Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

Food is so much more than sustenance. Curious foods from exotic cultures have always fascinated us. Unfamiliar foods can be delicious, or they can be more of an acquired taste. While cultural differences often separate us and create boundaries, food can also connect us. Sharing a meal is the best way to turn strangers into friends.

The evolutionary function of disgust is to help us avoid disease and unsafe food. Disgust is one of the six fundamental human emotions. While the emotion is universal, the foods that we find disgusting are not. What is delicious to one person can be revolting to another. Disgusting Food Museum invites visitors to explore the world of food and challenge their notions of what is and what isn’t edible. Could changing our ideas of disgust help us embrace the environmentally sustainable foods of the future?

The exhibit has 80 of the world’s most disgusting foods. Adventurous visitors will appreciate the opportunity to smell and taste some of these notorious foods. Do you dare smell the world’s stinkiest cheese? Or taste sweets made with metal cleansing chemicals?

EXHIBITED DELICACIES INCLUDE:

Surströmming – fermented herring from Sweden.
Cuy – roasted guinea pigs from Peru.
Casu marzu – maggot-infested cheese from Sardinia
Stinky tofu – pungent bean curd from China.
Hákarl – well-aged shark from Iceland.
Durian – infamously stinky fruit from Thailand.

Temporary dangerous food exhibit

Humans have always been inventive when it comes to food, finding creative ways to make poisonous and deadly food edible. We eat seeds that contain cyanide and animals with toxic organs. Most of the dangerous dishes began as a way to survive in tough times, becoming delicacies over time. Around half of the exhibited items in this sub-exhibit are naturally deadly or hazardous to eat, unless prepared in the right way. The naturally dangerous foods pale in comparison with food sold by greedy or negligent companies that cause death, sickness, and suffering.

Media Mentions

Even the foods that appear at the museum in their real forms posed unusual difficulties. To make cuy, a Peruvian dish, West had to watch several YouTube videos on how to skin and boil a guinea pig. “I sent my wife and children away the day I did it,” he recalled. “It just felt wrong, bordering on criminal.” For a South Korean wine that demanded the “fresh turds” of children, Ahrens found himself scooping up his eight-year-old daughter’s excrement and fermenting it with rice wine. The final product is on display at the museum, in a gallon jug, though Ahrens has not mustered the will to try it.

The New Yorker
The Gatekeepers Who Get to Decide What Food Is “Disgusting”
In this episode of the Atlas Obscura podcast, we visit a food museum in Sweden that challenges what exactly makes something delicious … or disgusting.

Atlas Obscura
Podcast episode
It is a hands-on, tongues-out experience. At the Museum of Disgusting Food in Malmö, in Sweden, all the world’s great cuisines are represented. Each exhibit is considered a delicacy somewhere, but strikes many unaccustomed palates as revolting. Visitors are invited to handle a raw bull’s penis and sip liquor with dead mice in it.

The Economist
The idea that anything labeled “food” can be described as “disgusting” is a minefield, running up against cultural tastes and personal preferences, not to mention the shrinking ability of some countries to feed all their people. But clearly, if every human had a cornucopia of the world’s edibles laid out on a table stretching from one end of the earth to the next, not everyone would dig enthusiastically into, say, a lamprey pie, a sliver of maggot-infested pecorino or a chunk of rotten shark meat.

New York Times
Fermenterad isländsk surhaj, ost med larver och surkålsjuice. Utställningen som öppnade i Malmö på onsdagen är ingen gourmetmässa – tvärtom så är det äcklet som står i fokus. – Äckel är subjektivt. Det handlar om vad man har vuxit upp med, säger arrangören Andreas Ahrens.

Expressen
There was a time when museums were reserved for fine art and high-brow nonsense we only pretend to understand. These days, the world is full of wonderfully weird museums accessible to the everyman with everything from broken relationships and all things phallic to ramen and barbed wire. Now, Sweden is set to open one more: the world’s grossest food museum.

The Manual
Welcome to the world’s first exhibition devoted to foods that some would call revolting. The museum’s name and its contents are pretty controversial — one culture’s disgusting is another culture’s delicacy. That goes for escamoles, the tree-ant larvae eaten in Mexico, or shirako, the cod sperm eaten in Japan, or bird’s nest soup, a Chinese dish of nests made from bird saliva. The name is meant to grab visitors’ attention, but that’s the point that West says he’s trying to make: Disgust is a cultural construct.

Washington Post
Intervju med Andreas Ahrens i Expressen TV

Expressen TV
It’s easy to read the museum as a culturally insensitive house of culinary horrors — people (who are not me) in places (that are not here) eat that? And sure, there’s not not a gross-out factor, as evidenced by the name. But West told me the actual mission is the opposite: By really diving into the world of disgust, he’s hoping he can change the way people eat, and maybe save the world.

Vox
Disgust is considered one of the basic human emotions, much like Pixar’s movie Inside Out showed us. It protects us from disease by making us avoid unsafe food— and yet while the emotion itself is universal, the food that we classify as “disgusting” is not. And that’s exactly why Swedish Samuel West and Andrea Ahrens created a museum dedicated to disgusting food from everywhere across the world.

Lonely Planet
The main objective is to make it fun, interesting and interactive," said West, who explains that the exhibition is quite expensive since about half of the dishes are replaced every two days.

20 Minutos
The name of the museum leaves little suspense on what will be there. On the menu, eighty culinary specialties that the world does not envy.

Slate France

Where to find us

Malmö, Sweden

Södra Förstadsgatan 2.

Hours

Regular hours

Monday-Sunday: 11:00-17:00

Last recommended entrance 16:00

2024-12-11 We are open 11:00 to 15:30. Last entry at 14:30.

Closed dates every year:

December 24

Prices

Adult: 220 kr
Student/Senior: 175kr
Children 6-15 years old: 75kr (only with guardians)
Children under 6 years old: two children enter for free per parent/guardian.

How to get there

Take a train to Malmö Triangeln, follow Rådmansgatan that then becomes Södra Förstadsgatan. We are located just at the intersection to Drottninggatan.

Do you visit us by car? Park in Parkeringshuset Anna.

Disgusting Food Museum is located 10 minutes walk from Malmö Triangeln and 13 minutes walk from Malmö Central station. There is plentiful parking in the area. We are just across the bridge from Copenhagen, and yes, Danes are also welcome.

Juliette H.

			Worth a visit! This place was recommended to us. We are glad we went! Spent a good 90 minutes reading all the information on the different food items. Really interesting and sometimes quite disgusting - especially the sniff jars - truly horrible!!! My son and husband tried most of the items at the taste bar - I opted out!! Would recommend!		 - 9/12/2023 
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Rasa P.

			More delightful than disgusting A fascinating little museum, with exhibits and stories ranging from cheese worms to actual disgusting human behaviour like mass selling toxic products. The highlight was the food tasting tour lead by Momo who not only offered many delicious bugs but also a lot of fun facts (and even a few words in my native language). Would definitely recommend this experience to anyone visiting Malmo!		 - 9/12/2023 
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Erna H.

			Interessant, grappig en een mooie ervaring. Als je van reizen en/of eten houd, moet je hier zeker naar toe! Voor ons was het een mix van leerzaam en herkenning. Het 1e deel was een tentoonstelling over "gevaarlijk eten". Bijzonder om te ervaren hoe dit ontstaat en hoe mensen daar mee omgaan. Het vaste deel van het museum gaat over "disgusting food". Grappig om te lezen hoe smaken per land verschillen. Hier hadden we wel een aantal producten die we herkenden van reizen. Erg leuk. Na dit deel mochten we zelf proeven... Hier werden we ontvangen door Momo. Hij begeleide ons met veel enthousiasme en kennis langs de proefjes. Nooit bedacht dat ik nog eens mieren en meikever zou eten... Wat een mooie ervaring, dank Momo! Als allerlaatste deden we hier nog de test met de heetste pepers, we kwamen tot halverwege... Het museum is niet heel groot maar je kan je er makkelijk 2 a 3 uur heel goed vermaken.		 - 9/11/2023 
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Sharon S.

			Small but packs a punch Visited this little museum for the novelty factor and we were surprised at how good it is in such a small space. So many exhibits and things to smell before the final tasting challenge. Brilliant fun and the staff are fabulous		 - 11/22/2024 
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Tyler B.

			MUST DO!! An absolute must do and super interesting! Love the tasting at the end! Very fun. Try EVERYTHING. Well worth the money as well		 - 11/17/2024 
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Erika T.

			Unique experience, don't miss it! Such a unique and interesting experience, definitely put it on your agenda of to do's in Malmö. The staff is really friendly and funny. 😀		 - 11/17/2024 
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Margot C.

			We visited the museum with our 2 daughters ( 11 and 9 years old).

What a great experience ro discover the different eating culture and legend.

The girls were really excited about the tasting part. Honestly, i thought they would stop after the crickets taste, but they tried everything without vomiting or complain, they were actually really proud, they even tried the chili.

I have to say that Joseph, our tasting guide , did a great job. He was fun and made us very confortable in trying different thing.

My favorite : the salty liquorice, our daughters loved the crickets and warms as well as the century eggs.

He was patient and not pushing ( my husband did not want to give it a go). And he even spoke a really good French:) making great joke. 

We spent a total of 2 hours.		 - 8/01/2024 
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Zespół S.

			The visit to the Museum made a huge impression on us. We had no idea that people all over the world had such different taste preferences. What is disgusting to us, students of the School Complex No. 1 in Katowice, is a delicacy to others. Thank you for letting us taste the insects and stinking durian.		 - 5/18/2024 
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Pearson C.

			It was my first time in Sweden and after just walking around I saw the museum. I was greeted with pleasant demeanor, smile, and thorough explanation with a twist. I still got my vomit bag😆. I didn't try the strange foods because I just won't do it. But the smell jars were interesting/funky. Lots of information on each item.  I highly recommend it's interesting entertainment for your eyes and nose.		 - 11/11/2023 
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Disgusting Food Museum

4.8 Stars - Based on 1026 User Reviews

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Contact us

General inquiries: info@disgustingfoodmuseum.com
Group bookings, events:booking@disgustingfoodmuseum.com
Press: press@disgustingfoodmuseum.com
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Phone: +46 (0)40 10 17 71

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Current

Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

Open since 2018

Disgusting Food Museum Berlin

Future

Stay tuned for news!

Want to open your own DFM?

Past

Disgusting Food Museum Bordeaux

Located in Cap Sciences, open June 12, 2021, January 2, 2022.

Disgusting Food Museum Nantes

6-week exhibit during fall of 2019

Disgusting Food Museum Los Angeles

3-month exhibit during the winter of 2018/2019

Team

Andreas Ahrens

Museum Director & Co-founder
Most disgusting food consumed: Baby mouse wine from China. It tastes like a combination of rotten flesh and gasoline.

Dr. Samuel West

Co-founder
Most disgusting food eaten: duck fetus cooked in its egg from The Philippines.

Merchandise

We have released our line of branded clothing for delivery. You can see our full line in our Teespring store or click directly to one of the designs below. The designs are available as T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, etc.