It seems that people who run museums are never running out of fresh ideas that could bring new visitors. One such innovative venue is the Disgusting Food Museum located in Malmo, Sweden. Visitors have an opportunity to take a look, smell, or even taste some of the 80 types of food presented in this unusual place.
There are all sorts of food nowadays, and we all want to taste something new and fresh, just like we can’t resist the urge to click on “read more here” when we see it. However, not all new types of food will suit our taste buds. As a matter of fact, we always risk not liking the new type of food that we try, but we can always stop eating it in that case.
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder
However, whenever we visit a restaurant we have but one hope — that the new food we try is tasty, and we like it. But what happens if you have a completely opposite idea. What happens when you want to visit a place where you expect the food to be awful?
Once you take into account that there are enthusiasts who collect old and ugly things, it doesn’t seem that strange that there is such a thing as Disgusting Food Museum offering food such as sheep eyeball juice or bull testicles.
What Is Disgusting Really?
However, the curator of this museum, Samuel West, went one step further in the exploration of disgust. He stated that one of our primary emotions, which had been hardwired to our brain, served to help us separate good-tasting food from the bad one. However, West argued that the concept of disgust is culturally learned, meaning that what one culture considers delicious may seem disgusting to others.
He stated that the entire idea of this museum was to help people understand how the concept of disgust works. The idea is to provoke the taste buds and make visitors realize that disgust cannot be measured objectively. Furthermore, West claimed that the museum would help people undergo a revelation of a sort. According to him, some people might actually like the food they deemed disgusting before.
Problems of the Disgusting Food Museum
West also admitted that he had had trouble preparing food for the museum and that he had vomited almost every day. This is because some of the food presented in the venue smells so bad that it has to be kept in glass pots and jars in order to minimize the smell.
Finally, West added that having real food in a museum was a bit problematic as it is a subject of deterioration. In other words, the food should not be rotten when visitors try it or smell it, so it has to be changed regularly.
