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Does the thought about eating blue cheese or foie gras sound bizarre to you? There are some who absolutely love it. And there is one way to explain this: what we find hard to even look at, can be considered a delicacy in other parts of the world. It is true that people’s perceptions about other cultures are limited. However, the idea of showing some of the world’s most disgusting food in public can either repel people even more or make them understand it better.
The Disgusting Food Museum in Sweden perhaps does it both. You may visit it with the intention to just check out and make fun of people's traditions. But you may also think that if that’s how the world really lives, why didn't you know this?
Whether it is a jell-o salad, corn smut, or stinky tofu, there are things about the world that are truly unique to each part. On inquiry, you'll learn that these are just normal things that you’ve been hardwired to call disgusting. The Disgusting Food Museum in Sweden wants to break notions of what we actually call disgusting. That’s what makes it really fun, and of course, educative!
But the creator does not put only one part of the world in a disgusting light. Though many feel that the museum is reinforcing cultural prejudices by focusing on Asian food, there are foods from everywhere that originated in American, Europe, and Asia. So one particular culture's food wasn’t singled out or called unpalatable.
You may laugh a lot, too, along the way. But the museum may shift one's viewpoint about the foods, once you see that they are consumed for various purposes.
Of course, most people will be really scared at first to try anything. But the creator of the museum, a psychologist (of course!), wants to turn this irrational psychology of disgust around. The experience can teach us how to be more sensitive toward people’s traditions, regardless of where the foods came from or how they came to be. Interesting, isn’t it?
