Buggin' Out

Survivor Smorgasbord (popularly known as the "Gross-Food Eating Challenge") is a recurring challenge that originated in and was used in later seasons.

Rules
In this challenge, castaways must eat a variety of native, (usually gross) foods. This challenge has appeared multiple times throughout the survivor series.

When it is seen as a tribal challenge, whoever finishes the chosen dish first, wins a point for the tribe. When this challenge is used as an individual challenge, the last person to finish the dish is out, the last man standing wins.

History
In its debut during  in, the rules were simple. If a contestant refused to eat the beetle larvae, the contestant's tribe would automatically lose the challenge for the tribe. In order to break the tie, each tribes' most squeamish member faced off. Gervase Peterson and Stacey Stillman were pitted against each other. Stacey finished the larva first and won for Tagi.

The challenge returned in the episode Suspicion, where a person from each tribe would compete against someone from the other. A spinning wheel determined what was to be eaten. This time, if someone refused to eat or threw up, they would lose a point for their tribe. Again, the challenge ended in a tie. Kimmi Kappenberg and Tina Wesson were chosen for the tie-breaker, and Kimmi won for Kucha by eating a mangrove worm first.

Another variation of this challenge appeared in where castaways had to drink a shot cow's blood. During the early rounds of the challenge, milk was added to the blood to make it more appatizing. This challenge ended in a tie, in which Kelly Goldsmith and Linda Spencer had to drink a full glass of cow blood with no milk. Linda finished first and won for Samburu.

The challenge again appeared in. Tribe members had to eat farfaru (sunbathed fermented fish). This challenge ended in a tie, so Rob Mariano and Neleh Dennis had to compete against each other in the tiebreaker. Rob threw some of it up, while Neleh finished first and won for Rotu.

The first time that it was in the post-merge phrase was in, it was used as the loved ones challenge. The last loved one standing won, Helen Glover's husband Jim won.

A tournament-style format was incorporated in. Matthew von Ertfelda won the challenge after Deena Bennett forfeited when she refused to eat at the final round.

In, the tribes faced off by individually facing off against each other in a smoothie drinking challenge. Seafood were blended and the first to finish won a point. Morgan won.

The challenge was reused in as an individual Reward Challenge, where the reward was a pizza feast with the winner's loved one to be enjoyed at the old Chapera camp. Similar to Thailand, the loved ones competed for reward. The slowest to finish a dish each round was eliminated. Tom Buchanan's son Bo, won this challenge.

The challenge was used again in  as a head-to-head eating contest. The first tribe to have four wins won; Zhan Hu won.

The challenge reappeared in. The Galu tribe won.

In, the challenge was the first post-merge immunity challenge. In the first round, the twelve remaining castaways were split into two heats of six to eat beetle larvae. The first three castaways to show a clean mouth to Jeff moved on to the second round. The second round consisted of six advancing castaways eating balut with three advancing to the third round. The third round had them eating worms with only two out of the three moving to the final round. In the finals, John Cochran beat Malcolm Freberg in eating pig brains.

Trivia

 * Amber Mariano, Jenna Lewis, Rob Mariano, Rupert Boneham, and Tom Buchanan have all competed in this challenge twice.
 * This challenge was used as the second immunity challenge in the first four seasons of Survivor.
 * Balut (duck embryo) is the most frequently recurring exotic food to be featured on the show, appearing in three seasons:, , and.