strange things you folks have eaten
Hmm. All the standard strange-but-isn't-strange-anymore-because-every-eats-sushi-now kind of things: eel, octopus and squid, both head and tentacles, snail, fish eggs, tripe (nasty), and cow tongue (also nasty). I've eaten raw horse meat. Kind of bland. And I've had bear meat, cooked. Very flavorful, but very fatty. Tasty the first few bites but then the fat becomes overpowering. I've had oyster shooters. Do those qualify as strange? Pluck out an oyster from its shell, drop it into a shot of tequila with a dash of tobasco sauce and shoot it. Kind of a dumb macho thing to impress people, but not very good. I don't recommend it.
Anyone who's been to a sushi bar might have had sea urchin, but I've eaten it fresh. By "fresh" I mean, remove from dive bag, (which is somewhat difficult because the spikes fit through the holes in the bag) crack it open, peel it out (it rolls out in strips) put it on a cracker, drip lemon juice on it, then eat. Eating like that was tastier than what I've had at a sushi bar, but not something I'd go out of my way for.
I've had shark. (Not very good.) And I've had ray fin. I don't recall if it was manta ray or bat ray. Very good, actually. I ordered it for the sheer movelty, but I'd definiately do that again. As "strange" foods go, ray was awesome.
A few things I haven't had: brain, whale, dog, snake or fish while still alive. I've never sucked out bone marrow. I've never had blowfish. Was offered fish eyeball once (like a big, inch and half wide eyeball) but declined. That's the only time I can think of that I actually got queasy watching someone eat something. And there are still a couple fairly standard things that I've never quite got around to like quail, pheasant and deer. I have had duck though. Duck is awesome. Try it if you have the chance.
Anyway, the whole question is kind of loaded anyway. If you ask me, the genuinely
strangest foods are things so totally accepted in western cuisine that we don't even think about them: cheese, eggs, bread, beer etc. Think about it. Cheese is cow mammary secretions that have been deliberately allowed to mold for years until they become solid. Eggs are unfertilized chicken embryos. Bread and beer are both basically ground up wheat infested with bacteria. In the case of bread, it's heated and the explosions of the bacteria give off gasses that make the bread puffy, while in the case of beer the bacteria are allowed to grow for months or years, and it's actually their poisonous excrement that you're drinking.
If you think about it, traditional western food is way more gross than anything in the east, which is generally just "dead plant or animal."