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 that “the 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 like Hákarl from Iceland - which

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

Or Kusaya which is Japanese for “stinking 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.