Some bravery as a side dish

It was Jeffrey Steingarten, author of “The Man Who Ate Everything,” who most recently insisted that we should embrace the universe of foodstuffs around us. You've heard variations on this spiel: Try everything once because (this part gets repeated in your most motherly tone) if you don't try it, you won't know if you like it.

Those principles are fine for Brussels sprouts and sweetbreads. But seeing as it's the time of year when grossing people out gets semi-official sanctioning from a semi-official holiday, now is the moment to consider foods that push the envelope of edibility.

We're not talking about haunted-house, peeled-grapes-as-eyeballs gross. We're talking about food that can churn your stomach without the aid of a blindfold.

It's a dangerous game to start calling food gross. One person’s dog meat is another’s Rocky Mountain oysters, and yet another's haggis. Some think durians and natto smell like death; others find them the very essence of wonderful.

Nor, for that matter, is it fair to traffic in items found on shows like “Fear Factor.”  It's not that we doubt horse rectum is digestible. It's that we doubt anyone would actually eat it outside the confines of reality TV. (Also note “Fear Factor” has a certain reticence about cooking techniques; even the biggest fan of cow intestine is going to retch if it's being served boiled and plain.)

The seven items we've chosen for our stomach-churning buffet are all legitimate foods somewhere in the world. Grab a fork and dig in.

7) Spiders. Entomologists might disagree, but the practice of eating insects doesn't seem nearly so bad as it sounds at first. 

But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and arachnids seem to be a good place to draw it.  Spider-eating is practiced in a number of places, but Cambodia seems to be the place where it has drawn the most attention, thanks to a practice of eating meaty finger-sized tarantulas known in Khmer as a-ping. For about a dime per arachnid, you can get a cheap, ample meal of the critters fried up with salt, pepper and perhaps a bit of garlic. (Keep in mind that a full restaurant entree can be found in Phnom Penh for under $2.)

In the town of Skuon, on the road between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, you can pile your plate high with crispy critters and wash the whole thing down with a slug of spider wine (made from fermented rice, spider added later).

The practice apparently was born out of grim necessity in the dark days of the Khmer Rouge, but the taste has endured as the country rebuilt itself, eventually earning the tarantulas an unofficial reputation as the caviar of Cambodia.

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Frankly, the more we think about it, the harder it is to differentiate between eating tarantula and something like soft-shell crab — equally creepy-crawly, just underwater. Many discerning tasters of tarantula actually swear by the taste.

On the other hand, tarantulas have some serious points in their favor, including a much longer life span (30 years or more in some cases) and the fact that some folks keep them as pets. The same can't be said for crabs. What it comes down to is that spiders are really rather helpful creatures, as the insect world goes, and so might inspire guilt that wouldn't come along with eating, say, chocolate-dipped ants.

Should you want to branch out, incidentally, other corners of Southeast Asia and South America will provide you with a full menu of insect grub.