Trying the World’s Most Disgusting Foods at the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö Sweden

WARNING: This blog contains photos and stories of some pretty disturbing and disgusting food we experienced at the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö Sweden... Only read on if you have the stomach for it!! You have been warned...

Visiting the Disgusting Food Museum is one of the most unique things to do and places to visit in Malmö, Sweden!

Showcasing the most disgusting, smelly, and often poisonous food from all over the World, you certainly need to have a strong nose and stomach to experience the exhibit… and that’s even before you get to the taste challenge at the end!

Here's a video of our visit, and read on below for more!

The smelly food is evident as soon as we walk through the door, and as we are handed our tickets (which also double as vomit bags!), we wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into!

After a brief intro and some information about the emotion of disgust, we start our journey through different cultures and times, to learn about foods which some people class as delicacies while others are revolted.

And to perhaps challenge our own perceptions of what food is and why we eat it, and how our choices can affect the environment around us and lead us all to a more sustainable future.

Dangerous Foods at the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

The exhibition opens with a display of some of the world’s most dangerous foods. From toxic foods eaten by choice when carefully prepared, to food eaten through necessity for survival. And contaminated foods, some through disease, some from negligence by the companies making them, many leading to sickness and death!

Paul remembers the mad cow disease outbreak in the UK from his childhood. And there’s a much more recent reminder of how contaminated food can cause illness… a Horseshoe Bat with the Covid-19 virus!

You can learn about the 1985 glycol wine scandal, where Austrian wine producers used an anti-freeze ingredient to make their wines sweeter! And we see a puffer fish, a delicacy in Japan, which can only be prepared by trained and licensed chefs due to them being poisonous.

Cultural Food Differences

A large part of the museum’s display is focussed on the cultural differences of foods… what you think is weird and disgusting, I might love and find delicious!

And this is made clear to us by two foods that we love from the UK… black pudding and haggis!

We find both delicious… black pudding being a must with an English cooked breakfast, and haggis being a rare treat best enjoyed on trips to Scotland. But when you look at what they are… black pudding made from pigs blood, and haggis from sheep’s organs cooked in stomach lining, they don’t exactly sound appealing!

And perhaps even stranger still to find in the Disgusting Food Museum is coriander… one of our favourite herbs, and one which Sneha uses in most of her cooking!

So when we see grasshoppers eaten in Uganda, guinea pigs in Peru, and fermented shark in Iceland, are they really more weird or disgusting as what we eat??

A little cultural understanding can definitely go a long way to understanding some of the different foods on show.

But then there are some which are too weird for us to ever understand… bull penis anyone? No? Then how about a sheep’s head?? You can choose from either Icelandic or Iranian!

Or one of the strangest things in the whole museum… Kiviak from Greenland. Disembowel a seal, stuff it with up to 500 small birds, bury them and let them ferment, and then bite their heads off and suck out the “flavourful” juices?!

If you want some eggs, how about virgin boys eggs from China? Which are eggs soaked in urine collected from young boys (which is a little strange in itself, without soaking eggs in it!).

And if you need a drink to wash any of that down with, how do you fancy some mouse wine (where baby mice are drowned in wine with a taste like petrol and rotting animals), Gomutra (literally cow piss from India), or even Three Penis Liquor (which is exactly what it sounds like!).

Did somebody say there was a tasting challenge at the end of the museum… 

Smelly Foods at the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

As well as the disgusting looking, sounding, and tasting foods which are on show, there are also some of world’s worst smelling foods here too. And best (or worst) of all, you can smell some of them!

Are you a cheese fan? The smelliest cheese in the world, Vieux-Boulogne, can be smelled here! And as I (Paul) found out, it certainly lives up to its billing! And while we’re talking cheese, we also see Su Callu, a gruesome Italian cheese made by slaughtering a baby goat who has just drank some milk! And Casu Marzu, another infamous Italian cheese containing fly larvae and maggots, which is banned in the EU.

More local smelly foods we get to “enjoy” are Hákarl, the Icelandic fermented shark which is pretty stinky, and Gamle Oles Farfar, a Danish cheese which was actually ok.

But the worst I smell, without doubt, is Surströmming … a tinned fish from Sweden. As soon as I unscrew the top on the jar the rancid smell hits me, and even at arm’s length the smell is too bad to stand! (there is apparently a right way and a wrong way to open the tin… you’re supposed to open it under water so the first whiff is not released, as if you do this indoors you, your clothes, and your furniture may never smell the same again!!)

Tasting Challenge at the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

After having read about, looked at, and smelt some of the most disgusting food in the world, it’s time to do something we never thought we would… taste it!!

If you’ve ever watched I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here on TV you know the score… lot’s of disgusting food to taste as a challenge in aid of receiving a prize. The prize here being a spin on a wheel of disgust and being able to get a souvenir t-shirt declaring that you’ve completed the challenge!

We start off with a cricket and it’s actually not too bad at all. Next up are black ants (pretty tasteless), bamboo worms (quite tasty), durian fruit (tasty but smells really bad), and Milkis, a Korean fizzy milk drink (which is quite refreshing after all of the bugs!)

We have the gruesome Su Callu cheese before a couple more giant bugs, and then finish the food part with some Scandi favourites of Hákarl (the fermented shark), salty black liquorice, and the awful smelling Surströmming.

We’re feeling quite proud (and partly disgusted) with ourselves for managing all of the foods… but that’s not it! To pass the full challenge, there is a final round of hot chilli sauces to try.

Sneha drops out on the 3^rd chilli sauce, and I make it one further giving up after a chilli extract which blows my head off! The final two chilli extracts are too much to face, and the milk and ginger biscuits given to us to help calm the chilli have never tasted so good!

The Future of Food…

While the museum is largely aimed at informing, educating, and disgusting you at the worst food the world has to offer, it also raises questions over the future of sustainable food.

Everybody knows that the current large-scale farming and fishing practices are damaging to the environment, and research is showing that eating insects or lab-grown meat could be the future of food.

Insects, such as the June Beetles we tried, are high in protein, low in sugars and fat, and are very healthy. The bamboo worms and roasted larvae we tried were actually very tasty. And if you get a burger in a bread bun, would you really be able to tell the difference if it’s come from a lab or from a farmed cow? And would you care if you could?

While we may not be rushing out to our local shop in search of beetles or worms, had we known where our chicken or beef came from when we first tried it, we may not have rushed back for that either. And we’re both meat lovers!

So, if the future of sustainable food is growing meat and eating bugs, at least we’ve now had a tasting session and know what’s good thanks to the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö Sweden! But we’ll still give the chilli extract a miss…

TrovenTrippers Tip...

Try the food challenge! While eating bugs, fermented fish and smelly cheese may sound disgusting, most don't taste as bad as you expect them to! But they can be quite stinky, so we also suggest not to have a big lunch before coming here, as vomiting is quite a common occurrence apparently!

Where is the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö, Sweden?

The Disgusting Food Museum is around a 15-minute walk from the Central Station close to Gustav Adolfs torg.

How much are tickets to the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö, Sweden?

Tickets to the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö Sweden are 220SEK for adults (around £16) and 75SEK for children (£5.50)

Is the Disgusting Food Museum Malmö Sweden Worth Visiting?

Yes! It was great fun and an interesting (disgusting!) way to spend a couple of hours in Malmö. We highly recommend a visit, as long as you have a strong stomach!

For more info and to book tickets... The Disgusting Food Museum Website

For more of the best places to visit in Malmo, check out our blog... Copenhagen to Malmö… The Best Places to Visit in Malmö in 1 Day!