What looks and tastes good is highly subjective. Across Europe, each country has its own traditional dishes and favourite foods that natives would consider quite ordinary – but that outsiders might think strange. Just because something looks or sounds weird, though, it doesn’t mean it tastes bad. To prove it, we’ve rounded up some of Europe’s most bizarre but surprisingly delicious foods. How many would you try?
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover some of Europe's weirdest but tastiest foods – counting down to the strangest of all.
Our selections and ranking are based on each food’s popularity and reputation both in its respective country and outside of it, as well as on the opinions of our expert team. This list is unavoidably subjective.
At first glance, verhackert looks a lot like many other meat spreads or pâtés. What makes this mix of speck (cured, smoked pork leg) and minced garlic stand out, however, is the addition of pumpkin seed oil, which gives it a strong nutty taste. The spread originates from the Austrian region of Styria – and it's been compared to bacon jam, although it’s less sweet. How best to enjoy it? Slathered thickly on a hunk of rustic bread.
Would you try bread soaked in a milk-based soup? What if that soup could stop a war? According to legend, that’s exactly what Kappeler milchsuppe (milk soup from Kappel) managed to do in 1529, when armies from Zurich and Zug are said to have agreed to a truce over warm bowls of the dairy delight. And on top of having once brought peace to Switzerland (for a little while), this soup is truly tasty. Milk and beef broth are flavoured with onion, garlic, carraway seeds and nutmeg, and leftover bread is cooked into the soup to soak up those incredible flavours. Topped with cheese, parsley and chives, it’s a hug in a bowl.
Trendy restaurant ingredient squid ink is nothing new in Italy, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In these countries, either squid or cuttlefish ink is often used to colour risotto, giving it a gloomy look that might not exactly get your stomach rumbling. But the slightly briny taste of the ink imparts the creamy, seafood-studded rice dish with the flavour of the sea, making it taste surprisingly bright and fresh. Be warned, though: it will turn your teeth black.
Despite its name, laverbread isn't a bread. It’s actually seaweed, cooked slowly to form a paste that may not look amazing, but which has a taste that's been compared to olives and caviar. The salty flavour means it pairs excellently with a range of foods, and any Welsh person will tell you it’s an essential element of a full Welsh breakfast (along with cockles, sausages, bacon, eggs and more). Packed full of vitamins and minerals, it has some excellent health benefits, too.
Sour cherries, not sweet ones, are key to this Hungarian soup. Due to its fruity nature, it might seem like it should be a dessert; however, as the tart cherries are combined with sour cream, it’s actually best dished up as a savoury starter. Served throughout the summer, as soon as cherries come into season, it’s a refreshing, creamy dish that's loved not just in Hungary, but also in other countries, including Austria, Poland and Slovakia.
Austria’s beuschel proves that a dish doesn’t have to be photogenic to be full of flavour. The meaty sauce, which is often compared to an Italian ragù, is heavenly when served with traditional dumplings – perfect for mopping up every last drop. It’s made with offal, usually calf heart and lungs, but you wouldn’t know from looking at it. Before serving, this typically Viennese dish is finished off with a splash of cream for a wonderfully silky consistency.
Perhaps the most off-putting thing about head cheese is its name. If you can look past that (you can also call it brawn), you’ll find a meat dish in jelly, not unlike a terrine or meatloaf, which doesn’t contain any cheese. It’s made from the meat of a pig's or cow’s head, making use of all the scraps that might otherwise go to waste (or maybe end up in a hot dog). Treat it like pâté and spread it generously on bread or crackers for a meaty, lightly seasoned snack with hundreds of years of history across Europe.
You’ve heard of sourdough bread, but what about sour cereal soup? This Polish delicacy is made with fermented rye flour, giving it a strong umami flavour. It’s served in different ways throughout Poland, including with smoky kielbasa sausage, boiled eggs or mashed potatoes. Sometimes, it also comes in a bread bowl, which can then be polished off along with the soup. It's traditionally eaten at Easter, but it'd be a comforting, filling meal at any other time of the year, too.
While some Swedish foods live up to their polarising reputation – we’re looking at you, surströmming (fermented herring) – others are certainly not as bad as they look or sound. Smörgåstårta, meaning ‘sandwich cake’, definitely falls into the latter category. This savoury cake sees layers of bread and sandwich fillings stacked up like a birthday centrepiece, and it often comes covered with a mix of cream cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream. Fillings and decorations might include prawns, cucumber or salmon, or more modern additions such as avocado.
Percebes (goose barnacles) are certainly interesting to look at, with their elongated shape and alien-looking heads. Weirdly, they were once thought to be where barnacle geese came from, but these days they're simply a tasty snack in both Spain and Portugal. Served hot, they’re eaten by pulling the inside out of the scaly case and removing the claw. People often describe them as tasting like the ocean. Percebes are notoriously hard to harvest from perilous coastal spots, where they cling to rockfaces – making them a prized dish.
Some may sniff at the UK’s black pudding, but blood sausage is common across Europe, as well as in Asia. From French boudin noir and Spanish morcilla to Bulgarian bahur and Polish kaszanka, people across the continent have been putting animal blood to good use for centuries, creating delicious sausages in an effort to avoid waste. In the UK, black pudding is an essential part of a fried breakfast, while in Austria it’s fried with onions and potatoes to make comfort dish blunzengröstl.
Hawaiian pizza fans will love this German take on the classic ham and pineapple combo. To make it, bread is topped with a slice of ham, a ring of canned pineapple and a layer of cheese – and the whole lot is then toasted until melting and bubbly. Finally, it’s crowned with a cherry or a spoonful of jam for extra sweetness. Perhaps surprisingly, Toast Hawaii predates the infamous pizza; it originated in the 1950s, the decade before Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada.
Unless you’re a fan of French cuisine, snails are more likely to be spotted in your garden than on your plate. In France, however, escargots are commonplace – and for good reason. Served with generous helpings of garlic butter, snails make a deliciously tender appetiser that’s sure to convert even the most sceptical people. Think of it like eating shellfish that happen to live on land.
One of Scotland’s most famous inventions, haggis is deeply embedded in Scottish identity and culinary history. It all starts with a sheep’s stomach lining, into which goes offal, oatmeal, suet and plenty of seasoning. Traditionally served with neeps and tatties (swede and potatoes), it’s not pretty, but it has a wonderful earthy taste and a soft texture from the oats. Haggis is so beloved in Scotland that it has its own poem, Robert Burns’ 'Address to a Haggis', which is often recited at Burns suppers celebrating the poet’s life and works.
Fats make fantastic spreads, delivering concentrated flavour – and sometimes serving as a base for other toppings, too. In Poland, smalec is the spread of choice for many, mixing pork fat with onion, garlic, apple and chunky pieces of bacon, plus seasonings such as salt, pepper and marjoram. The substantial spread is often served with bread in restaurants; it can be slathered on as is, but it’s at its best when topped with pickles and onions.
At Christmas, rybí polévka, carp soup, is the main event in Czechia. Every part of the fish makes it into the soup somehow, with the head, tail and bones used to make a stock and the innards adding flavour. The offal is particularly prized, and it all goes in, including the roe or millet (the male reproductive organ). The bones are then strained out, but everything else is chopped up and put back into the broth. The rich, thick soup is traditionally served with pillowy dumplings made with breadcrumbs and parsley.
Don’t let the ingredients of kokoretski put you off trying it. The goat or lamb offal dish, which is wrapped in caul fat and slow roasted on a spit, is seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and cooked over charcoal for a smoky flavour. With the offal chopped into small pieces, those who usually shy away from it might be tempted to give it a try. A crispy exterior and soft, flavourful interior will have you polishing off the whole plate once you've had your first bite.
Liquorice is already a divisive flavour; add salt into the equation, and even more people will turn it down. However, in Finland, extremely salty salmiakki is nothing short of a national icon, available from special kiosks carrying hundreds of types. While its bitter, lip-pursing taste certainly isn’t for everyone, those who love it can’t get enough – and they may even enjoy it coated in yet more salt. Plenty of salmiakki-flavoured foods are popular in Finland too, from chocolate and fudge to ice cream.
When a dish doesn’t immediately stir the appetite, there’s only one thing to do: turn it into a cute animal design. At least, that’s the idea with hackepeter, a raw pork mince dish that’s often shaped like a hedgehog and given onion spines. Raw meat dishes aren’t unique to Germany (beef carpaccio and beef tartare being two other examples), but fans of hackepeter recognise something special in the retro meal, praising it for its soft texture and meaty, deeply savoury flavour.
When London restaurant St John put roasted veal marrow on its menu in 1994, it kicked off a trend that would continue over the next few decades. But eating bone marrow is nothing new; it’s believed that even early human scavengers might have enjoyed it. Though the sight of a bisected bone on a plate can stir up strange feelings, it’s the soft and meaty bone marrow in the middle that you eat. When it’s served, simply scoop out the marrow and spread it on toast for an intense burst of delicious flavour.
Fat is where a lot of the flavour in meat comes from, so it only makes sense that fat on its own is delicious. Salo is made by curing pork fat in salt, and it's served sliced up and smothered with garlic, onion and pickles. The Ukrainian delicacy, which is also enjoyed in other countries in Eastern Europe, has something of a cult status, with two annual festivals celebrating the nation’s love for it. It’s salty, soft and sometimes smoked, and it can even be eaten as a dessert when blanketed with chocolate.
Just hearing the word ‘tripe’ can make some people squeamish, but adventurous foodies know that it can be incredibly tasty. The organ meat, from the stomach of a cow, is turned into a warming winter soup, shkembe chorba, in Bulgaria. To make it, the tripe is boiled until totally tender, then added to a broth flavoured with piquant paprika and chilli. It's served with a tangy vinegar and garlic sauce – resulting in a complex taste that'll have you dipping your spoon back in for more. Some Bulgarians swear by it as a hangover cure.
Take some stockfish (air-dried fish such as cod), soak it in water, then in lye and finally in water again, and you get lutefisk, a traditional Norwegian dish with an unusual, somewhat jelly-like consistency. The texture can be challenging for newcomers, and many Norwegians don’t even like the stuff, but it has a mild flavour that's earned it plenty of fans. In some parts of Norway, lutefisk is presented as the centrepiece at the Christmas table. Anyone who doesn’t like it isn’t left out in the cold, though, as most people agree that the side dishes – including potatoes, bacon and mashed peas – are what really make the meal memorable.
Poppy seeds are a favourite ingredient throughout Central Europe, where they're used in both sweet and savoury dishes. You could be forgiven for thinking that poppy seed pasta might fall into the latter category, but it’s actually a dessert whipped up with pasta, butter, poppy seeds and sugar. The combination seems a little strange to the uninitiated, but it really works, and it’s easy to make at home. The soft pasta takes on the sweetness of the sugar and the nuttiness of the poppy seeds, resulting in a comfort food practically everyone will love.
A popular traditional dish in Ireland, crubeens are pig trotters that are deboned, boiled and often deep fried (or finished in the oven) for a crackly exterior. Perhaps that doesn’t immediately sound appetising, but the tender meat and crispy skin make them a top bar snack and street food. A fantastic way of ensuring that no part of the animal goes to waste, crubeens are still found on restaurant menus and at gastropubs throughout Ireland, often served alongside cabbage or with soda bread.
Take a look at creier pane on a plate, and you probably wouldn’t guess what’s inside. The crispy breaded coating hides a helping of brains, usually from a pig, but sometimes from a cow or lamb. Of course, if you speak Romanian, it will come as no surprise – creier pane literally means ‘breaded brain’. Those brave enough to try it won’t be sorry; the brains are boiled or steamed until just tender before being breaded and fried, resulting in a delicate texture on the inside and a light crunch on the outside.
Portugal’s cabidela starts off sounding like many other dishes featuring chicken and rice – that is, until you get to the blood. This delicacy's unique quirk is that chicken’s blood is added at the end of cooking, along with vinegar. The result? A smooth and rich flavour that’s soaked up to perfection by the rice and chicken. Cabidela only requires a few simple ingredients, making it easier than you might think to recreate at home. Today, blood from poultry is a little harder to source than it used to be, so pigs' blood is often used instead.
Probably one of the most famous French dishes (along with snails), frogs’ legs are a delicacy that everyone should try once. They have a mild flavour that's often compared to chicken, and they pair perfectly with classic French seasonings lemon, garlic and parsley. They’re fried in clarified butter until golden brown, and they might be served with potatoes and tomatoes on the side. Just watch out for any movement post cooking – the heat can make the legs twitch.
To the uninitiated, sea urchins look less like food, and more like something that might want to attach itself to you (and possibly suck your blood). And yet in Spain, France and other Mediterranean countries, they’re considered a delicacy. They can be eaten raw or used to flavour other dishes with their creaminess, slight sweetness and taste of the ocean. Scooped out of their spiny shells, they’re delicious seasoned with lemon juice and butter.
Blood sausages are pretty commonplace, but the same can’t be said for blood pancakes. They might sound strange, but dense and dark Finnish veriohukainen (called blodplättar in Swedish) are almost like a thinner and crispier version of a blood sausage. They can be made with cow, pig or even reindeer blood, which is mixed with flour, water and sometimes egg, then fried like any other pancake. Served with butter or lingonberries, they make a hearty breakfast that’s packed full of iron and minerals.
Even the most ardent lovers of offal might be put off by the idea of criadillas, or animal testicles. Often breaded and deep fried, either whole or in slices, this unusual part of an animal’s anatomy is sometimes served as a tapa in Spain. Squeamish people might not like the idea of tucking into criadillas – which can come from several animals, including bulls and pigs – but those who love them say they have a mild taste and a soft consistency, almost like scallops.