Gross Or Great? 27 Unexpected Delicacies From Around The World Slideshow

For all those lamb lovers out there, this dish allows diners to come, literally, face-to-face with their meat. Whole sheep's head is presented intact and attached to the skull, sometimes even with the brain still inside.

Though seemingly gruesome, the eyeballs, tongue, cheeks, ears, and skin are surprisingly tender and succulent. Whole sheep's head is a culinary tradition in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. When they're finished eating, chefs often use the remaining bones for soup stock.

To eat sheep's head, check out the Smalahovesleppet Festival on September 28 and 29 in Voss, Norway.

Traditionally, placentophagy is the practice of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth. The reason, presumably, is that the placenta retains a significant amount of vitamins and antibodies, providing a significant amount of nutrition for the animals that consume it.

In some cultures, however, placenta is also consumed by humans. In China, placenta is an ingredient used in traditional holistic medicines, such as zihéche, which includes dried human placenta and is prescribed to treat diseases like infertility and impotence.

There is controversy over whether eating placenta actually has any nutritional or medicinal benefit for humans. One theory holds that human placentophagy helps thwart post-partum depression, increases the production of breast milk, and decreases the onset of insomnia in new mothers. But some doctors insist that since humans are already well-nourished mammals, there is no medical reason for humans to consume placenta.

Jellied moose nose is an Alaskan delicacy composed of cooked moose snout. To cook this dish, chefs remove the bulbous appendage from the moose, slice it, and boil it until all the hair can be plucked away easily.

After the hair is removed, the snout is returned to boiling water and onion, garlic, and spices are added. Eventually, the nose softens into a gelatinous texture.

Haggis is a dish native to Scotland and made of the heart, liver, and lung meat of a sheep or calf. Though the description may not initially appeal to the appetite, haggis actually has a nutty, savory taste and is considered a staple of customary Scottish cuisine.

Traditionally, haggis is prepared with minced onion, oatmeal, and spices and then left to simmer for several hours. Variations include vegetarian haggis and haggis pakora, a delicacy served at many Indian restaurants throughout Scotland. If ever in Edinburgh, give haggis a shot at Findlay's of Portobello.

The word salo is referred to in English as lard. Salo is a Slavic dish consisting of cured pork fat slabs, often added to sausage but also available for consuming raw or smoked.

Originating from Ukraine, salo is often seasoned with garlic, pepper, or salt and accompanied by a shot of vodka. Purchase salo at the Salo Modern Art Museum in Lviv, Ukraine.

Also known as river rats, these semi-aquatic rodents originate from South America and are known for their destruction of water plants. In Louisiana, for example, nutria have caused extensive damage to the state's coastal wetlands.

Some regions encourage eating these pesky creatures in an attempt to curb the prevalence of nutria infestations. Nutria are low in fat and protein-heavy, and are said to be a healthy alternative to chicken.

Common nutria recipes include nutria chili, nutria gumbo, and nutria jambalaya.

For die-hard fans of the New York soft pretzel, worm pretzels are a culinary creation not to be missed.

Wormzels are a delicacy consisting of dehydrated earthworms contorted into a pretzel shape and are sold at the Gene Rurka Farm in New Jersey. For more information on these squiggly snacks, click here.

Shirako refers to the milt, or seminal fluid, of fish and mollusks. The milt of water creatures, such as cod, anglerfish, and puffer fish, has a custard-like texture when cooked and is eaten as a delicacy in Japan.

Try shirako at Sushisho Saito in Japan or Zenkichi in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Also know as civet coffee, this type of exotic caffeinated bean is consumed by Asian palm civet animals, which pass the beans through their digestive tracts and defecate, releasing the beans, which are then harvested to brew coffee.

Once released from the civet, these beans are washed extensively and left out in the sun to roast. Kopi luwak exudes a strong coffee scent and has less of a bitter aftertaste than other brews.

Coffee drinkers with money to spare can invest in a mug of Kopi luwak beans for a cost of up to $227 per pound. Have a sip at Jezalin's Gourmet Market in New York City.

Yak penis is on the menu for the fearless to try at the Guo Li Zhuang Restaurant in Beijing.

This specialty item is said to treat impotency in men and help clear skin in women. The meat is typically doused in hot or soy sauce and has a rubbery texture.

Shots of snake blood are an adventurous drinking pastime of Southeast Asia and can be experienced at locations like the Huaxi Market in Taipei. To prepare, hawkers slice a snake along its underbelly and drain its blood into a glass filled with rice wine or grain alcohol. Snake bile can also be extracted from the gallbladder and consumed as a shot.

Other forms of snake wine, known as steeped snake wine, are found in large glass jars of rice wine containing the body of a poisonous snake. Don't worry; the venom won't harm you because of the wine's high alcohol content.

Most people enjoy aged cheese, but casu marzu tests the palates of all dairy connoisseurs. Coming from Sardinia in Italy, casu marzu is rotten sheep's milk cheese decomposed within the pecorino rind. The kicker? The cheese contains live insect larvae.

The larvae are added to the cheese to aid in the fermentation process, and the result is a cheese with a very soft, sometimes liquified, texture that can contain thousands of hungry maggots.

Caution should be taken when ingesting casu marzu, as the larvae are notorious for launching up to 6 inches into the air when disturbed.

As a result of health and hygiene regulations, the selling of casu marzu was made illegal in the European Union, though it's still available on the black market.

For more information on casu marzu, click here.

Squirrel brains are a regional delicacy in Appalachian regions in Kentucky. Popular recipes include scrambling squirrel brains with eggs or including the meat in a stew known as burgoo.

In recent years, however, doctors have warned against squirrel consumption because of the possibility that squirrels carry a variant of fatal mad cow disease.

Capture a bat, chuck it live into a vat of boiling water, season it with spices, and mash it into paste to create this potentially harmful dish (bats often carry many diseases). Andrew Zimmern of Travel Channel's Bizarre Food America tried the hard-to-locate treat in the hills outside Chang Mai in the heart of the golden triangle in Thailand.