Whale testicle beer. Maggot-infested cheese. Mouse wine. They've all appeared at the in Malmö in the south of Sweden.
You might think the museum exists for shock value or as a punchline — after all, the admission ticket resembles a plane's airsick bag and there's a record for the person who has thrown up the most while sampling the exhibits.
But museum director wants visitors to think beyond the jokey name and consider the institution's concept. Yes, it showcases "" and a few drinks, too, thanks to the featuring boozy specimens, like the Icelandic beer made with whale testicles and sheep excrement; but it's ultimately highlighting food that's beloved by the community that eats it — even if others might find it repellent. Think of durian: there's no shortage of stories about the fruit's room-clearing abilities in Western media (it once caused at the University of Canberra, where a trashed durian's lingering aroma was mistaken for a gas leak). But in Asia, durian is crowned "the king of fruit": someone even paid nearly $50,000 for one high-quality durian.
"We are all equally disgusting — when seen from the outside. Food gets normalised within its originating culture to the point of being just like any other food," the director says. "To that point, the item that most people have vomited from [at the museum] is surströmming from Sweden." This fermented herring smells like "rotten eggs brined in raw sewage", according to . Its unforgiving scent caused her to "jerk my body back like Keanu Reeves dodging bullets in The Matrix" when she first experienced it.
Ahrens says, "The item most people have spat out is also Nordic, very salty liquorice.
"Every single item in the museum is completely normal in its originating culture. That was an absolute prerequisite for inclusion."
We are all equally disgusting — when seen from the outside. Food gets normalised within its originating culture to the point of being just like any other food.
So how is Australian food represented at the museum? Well, there's Vegemite, which visitors can taste. There are musk sticks placed under a glass dome. And perhaps controversially, there are witchetty grubs represented by a large photo.
"We picked Vegemite because of its polarising taste and fond position in Australian culture. Musk sticks were picked because originally, it was made from the glandular secretions of the male musk deer, as well as its slightly chalky taste," he says. "Witchetty grubs were selected for several reasons. First, one of the missions of the museum is to show visitors that insects are a great sustainable protein source for our future survival." They were also picked because they represent an aspect of First Nations food.
"Of course, without the wider background of the museum where absolutely everything is normal in the country from where it comes, it might have been insensitive," he says. "We rather would like to think of it as a bit more normalising to include these three together." The director's aim is to show that witchetty grubs should be as "normal as Vegemite is to the average Australian".
"Of course, without the wider background of the museum where absolutely everything is normal in the country from where it comes, it might have been insensitive," he says. "We rather would like to think of it as a bit more normalising to include these three together." The director's aim is to show that witchetty grubs should be as "normal as Vegemite is to the average Australian".
Have there been any strong reactions to these displays? "Many Australians have wandered the museum over the years, and while most are very nice, Australians are the only nationals to ever get angry that we feature their favourite food in the museum," he says.
"I remember especially one Australian man who visited us with his teenage son, banging his fist down on the entrance counter and demanded to know who had dared to put his amazing Vegemite in the museum? When I responded that 'I was the one and the reason for it, that we all have our own delicious foods that are just disgusting if you are not used to them', he calmed a bit. By the end of his visit to the museum, he fully got the message and was very happy."
And the museum's inclusion of the iconic Australian spread hasn't put people off Vegemite.
"A lot of visitors have bought Vegemite from us, not for use on toast, but rather as a flavour additive in broths and soups," he says. "Vegemite is relatively popular." Liquorice and root beer are other "disgusting" items people buy from the gift shop.
So do Vegemite, musk sticks and witchetty grubs belong in the Disgusting Food Museum? Perhaps it's worth asking an authority on Australian food — and chef is a good person to consult.
He's spent three years producing , tracking down vintage materials for research (like The Hobart Gas Cooking Society cookbook) and producing 350 quintessential Australian recipes for the cookbook (which he finetuned from a longlist of 750).
Of course, Australia: The Cookbook features a recipe that'll evoke people's memories of buying Vegemite cheese scrolls from their local bakery, too.
"Vegemite may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world," Kay Richardson wrote in the Gastronomica Journal in 2003. Dobson includes this apt quote next to the recipe; he also adds this amazing statistic: by the 1950s, Vegemite was a staple in nine out of 10 Australian households.
Cheese and Vegemite complement each other perfectly, and what better way to celebrate that than in these cheesy scrolls. Source: Alan Benson
He says Vegemite wasn't initially a hit in Australia: it only took off after it was sold with Kraft cheese in cross-promotional deals. "And that's what kicked it off," he says. It's not surprising that cheesy Vegemite scrolls then became a thing
Vegemite has become a strong national symbol of Australia — to the point actor Tom Hanks' (rookie) over-spreading of the salty condiment on his toast generated headlines worldwide, with Vogue, LA Times, India Express and France 24 reporting on this development.
For outsiders, the intensely flavoured yeast extract can be a shock. Take Dobson's brother-in-law, who arrived here from Uruguay around age five. "He was given a Vegemite sandwich — he thought it was chocolate," the chef says. "As a kid, when your tastebuds are still growing, it can really turn you off things. He can't eat the stuff. No one prepared him for it."
Then there are musk sticks. How does Dobson respond to its inclusion as an Australian exhibit at the Disgusting Food Museum?
"How funny, they're delicious," he says. The chef is a fan of their odd shape and their rosewater-like flavour profile. "I can't believe people don't like musk sticks."
As for the museum's inclusion of witchetty grubs as a "disgusting" Australian food, "that gets my back up much more than the Vegemite thing", Dobson says. "They're stepping into the area of being culturally judgmental. You know, it's funny. I'd eat a witchetty grub if it was presented to me…I've eaten fried grasshoppers in Thailand, that was tasty.'
is a Ularai Barkandji woman who runs and has worked in Aboriginal education for 17 years now. She wrote the chapter on Indigenous bush foods in Australia: The Cookbook, covering the country and cultural knowledge of First Nations people as well as native ingredients like ruby saltbush, desert quandong and bunya nuts. Like Dobson, she questions the inclusion of witchetty grubs in the Disgusting Food Museum.
"I would say it's wrong," she says. Is Orcher more receptive if she hears the museum is ultimately trying to make people more culturally aware and open to other cuisines — particularly Indigenous ingredients — by questioning how disgust is formed? Ahrens says, "That is the most important part of our message.
"All items in the exhibit are normal where they come from. And the 'insects as sustainable protein' perspective is very important to us."
In fact, the museum was partly created to make people question their dislike of insects: insects are an important source of protein and something we need to include in our diet if we want to combat climate change. It's much more eco-friendly food than carbon-intensive beef, after all.
All this context makes Orcher a little more open to the museum's purpose. Still, it's all about the execution. "How is the content displayed, how is it portrayed?" she asks.
This is the text that runs along with the picture of witchetty grubs:
These huge white larvae have been eaten by Aboriginal Australians for hundreds of years. The Cossid moth larvae live in the roots or stem of the Witchetty bush. The larvae are eaten alive or lightly cooked in hot ashes. They taste a bit like almonds. When cooked, the skin becomes crispy and the inside has a texture similar to fried egg yolk.
Orcher says, "The thing is, it's almost a stereotypical food, isn't it, to align that to Aboriginal people? In that sense, it probably does get people's attention," she says. "But it would be nice for it to be recognised for its nutritional and medicinal value as well…Because we're foraging and gathering and knowing where to go and get them. All that information as well — that provides a whole different way of recognising traditional practice."
It would be nice for it to be recognised for its nutritional and medicinal value as well.
Being culturally sensitive about how this information about witchetty grubs is expressed is important, too.
"I'm aware of that because of the time I spent with the Githabul people up around the Woodenbong/Kyogle area. They just eat them out of the tree. They would teach me how to spot them in the gum tree and what type of tree they're in," she says. "There's food all around us, you've just got to know where it is and what it is."
Disgusting Food Museum images by Anja Barte Telin.
Australia cookbook images by Alan Benson.
Ross Dobson's cheesy Aussie Scrolls recipe
Makes 8 scrolls
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
- 300 g (2 cups) self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
- pinch of salt
- 250 ml (1 cup) whole (full-fat) milk, plus 1 tbsp for brushing
- 2 tbsp Vegemite, softened
- 200 g (1⅔ cups) coarsely grated Cheddar cheese
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a baking sheet with butter and line with baking (parchment) paper.
- Combine the flour and salt together in a bowl. Add the melted butter and milk and stir until the mixture starts to clump together. Tip onto a floured work counter and knead briefly to form a smooth ball of dough. Roll the dough into a rectangle roughly measuring 30 x 20 cm, with the long end nearest you.
- Spread the Vegemite over the dough, leaving a 2-cm border from the edges, then sprinkle three-quarters of the cheese over the Vegemite. Use the end nearest you to firmly roll the dough into a log, then cut into 8 equal portions. 4. Put the dough pieces, cut side down, onto the prepared sheet, brush with the milk and sprinkle over the remaining cheese.
- Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until risen and golden. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before serving.
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