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.

As a tribal challenge, whoever finishes the dish first, wins a point for their respective tribe. When this challenge is used as an individual challenge, the last person to finish each dish is out, the last player remaining wins.

History
In its debut during  in, where the survivors were to eat a serving of butok or bug larvae. 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. Beetle larva appeared as an item also in Survivor: Thailand, Survivor: The Amazon, Survivor: Caramoan, and Survivor: Blood vs Water.

The challenge returned in the episode, 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 the episode  where castaways had to drink a shot of cow's blood. During the early rounds of the challenge, milk was added to the blood to make it more appetizing. This challenge ended in a tie, in which Kelly Goldsmith and Linda Spencer had to drink a full glass of pure cow blood. 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 used 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. At the final four Immunity Challenge, its final round was a tarantula-eating contest. Eventual season winner Brian Heidik won the challenge.

A tournament-style format was incorporated in, , and where Matthew von Ertfelda, John Cochran, and Monica Culpepper won respectively.

In Palau, Koror selected Tom Westman and Ian Rosenberger to compete against Ulong's last members, Stephenie LaGrossa and Bobby Jon Drinkard. The castaways had to eat balut. The first four rounds was even. The final round was time trial, which two castaways had to eat five balut. Tom finished his balut first, winning Koror 500 gallons of fresh water and various toiletries.

In, and , the tribes faced off by individually facing off against each other in a smoothie drinking challenge, where several exotic food items were mixed into a single disgusting concoction. The Morgan and Galu tribes won them, respectively.

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.

Trivia

 * This is the first challenge to be used multiple times.
 * Amber Mariano, Gervase Peterson, Jenna Lewis, Laura Morett, Rob Mariano, Rupert Boneham, Tina Wesson and Tom Buchanan have all been a part of this challenge twice.
 * Gervase, Laura and Tina and are the only people to compete in this challenge twice.
 * However, their first time competing in this challenge was in the tribal phase of the game. They would later play in this challenge individually in.
 * Although, Amber, Jenna, Rob, Rupert and Tom have been involved in the challenge twice, it was their loved ones who did the eating the second time around in.
 * This challenge was used as the second immunity challenge in the first four seasons of Survivor.
 * Beetle larva is the most commonly occurring food item that has been featured in;, , , , and.
 * Balut (duck embryo) is the second most recurring exotic food to be featured on the show, appearing in four seasons: All-Stars, Palau,, and Caramoan.
 * This exotic food originated in the Philippines, as stated by Jeff Probst in Caramoan.
 * When this challenge was used as a Loved Ones Challenge, the loved ones themselves competed.
 * When this happened, it was won by males (Helen Glover's husband, Jim and Tom's son, Bo).
 * Dirk Been was the first castaway to finish a food item in this challenge.
 * This challenge appeared in the first eight seasons of the show.
 * Every person who has won this challenge as an Individual Immunity Challenge has made it to the Final Tribal Council.
 * Both times Gervase Peterson competed in this challenge he lost.