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, 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.

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 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 and John Cochran 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, Jenna Lewis, Rob Mariano, Rupert Boneham, and Tom Buchanan have all competed in this challenge twice. However, their loved ones did the eating the second time around in Survivor: All-Stars.
 * No one has won this challenge twice.
 * 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; Survivor: Borneo, Survivor: Thailand, Survivor: The Amazon, and Survivor: Caramoan.
 * Balut (duck embryo) is the second most recurring exotic food to be featured on the show, appearing in three seasons:, , and.
 * This exotic food originated in the Philippines, as stated by Jeff Probst in Survivor: 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 Big Tom's son, Bo).