Disgusting Food Museum

A museum dedicated entirely to food that different cultures find revolting — and the provocation that disgust is entirely relative. The 80 or so exhibits include some genuine extremes: fermented shark from Iceland, live mealworm tacos, canned rattlesnake, mouse wine from China, and the notoriously pungent surströmming (fermented herring) that Swedes treat as a delicacy.

The experience is deliberately interactive: visitors can smell and taste many of the exhibits. The museum makes a real point — that our food taboos reveal more about culture than about biology — but it is also frankly entertaining. Children love it, adventurous adults love it, and it makes for a conversation that lasts long after you leave. On Carlsgatan, a short walk from Stortorget.

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The museum opened in 2018 and was designed as a provocation — its premise is that disgust is culturally constructed, and what one society eats with pleasure another finds revolting. Surströmming (fermented Baltic herring) appears alongside maggot cheese from Sardinia and century eggs from China. Visitors are given a sick bag with their ticket, just in case.

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