Spotted via accidental hedonist, a chart that rates our food threshold. The idea is that people generally have limits to what they are willing to eat. The higher the tolerance for “strange” food, the higher their score.

I score 18, because I have no problem with shark’s fin soup — I’ve had more shark’s fin soup than, say, clam chowder. But insects are at 15 and I’m not sure I can stand to consume insects. And therein lies the issue to this linear, and over-simple scale. It’s a good visual indicator, but one man’s meat is another’s poison. It seems also that this scale is more an indicator of the person’s tolerance towards the ethics of the food items rather than taste. The better question is, where is your tolerance to trying these food. I’m willing to bet that many people will automatically go “ewww” to bird’s nest soup before they even try it. In which case I’ll be a 20 because, yes, I am willing to try bear’s heart and monkey’s brain (although, I’m not sure how easy it is to get monkey’s brain nowadays, it seems to be something that westerners obsess about more than necessary). Then again, I’m stuck on insects at 15.

Food tolerance depends on many factors, like ethnicity, upbringing, world experience. When I mentioned panna cotta to a colleague yesterday, and this colleague is a well travelled foodie, they had no idea what it was. I also met someone recently who appears to be a “regular” Mid-Westerner but thinks that the only Japanese food worth eating is sashimi and that most of the Japanese food in the US is too Americanized that its distinctive feature, delicacy, has been lost. Sometimes, people surprise me.