These 10 Dishes Might Kill You

Would you risk your life for just a bite of one of these dangerous delicacies from around the world? You've probably heard of deadly blowfish, but did you know the tails are perfectly safe to eat? That is, they are safe to eat if they are caught off the mid-Atlantic coast, specifically between Virginia and New York. 

Instead of risking your life with each bite, try swapping whole bullfrog for tasty and worry-free frog legs or stick with the regulated safe-to-eat canned akee when preparing the Jamaican delicacy, Akee and Saltfish.

If you are looking for an adrenaline rush, check out these deadly dishes from The Daily Meal, including Inky Cap Mushroom Soup and the Japanese dish fugu, that promise a risk greater than a mild case of food poisoning for diners.

As the national dish of Jamaica, Akee and Saltfish is certainly worth a try if you are ever in the area. The dish is made with salted cod, onions, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, and an assortment of spices and herbs, like paprika, thyme, and black pepper.

What makes this dish dangerous? Akee fruit. The tropical fruit is rich in Vitamin A, zinc, and protein, but if picked before its ripe or improperly prepared, it can be deadly. The soft, spongy fruit contains hypoglycin alkaloid toxins, which can cause seizures, vomiting, comas, and even death. Luckily, if you stick to the canned akee imported to the U.S., this closely monitored import isn't likely to lead to Jamaican vomiting sickness.

Do you enjoy an appetizer of fried frog legs? How about the whole frog? In Namibia, the whole giant bullfrog is baked sans intestines and enjoyed as a delicacy.

However, if you want to prepare this unusual dish, you should also know that African bullfrogs are poisonous. Poisonous toxins are secreted through their skin, so consuming this poison can cause temporary kidney failure and possibly death. 

You are probably more familiar with tapioca, the starch extracted from the root of cassava, than the root vegetable Native to South America. Cassava is also popular in traditional African cooking, especially among the Congolese, who named the unfortunate cassava poisoning, konzo or "bound legs," which results in a permanent paralytic state. 

Cassava requires soaking and boiling to remove toxic compounds that lurk inside the root vegetable. To make the bread, the root is dried, peeled, and crushed to form a paste. Then, the paste is strained to separate the safe pulp from the poisonous, milky white toxins. Finally, the pulp is dried to be used as a flour to make this healthy, cracker-like bread.

Parmigiano-Reggiano and fresh mozzarella are a few of the popular Italian-style cheeses that have made their way around the world, but in Sardinia, casu marzu is a celebrated cheese that you might be unhappy to find on your cheese board. Also known as maggot cheese, casu marzu is made by not only fermenting sheep's milk, but also infecting a block of pecorino with live maggot larvae. 

If that isn't horrifying enough, you have to eat this cheese while the maggots are living. Once dead, the cheese becomes toxic. The risk of course is maggots burrowing into your stomach or worse, enteric myiasis, a disease that includes severe stomach cramps and nausea. We think we will stick with this safer homemade ricotta rather than risk the wrath of the maggots.

Enjoy a healthy fruit salad with immunity boosting almonds, packed with vitamin A and healthy fats. Combine your favorite in-season fruits with raw almonds, or try this recipe for Fresh Muesli with Apples, Currants, and Toasted Almonds. 

Seems harmless, right, so what's the risk? While sweet raw almonds are what we find packaged at the grocery store, bitter almonds aren't so safe to eat. If you have a foraging bug, be careful when collecting almonds. Bitter almonds contain a chemical called hydrocyanic acid, which is found in the seed of many stone fruits. It can cause serious side effects and even death. While the oil from bitter almonds is used in pharmaceuticals, if you are shopping in the grocery store, you won't find these poisonous almonds on the shelf.

The popularity of sushi has spread around the world. People can't get enough of the artistically prepared raw fish, but one fish in particular is elevated to a rare delicacy in Japan. The pufferfish or blowfish is usually served in thin, translucent slices.

Chef's train for a minimum of three years before receiving their certification to prepare this dangerous dish in Japan. The liver and ovaries of the toxic blowfish contain high levels of tetrodotoxin. If not prepared properly, the poison will leak onto the meaty flesh of the fish and cause dizziness, nausea, paralysis, and eventually death for anyone who consumes it. You can avoid unwanted poisoning by sticking to the tail of pufferfish caught in the mid-Atlantic between Virginia and New York.

Shark meat is becoming more and more popular, but hákarl, a traditional Icelandic dish promises more than a dinner date with jaws. This cured fish is a more pungent and more potentially deadly version of Jewish deli-style whitefish.

The shark is fermented and dried for four to five months as part of a special Icelandic fermenting process; however, the uric acid and trimethylamine oxide that build up in the fish can cause effects that are akin to drinking way, way too much alcohol. Don't want to risk it? Stick with one of these safer whitefish dishes.

Mushrooms already have a reputation for causing trippy travels or poisonous ends, but they are also, often, quite delicious. Inky cap mushrooms kind of land somewhere on the line of safe and sickening. Inky Cap Mushroom Soup is a delicious dish of sautéed garlic, mushrooms, and olive oil that is then combined with vegetable stock, milk, and sour cream, and thickened with flour and egg yolks.

The soup is harmless when prepared with shaggy inky cap mushrooms, but if the common inky cap mushroom is used by mistake this soup will quickly turn toxic when combined with alcohol. Antabuse-Syndrome causes vomiting and heart palpitations. The more alcohol you drink, the worse your symptoms will be. Avoid the confusion altogether by making one of these safer mushroom soup recipes.

Spice cakes aren't uncommon and they taste delicious, but drop the cap on that nutmeg and your seasonal cake will quickly turn on you.

We all like a fresh grating of nutmeg to deliver that warming spice flavor to eggnogs, spice cakes, and cookies, but quantity is everything with this spice. Consume too much (like a whole seed, not a teaspoon), and the myristicin found in nutmeg will cause hallucinations, convulsions, headaches, and even heart palpitations. While there have only been two cases of death reported due to nutmeg poisoning, it is best to stick with recommended quantities when cooking with this spice.

In Korea, this delicacy is served not just raw but alive. Sannakji, or raw baby octopus, is prepared by dicing live baby octopus into bite-sized pieces, and then seasoning it with sesame oil and sesame seeds.

The squirming plate of live octopus is more than unsettling to look at, it can also be dangerous to consume. The suction cups of the octopus can latch onto the roof of your mouth, or more lethally your throat, causing anyone who dares to dine on the still live tentacles to risk choking. Instead, try one of these equally delicious and safer octopus recipes.