What’s for dinner?

There’s a world of weird choices out there, according to Lonely Planet’s new publication, “Extreme Cuisine.”

Author Eddie Lin has done a bit of wandering through the world to collect this alternately intriguing and hair-raising look at what the rest of the world considers a treat.

Noting that to some people the thought of eating a slice of processed orange American cheese wrapped in plastic might be considered a nightmare, he goes on to chronicle such other oddities as grilled guinea pig, a Peruvian favorite; hákarl, the Icelandic fermented shark (buried underground for six to 10 weeks, “with hákarl’s difficult smell and taste of death, endurance may be the key to ingesting it;)” and Mexican deep-fried grasshoppers (“seasoned with lime, salt and chili … high in protein like peanuts and crunchy like popcorn.”)

Lin apparently has not only tasted these things and more, but explains where others might experience the same treat — for example, a Kirin Seafood restaurant in British Columbia serves up a specialty of “duck web,” not the foot, just the web.

And he explores the methods of preparation. Samoan sea worms, palolo, he explains, are generally consumed raw by locals, but “can be sautéed, roasted, boiled, fried, served for breakfast with scrambled egg or baked into a loaf with coconut milk and onions.”

It probably comes as no surprise that throughout the world few parts of animals are wasted, hence the preparations of chicken knee (Japan and China), cockscomb (Italy), pig ear (China), pure pork fat (Ukraine) and the entire pig head including brains and eyeballs (U.S. and China).

Others offer definite health, well, challenges. Among these, scorpion (Thailand), which needs to be detoxified of its venom before it is deep-fried or it may cause twitching, muscle convulsions and frothing at the mouth. A poorly prepared fugu (Japanese blow fish) has even more serious consequences: If the diner dies, the chef is required to commit sepuku, ritual suicide by disembowling, Lin reports.

Then again, there are dishes that could just flat out scare you to death, like the cobra, apparently served at  La Mat in Vietnam, called “snake village,” where one can find a slithering snake platter: “Writhing snakes are presented on the floor only a few feet away from you. The grass snake pales in comparison to the cobra, which is larger, with more meat and 10 times the price.” The cobra, if chosen, is killed, “the length of its underside is slit open … the cobra’s still beating heart is swallowed whole and chased with a snake-infused rice alcohol, mixed with cobra blood and bile.” This is followed by a variety of dishes, from “soups to deep-fried snakeskin.”

And then there’s the deep-fried tarantulas of Sukon, Cambodia, where people head “when they are craving furry, plump venomous tarantulas.” Tarantulas are defanged to remove venom, before being sold by the basketful to vendors who deep-fry them or add them to rice wine to create a “tarantula tonic for back pain.”

Lin, to his credit, also includes more well known, but strange when you think about it, specialties — including foie gras, Scottish haggis, the U.K.’s Marmite, and yes, weirdest of all, American lime green Jell-O.

Altogether a fun and fascinating, witty, if not altogether appetizing read, but possibly one that’s likely to have you craving peanut butter and jelly (no, not peanut butter and jellyfish).

“Extreme Cuisine, Exotic Tastes from Around the World), $9.99, from Lonely Planet.