I Went To The Craziest Grocery Store In America, And This Is What I Found

Because I work at a food website, I spend at least 40 hours every week writing about, researching and dreaming about visiting some of the best places for food and drink in the country. While there's no way I'll ever be able to visit every single amazing restaurant or grocery store, I have been lucky enough to grow up just a day trip away from one of the country's craziest grocery stores: Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield, Ohio.

For the uninitiated, Jungle Jim's has been dubbed "the theme park of food," and its expansive 300,000-square-foot space makes that pretty dang accurate. You could spend days at this store, exploring one of the largest wine collections in the U.S., browsing the humongous international section or just gawking at the massive meat and seafood section, which features — among many other things — huge tanks full of basically every kind of live fish you can imagine.

On a recent trip home for the holidays, my husband and I took about half a day out of our busy schedule to take a little trip to Jungle Jim's. Though I had been to this store a few times before, this time, I took special notice of some of the more interesting items this store has to offer. And these 15 notable items are really just a tiny handful of the things this food haven has. Jungle Jim's has over six acres of grocery items, and we only had a short time to explore it all. But we still had a lot of opportunity to see some truly extraordinary items. Here's what I found.

One of the first things you'll see when you walk into Jungle Jim's is the Butter Bar, which features a sizable cooler full of butters from America and Europe. If you always thought there was something special about French butter, get excited; because they have it. Additionally, Jungle Jim's sells butter made not from cows' milk. We spotted sheep butter and goat butter in the store.

While you can find gator bites at many of the best seafood shacks in the country, you can't find alligator meat at most American grocery states. This meat is surprisingly versatile and can be deep-fried, turned into meatballs or grilled with ease.

Jungle Jim's is known for its extensive exotic meat selection, and we spotted one lone rattlesnake in the back of the freezer section. Like most meats that are unfamiliar, rattlesnake is best served fried.

Seeing animal tongue, hearts, livers and other organ meat on sale at a grocery story is a little peculiar, but it isn't wholly unheard of. What is a little odder is seeing full-size animal heads on sale by the pound in the meat aisle, just a short distance away from ground beef and chicken breasts. It may seem a bit macabre to the average shopper, but Jungle Jim's sells pig heads and goat heads in the meat aisle.

Kangaroo meat is actually fairly common in Australia, where it's sold both ground and as filets or steaks. While we didn't spot kangaroo meat at Jungle Jim's during this trip, we did see some kangaroo jerky. It was in a display right next to ostrich jerky, elk jerky, alligator and more traditional dried meat sticks such as buffalo, venison and beef.

Ohio is home to some of the best breweries and best beers in America, so it makes sense that an Ohio-based uber-grocery store would team up with a local spot to make their own beer. Jungle Jim's and Listermann Brewing Company collaborated for a pair of sweet pastry stouts: Cannoli of the Jungle and Strawberry Cannoli of the Jungle. This rich, milky brew is just the tip of the iceberg on the expansive alcohol selection at Jungle Jim's, which includes a wine section you could easily get lost in, a massive state store with every kind of liquor imaginable and aisles and aisles full of beer for every palate.

Chocolate-covered potato chips are one of those foods you'll only find in the Midwest, and since that's where Jungle Jim's is located, you can bet this sweet and salty treat is in the candy aisle. Made from Mikesells potato chips and Esther Price chocolates, chocolate-covered potato chips may sound baffling but are so crazy they totally work. Esther Price is one of the best chocolate shops in America, after all.