A few of us had some traditional Icelandic food the other day, called "thorramatur", which are enjoyed especially in the period from January to March.  Back in the day, like until the 1950s, the winters were so hard that they couldn't fish during this time and the people saved everything to eat later when they were starving later.  These weirdly preserved foods include smoked and salted lamb, salted dried fish, singed whole and halved sheep heads (the meat and little lip and eye served on the head, of course), cured fermented shark and sour and non-sour (vinegar preserved) varieties of ram testicles, and blood products like haggis stuff.  I know.  

We tried the salted lamb, the sour ram testicle, and the cured shark.  Topped with a nasty schnapps-like drink called "Black Death" that basically covers the taste of the food.  The shark is kept in a bucket and allowed to break down in its own ammonia for a couple weeks (its posionous without) and then hung in the air for a few weeks.  Its like eating something soaked in oil/turpentine and the taste was with me like, ALL DAY. Even though I brushed, brushed, and flossed followed by more brushing, hacking, and gagging.  No, actually it wasnt nearly as bad as the sour ram testicle.  Now, I've had Rocky Mountain Oysters which arent bad at all--fried, and breaded--you cant even tell you are eating balls.  This was totally effing wrong though-and it broke into like abillion tiny grains in my mouth so I couldnt even spit it out properly.  My eyes were all watering and I gagged a few times into my napkin trying to spit it out and I was all shaking.