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  • Vsauce! Kevin here. A Century Egg is a Chinese preserved egg dish that looks grey and smells

  • like sulfur and ammonia. It’s cured anywhere from several weeks to months in a mixture

  • of ash, salt, clay, quicklime and rice hulls and the ammonia smell is so strong a myth

  • developed that the eggs were actually soaked in horse urine. Which they're not.

  • Over in Japan, Natto is soybeans fermented with Bacilis Subtilis bacteria and it smells

  • like a combination of pungent cheese and old socks. The slippery, sticky dish actually

  • has health benefits as a result of containing Pyrazine, the same compound giving it it’s

  • distinct smell, which is proven to reduce the likelihood of blood clotting.

  • Taking a deep breath while eating South Korea’s Hongeo has been likened to licking a urinal.

  • The uncooked, fermented skate has such a strong odor because the fish has no bladder or kidneys

  • so uric acid oozes out of its skin. When fermented for up to 15 days the uric acid turns to ammonia

  • and walking into a room filled with fermenting skate can burn your eyes and nose down to

  • your lungs. To top it off it's chewy and hard to swallow.

  • Stinky Tofu is prepared differently all over China and Taiwan and it’s been purported

  • to smell like an open sewer. The malodorous fermented tofu is often sold by open air street

  • vendors rather than inside restaurants and it's traditionally made with a brine of fermented

  • milk, vegetables and meat that can take several months. Its fans say the smellier it is - the

  • better it tastes.

  • When it comes to cheese Limburger, mostly made in Germany, is notoriously foul-smelling

  • due to the bacterium used to ferment it, Brevibacterium linens. Which is also found on human skin

  • and partially responsible for foot odor.

  • Durians, a fruit native to Southeast Asia have a smell that’s been described as like

  • road kill wrapped in sweaty socks. Shaped like a rugby ball covered in spikes, it’s

  • banned on mass transit, airplanes and hotels due to its odor which can be detected by animals

  • from half a mile away. And while some absolutely love the taste, calling it the "King Of Fruits"

  • - Chef Andrew Zimmern compared it to completely rotten, mushy onions.

  • Lutefisk is a gelatinous fish dish made in some Nordic countries from aged stockfish

  • or dried whitefish and lye. It’s often eaten during Christmas in Norway despite being described

  • as tasting like soap and giving off an odor that would gag a goat.

  • But Northern Sweden boasts a soured herring considered one of the most putrid smells in

  • the world. Surströmming is fermented baltic herring that comes in a can and features pungent

  • smelling acids like propionic acid, butyric acid and acetic acid. As well as hydrogen

  • sulphide. A German food critic once wrote thatthe biggest challenge when eating

  • surströmming is to vomit only after the first bite, as opposed to before.”

  • It’s even stronger smelling than other fermented seafood likekarl from Iceland - which

  • is rotten shark hung for five months because the meat is actually poisonous when fresh.

  • Or Kusaya which is Japanese forstinking fish” - another fermented fish that is dried

  • in the sun after being soaked in a smelly brine that can be over a hundred years old

  • and passed down from generation to generation as a family heirloom.

  • Finally, Kiviak an Inuit food from Greenland involves stuffing hundreds of birds inside

  • seal skin, sewing it up, sealing it with grease and burying it under a huge flat stone to

  • keep air content to a minimum. After seven months it’s dug up and the fermented birds

  • are eaten often at weddings or for birthdays. So happy birthday!

  • And as always - thanks for watching.

Vsauce! Kevin here. A Century Egg is a Chinese preserved egg dish that looks grey and smells

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