- This is the. best blue cheese I've ever had.
It's the most balanced blue cheese I've ever had. With the port, it's almost an A. I'm just, just saying, like, the fact that you went back for some says. a lot. Maybe your. palate is growing. You're growing up, Daddy. Guys, this is a revelation. I have never in my life. eaten a bite of blue cheese and liked it, and this one I liked and would eat again. And I think that is deserving, shockingly, A tier. Et bonjour! Je m'appelle Christian, and what we have here is something from Paris. Ah, snails! I've never had an escargot.
Fun fact, you gotta starve these for a few days and feed them clean food to clear their guts before you eat them. And the best way to eat them is broil them with a little Parisian butter. My thought has always been that snails. taste good because they're just covered in garlic butter. There's really only one way to find out. We have a. traditional escargot broil platter. Here we have a little bit of herb garlic butter. Okay, so we'll pop these under the broiler and then they come out. looking. like this.
Hold up your weapon. What, the fork? Typically served with a little bit of bread. Take one of these bad boys. So this goes down on your bread, a little bit of. butter. That smells great. Can I get a little flecky fleck? Oh. The butter, outstanding. The snail, great texture. I enjoy that conchy taste. I don't like it. You don't? No. What I do like about it is the butter. The butter's great. I don't like the texture of the snail. What would you compare it to?
Like a clam that has. a mucusy texture to it. But the taste is nice and it does have kind of like a clam-like flavor. So I'm not gonna put it at the bottom of the list by any means. It's just not my favorite thing. Okay, okay. There is like an oceanic, almost clam-like texture and I love clams, but I would rather have a clam. I agree. We could just yell out our grade and see where we're at the same time. Yeah, ready? Three, two, one. B. B. B tier!
We're moving on to the next country, Vietnam. And in this container is something that many would consider a secret ingredient if they knew about it. It is Sa Sung, a. worm, a dried worm to be specific. These worms basically are used in northern Vietnam, specifically in pho, to replace fish sauce and sugar. It's supposed to apply umami. It's supposed to apply a little bit of sweetness. The question is, does this make a better pho? The first step is to toast the worm.
We're gonna try one on its own, and then we'll try it in the pho. Mmm, it's like a toasted dried fish. I don't foresee that making a better pho. Well, so if it's replacing an umami element like MSG or fish sauce or anything like that, I could see the MSG aspect because it is umami, but also, I don't think it adds salt like fish sauce does. No, I think it adds umami and I think it adds a seafood flavor, but we could be wrong. Let's try it. We made a sachet. out of dried worms, cinnamon sticks, star anise, and cardamom. Then we threw it into a beef broth to make our pho. Good night.
So we have two bowls of pho in front of us. We have one that's made with fish sauce like you would more commonly see, and then you have one that's not been seasoned with fish sauce and instead we utilize the worm. So- Shall we? That's nice. I'm gonna check the bottom. Hmm, there's a difference. Oh. I'm not even gonna beat around the bush. This one, for me personally, better. There's so much body on that one. Umami, salty. That's how I can differentiate it. I agree with you. I'm kind of shocked.
I really thought the worm was gonna lose. After we tasted the worm just toasted, I feel like it wasn't gonna give it enough body, but they bodied that. I'm sat, as those kids would say. You know what I'm saying? Seated. What are we thinking? It's addicting. It's got umami. It's, it's funky. I feel like putting that worm in other dishes. Can you imagine like making a sauce and then tossing it in there to finish and like letting it cook down a little bit? This is an S-tier ingredient in my books.
I would agree. For Sa Sung, that's an S-tier. Next up. is Japan. Many of us have eaten this. No one realizes. we've had the fake stuff all along, but here we got the real deal. Real. deal, fresh wasabi flown straight from Japan. To get the most out of your wasabi, the spiciness peaks. within the 5-minute window. after you grate it, so we're going to eat this real quick. First, we're going to chop off le tip, then we're going to peel off. just enough to get to the root. Ooh, it smells refreshing and spicy at the same time.
Okay, so we're going to grate this bad boy. Take your wasabi and you go in little circles. Now, there are a million ways to get this off. You'll see a lot of people use a matcha whisk. This is real wasabi and this. is fake wasabi. Okay, I'm gonna go for the fake one first, just a little. Okay. Sweet, open-ended, a little bit bland. Very. Chalky. Chalky, yeah. I feel like you can do more with the real. Wow! 100 times better.
Like you want. more of it. First of all, it is 2 to 3 times sweeter. And there's nuttiness to it, too. It's nutty, it's refreshing. And we're eating this within the 5-minute window, so I feel like the more we wait, it's. less punchy. As our final taste test, we have some nigiri pieces, just plain tuna nigiri. I think I'll take a little piece off. and bang soy for flavor. Cheers. Cheers, bro. I put a lot on mine. This is. truly a special ingredient for a reason. A lot of people think they know wasabi until they've had real wasabi, and.
I know it sounds like a snobby thing to say, but the reality is the difference is just so massive. That's lovely. Us trying real wasabi from Japan, freshly grated within its 5-minute window, after having that, I don't know if I can go back to fake wasabi. If you're ever asking yourself, is it worth it to spend a little extra to get real wasabi at a restaurant, the enhancement is truly like tremendous. Are you stinking what I'm stinking? 3, 2, 1. S tier! If you are lucky enough to get the chance to try this, you should, and you probably won't regret it.
Moving on to the next. Korea. And what's so. special and exotic in Korea? It is. wild. ginseng. Wild ginseng is one of the most difficult to find ingredients on planet Earth. People will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and decades trying to find it. What we have is a cultivated wild ginseng. root. We're going to make a little tea with it because that's what you do with ginseng. It is prized for superior medicinal qualities that are. unearthly.
Be careful drinking this stuff, by the way. We are not recommending that you drink it or consume it in any fashion, but we are going to. Should I have consulted my doctor before this? You'll be fine. What are you testing for? Masculinity. Using a recipe that we found from Maangchi, we're using jujubes, wild ginseng. You let this boil for 30 minutes. and then you drop it to a simmer for 2 more hours. All right, let me serve you. We're gonna start off with a. wee bit of honey, then. we're gonna mix in some of this delicious. ginseng tea. Then we're gonna sprinkle some pine nuts.
That I don't understand. Oh, they float! I had no idea pine nuts float. Cheers. Whoa. That is the best cup of tea I've ever had. That's a bold statement. I'm flat out saying it. On a cold, wintry. afternoon, I would take this over a boba tea by far. But honestly, on a hot day, this iced would probably hit, too. Yeah, you're right. In all seriousness, this is phenomenal. This is great. I wanna make this again at home. Let's go to Korea and climb some mountains.
I feel like we're going to jail if we do that. South Korea. Oh, okay. That is an S-tier. tea! Absolutely phenomenal. Moving on to the next country. Norway! Been there, had a great time. It is expensive because this singular ingredient cost us $500. This is the Norwegian live. king. crab! Now here's what's interesting about this. It was actually introduced to Norway from Russia and then became an invasive species, bloomed wildly all over the ocean, to the point where now Norway is one of the major producers. of king crab.
That's crazy to me that something invasive is so expensive, 'cause there's so much of it. We're going to dispatch. our crab humanely, drop it in salted boiling water, and then let that cook just until tender and cooked through. All right, she's cooked, nice and red. We'll go directly. into an ice bath to chill. completely. This is essentially gonna stop the cooking process just to make sure that it stays tender, doesn't overcook. Then once this is cooled down, we'll break it down and enjoy it. Dip, dip, dip, dip, dip. Turn around! I really got you on that.
It's very Norwegian of you. Wow. It's just so sweet and succulent. Honestly, I'm kind of shocked the crab overpowered the flavor of the butter. It was so fresh. The butter wasn't just like a condiment, it was an accoutrement. I mean, this is phenomenal. Most king crab that you will. eat in the US and most countries will come precooked and frozen, not fresh and cooked fresh. Anyone who enjoys crab should have it like this at least. once. S-tier. It is an S-tier. It's an S-tier! We move on. Next up, Turkey.
This one's interesting because this can only be procured not just in Turkey, but from the flowers of only. one. singular 10,000-square-foot mountain plateau. It is Anzer honey. This. is known to be one of the most prized, rare. honeys in the world. There's literally like a metal lock on this. Ready? Oh. yeah, fuck yeah, get it, Josh! Whoa, it's different. Oh. shit, it's got a stink to it, but I kind of like it. Almost like a cheesy honey.
All right, here we go. Yeah, okay, back off. It starts. off as honey, then it starts to taste like medicine, like Robitussin. And honestly, just tastes like honey to me. We're gonna go grab regular honey and see if it's similar. In terms of difference of normal honey versus this honey, the margin of difference is like 5% flavor difference. It actually doesn't taste as good as the other honey. Most of the food that I eat is not even American. Except for fried chicken at Ben and Lynn's. and Lynn's, 2600 E Cesar Chavez, open Sunday through Thursday,
11:30 AM the doors are open and they do not close till midnight. And on Friday and Saturday, we're open until 2 in the morning. 2600 E Cesar Chavez, Ben and Lynn's. You're a madman. 2 in the morning? But think about it, dude. How many people are serving good chicken at 2 in the morning? Uh, one person. Me. I mean, as for honey, as for exotic It's a C tier. We're moving to the next country, and I'm gonna be having my fourth cup of coffee. But when I'm locked away in the studio, we don't always have time to get great coffee.
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These are specifically summer truffles because it's the summertime as we're filming this. We're gonna make this very simple. We have a beautiful risotto. The beauty of a truffle is you don't need to like do a whole lot to it. In fact, the whole point of a truffle is enjoying it purely for what it is in its raw, natural state. Sure, you can cook it into something, but this is about the aroma of what this produces. So. quite simply, lots of fresh truffle on top. You know, they'd charge you a premium for this at a restaurant.
Finish, just a touch. of olive oil. This is one of the funkiest summer truffles I've ever had. But in a good way. I think it's because we're transitioning. into a different stage of the truffle season. They're funky. They've got good funk, good balance. There's an earthiness, great texture. But I will say, are truffles an S tier? I think it's an. A tier. It's great, but it's not holy shit. Yeah. Italy, truffles, powerful A tier. We move on. We have now made it to Brazil, baby. I can feel- they don't do that.
I was just jazz hands. They do jazz hands in every country. This food that we're about to reveal, you can't just get from the supermarket. It's wild. And more importantly, it is native to Brazil. It is the orange soursop. Now, this is not your typical soursop. It is truly. a specialty of Brazil. It's got this beautiful bright orange hue. They're spiny, they look incredible. I think we just dig right in. Whoa, look at how orange this is! Let's give it a try. It's so soft.
I'm just gonna dig in. It's like almost custard in here. Are we allowed to eat the seeds? Because there's like 90% of this is seeds. You're not supposed to eat the seeds. You'll have diarrhea or something. How do you even eat this? There's so many seeds. You mean you can't eat the skin either? I can eat 1% of this fruit. Ooh. You know, it has the texture of like sweet potato.
I wanted it to be really sweet right off the bat, and it's not. I'll be honest, the texture I love. To me, it's like roasted sweet potato. It's a little starchy, it's creamy. It's almost like a whipped sweet potato kind of texture. And it's really nice and velvety and smooth. Love that. Flavor-wise, I'm not getting a whole lot. Like, it's not bad. It's just kind of flat on flavor for me. I wonder if it's the soursop that we got is just like this.
I think we should just tear into another one. What do you think? How about like this one? It looks exactly the same. Riper should be sweeter. I feel like I have COVID. I don't taste anything. Poison. I'm just kind of indifferent about it, you know? If you were to separate everything about this, the seeds, the stringiness, the actual fruit, and the skin, you yield about like 2% of. edible. anything. feel like a lot of people from Brazil are probably watching this, maybe thinking like, oh, this is so much better. What's wrong with you?.
Maybe it's the batch of soursop we got. I don't know. It was ripe, it was in season, and it's colored properly. It's just not as flavorful as I had anticipated, to be honest with you. D-tier. Moving on. The next country is India. We have a fruit that is the. largest fruit that grows on a tree. Now it's produced in many parts of Asia, but India is the largest producer. More specifically, it comes from an area called Kerala. It is. the humble jackfruit. I mean, look at this thing. This is a monstrosity and yet so beautiful at the same time.
Supposedly this tastes like banana, bubble gum, and pineapple. I haven't had this in years, so I don't remember. So I'm looking forward to trying it. Oil up a knife because. the. sap from this is extremely, extremely, extremely sticky. Cool! Smell that right now! Oh. It smells like candy. It does smell like candy. Pop these little lobes out and you get this, right? So there's a seed in every single lobe. So typically you can kind of squeeze it and you'll feel it in there and it should. pop right out like that. Cheers. That's a banger.
That's a top-tier fruit. Wow, why don't we eat jackfruit enough? It's been a minute since I've had jackfruit, and I got to be honest, I forgot what it tastes like. It really does have a bubblegum flavor, you're right. Like you opened a. better Starburst, Starburst? I'm starbusting. All right, really good. So we've tried it raw. I could rate it off of this 'cause I think this is wonderful, but it is commonly used. in. a curry with all sorts of aromatics, coconut, et cetera.
We're gonna bring this up to heat, and then we're gonna add our jackfruit lobes. chopped up in there. So we're gonna let that simmer, cook down, and serve. I'm very excited. Okay, can you- You ready? Yeah. Cheers. The texture of the jackfruit. So silky. I really like the cooked jackfruit more than I thought I would. Yo, if I was a vegetarian, I'd still be fat. I gotta say, this is like shockingly versatile. The fragrance of the curry, it's spicy, it's sweet, it's salty, it's umami.
The fact that this is vegetarian is crazy. Because it's not missing the intensity. Like, it's filling, too. Versatile. You can cook with it. It's got great flavor. I think universally people would love this. I think this is an S tier. I agree. S tier! For India, and we move on to our next country. Ecuador. is one of the largest producers. on Earth of this product, and. they produce some of the finest version. of this product. But what could it be?.
It's not chocolate. It becomes chocolate. It is fresh cacao! A lot of people don't realize, but cacao is a fruit. This is more of a pod. You take the top off, you've got the fresh. cocoa beans on the inside. This. is actually where the chocolate comes from. We're gonna try these before we have our form of chocolate. The taste is actually phenomenal. It's kind of like a sweet and sour candy.
How did they figure out chocolate out of this? Tastes nothing like chocolate. It tastes good, though. We're gonna find out this is poisonous and die. If you crack into this, you take some of these beans out, what they effectively will do is they'll take it, dry them, roast them, crack and winnow them, and then what's on the inside are these little cocoa nibs. They grind in a stone grinder, which you can do all this at home. Add in a little bit of sugar, continue grinding. It's ground for sometimes many days. It's. tempered, placed in a mold, cooled, and you have chocolate. It's been made properly.
It has that proper snap. Mm, delicious. Man, chocolate is a special thing. Whoever made that, I wanna kiss them on the mouth. This. ingredient is so many things in one. I mean, it's like kind of a magical ingredient. Yo, throw that football over here. S tier. tier! Moving on. This next one we don't have a shirt for, unfortunately. I'm really sorry. New Zealand! So what we have here is something that you have already seen, although very different. It is. the New Zealand prickly crab!
I mean, look at these bad boys. We got two different colors in here. They're both the exact same, just one is a little bit lighter than the other one. They are. live!. They're obviously much, much smaller than the typical king crab. So this is another variation of king crab. They live in sub-Antarctic waters of New Zealand. So they're so deep that they're extremely hard to catch. You can't just catch them with a net or a fishing pole. You really gotta get down in there to get them. So they're very rare.
You won't see these very often, especially alive like this. And these are $50 a crab, which actually seems kind of fair. It's not bad. But it's a personal crab. They're really small. There's not a lot of meat in these. Another fun trait of these is you'll notice that the right claw is bigger than the left claw on both of them. They are right-handed crabs. We're gonna dispatch of these humanely and then place them in salted boiling water just like before. And then we'll enjoy.
Now the question is, will this make the same placement as the more prevalent Norwegian king crab? So I guess we'll eat it straight up first. Yeah, pick a, pick a coin. Mm, the texture. It is, it has more of a bounce. Honestly, this is a little more subdued in comparison. If king crab is over here and snow crab is over here, this is kind of like between the two. They should rename it the prince crab. I think the texture of this is better. Like, king crab has really thick muscular fibers.
This one's like more thready and like kind of a little more tender to me, which I liked. The flavor's a little less intense and also a little more salt-leaning than sweet-leaning. I'm looking at ROI, you know what I'm saying? The king crab was $500. for one. This was $50 a crab. So I think yield-wise, this is a go-to, but. overall I do enjoy the king crab more. That would make this. an A+. Yeah, but not quite an S. An. A tier! Still a phenomenal crab, but we're not done yet. We move on to the next. So our next country, Russia. This is- I'm not going to beat around the bush-. traditional Russian sturgeon caviar! Now hang on,
Tsar Nicoulai is a company that's based in California. They're good friends of mine. They're one of the only remaining producers on Earth that really traditionally produce. actual. Russian. sturgeon. So caviar is the roe, the eggs of that fish that are salted and then tinned. It takes 20 years to produce caviar, which is exactly why this beautiful tin right here is over $1,000. Wow. The artistry. in the packing- by the way, everything's done by hand. They even pack these tins by hand. They season them by hand. It's a. real serious operation. And look at the perfection. of every little pearl. Now,
I don't wanna get ahead of myself, so let's taste. and rate. Traditionally, this would be served on blinis. First, with a touch of crème fraîche. Oh, look at this. This guy knows what he's doing. Look at that. Ruff! Sorry, excuse me. Yeah! Little bit of chive. Well, we have our beautiful blinis. with caviar, crème fraîche, and chive. Very simple, very classy. The number one way to tell quality of caviar. is. by itself. Cheers. God, they make good stuff, man.
It's such a great brininess, pop, texture. Not fishy, just really salty, briny, umami. But also like a- do. you detect like a butteriness almost? Like, like almost like a butter flavor. Shall we? Yeah. I liked it by itself more. That was clean, refreshing as it is. This is just decadent. Yeah. I love the tang from the crème fraîche too. Oh, what is this?
It's expensive, very quality. It's the best caviar in the world, in my opinion. I have never had a better caviar than this. But in terms of everyday eating and things that are just like, wow, I feel that overall, considering all foods on planet Earth, it's in between an A and an S. Luxury, but. not to me top tier. of. exotic foods from the country. Yeah. A tier for Russia, and we move on. to our next. Unfortunately, the shirts that we ordered for this next country did not arrive in time. So in replacement, we have this beautiful flag.
Ethiopia. is next. This country produces 90% of. all of the production of this ingredient. It is also the smallest grain in the world. It is- Where? That's it right there? It is teff. Now, the way that we're gonna eat this. is how it's traditionally produced in Ethiopia through the format of injera. Shall we? Yeah, I'm excited. I love injera. That's phenomenal. There really is not a lot texturally like this. I love the. elasticity of it.
I've had injera. This is not my first rodeo here, but honestly, I don't eat it that much, and I regret that. This. might be one of the most underrated foods. on the entire list. Anytime I see it, it's exciting and I'm digging right into it, but I never go out of my way and be like, I'm gonna go order Ethiopian food, when I should. It's like got everything you need- starch, meat, veggies. Are you ever ordering out or you want to make something and you're thinking about the starch you want to go with it and you're like, I don't want rice, I don't want potatoes, I don't want noodles, What else is there?
This is the other option that we keep forgetting about. I think injera is an S-tier food, but I will say the one. thing. that is hard about teff, if I were to make breads, cookies, pies, tarts, et cetera, I probably would not opt for teff. Do you think we're aligned on this? I think so. A! A! So we're gonna give teff an. A-tier, which is. honestly shocking. Absolutely delectable. Onto the next. We are talking Canada! This is fish, but it's not just any fish. It's one of the rarest genetic mutations of salmon in the world.
Only 5% of salmons produced have this genetic trait. It is- It's a shiny Pokémon. Ivory. white king. salmon. The whiteness on the flesh here is so abnormal. Just so you could see a comparison, this. is normal salmon next to it. Honestly though, it is a genetic mutation, so my expectation is this will not taste any different than regular salmon. Let's try it. The funny thing about this, when they catch this fish, they actually don't know if it's Ivory King or not because it looks exactly the same on the outside.
They only know when they break down into it. And people used to throw this away because they thought the fish was sick, but no, now they charge extra for it, which, you know, capitalism, baby! Woo! We're going to take these bad boys and we are going to smoke them and enjoy them. We have our salmon. Let's take a little bite. It is not pink on the inside, which. is kind of cool. Oh, that's nice. First of all, this is absolutely delicious, but I'm going to be honest. That just tastes like salmon.
Would you say it's one of the best salmons you've ever had though? Any piece of high-quality salmon, pink or ivory, would taste like this. Is this farm. or wild? Wild. This is wild?. That's wild. It's one of the higher-quality salmons I've had. It really is. For a great salmon, where does that land?. It's not feeling like it's gaining anything by being ivory. You wanna do the countdown? 3, 2, 1, A. A. For ivory king salmon, we move on to the next country, Spain. What is in this box is one of the most underrated. meats and cuts of meat in the world. It's
also the rarest version you can possibly get. all the way down to the cut, and it only comes from Spain. This. is Iberico Secreto. It is considered the butcher's secret cut because most of the time, especially American butchers, throw this cut away because it lies in between. the shoulder blade and the loin of the pig. This little sliver, as you can see right here, it is super, super, super thin. It's almost kind of like a very thin skirt steak in a way. This also comes from Iberico pork, which is specifically acorn-fed.
This is like a double rare. It's a rare cut from a rare pig. He's currently-. ah! Breaking down my secreto. as I break down this secreto. So you'll notice that the loin is oddly-. shit!. That hurts. In a good way? I'm gonna split it into 2 separate segments right down the middle just so that we have more workable pieces. Anyway, then we're gonna season it with salt and a touch of pepper. Now onto the grill. Which one should we go for?. I kind of want to start with the leaner piece just to see how it compares.
Incredible. It's like a. slightly higher fat pork chop. This is sort of the darker portion. It's a different piece. Crazy. This is why it's the butcher's secret. It's got multiple cuts in one, right? You can taste that it's acorn-fed. I think most people who've never had secreto or Ibérico, especially in America, are used to like pork that kind of tastes porky and it tastes nice, but it's relatively bland. This is like a rich, savory, meaty, unctuous. porky flavor. There's almost like a creamy element to it as well. It's almost like it's. Unctuous. pre-marinated, almost. But more importantly, it is juicy in every bite.
Even if you fully cooked this, it would still be juicy. It has a toothsomeness. like a steak. and a juiciness. of a really nice. marbled steak. S-tier. for. Secreto, the Wagyu of pork. All right, so- Balut. You know, honestly, before I give the final list, I do want to say something about the balut. If it wasn't for that first sip of the juice on top tasting so good, I don't think I would have even been able to put that thing in my mouth. Thank you for trying it. Thank you for pushing me. I'm glad I did it.
Here is the full list of all of our S-tier items. There were many that got close to S-tier, but this is our official list. Now, the favorite- we have a favorite. It was the newest thing to us while also being surprisingly, shockingly delicious. context. Should we say it? 3, 2, 1. Kluwak. The official favorite of today's video. We went all over the world, we tried all these ingredients. While many of them were delicious and many of them we will remember and eat again, kluwak is something that will stay
in our minds forever. Love you, subscribe, bye. Thank you to Cometeer for sponsoring today's video. And remember, whether you're traveling or you just want barista-level espresso instantly at your fingertips without any fancy equipment, be sure to click the link in the description or go to cometeer.com/joshua to get $20 off your first order.
