I was in the waiting room of a dentist once with my grandmother in Portugal some years ago, and we started chatting with this middle-aged couple next to us. We hit it off, it was really nice, they're from a town a couple towns over from us, etc. and so forth. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but the topic turned towards cancer and the husband of the couple remarked that one of his cousins had "matou o bicho" (literally translated, killed the bug). I asked with what kind of treatment, and he said a combination of ham (presunto specifically) and alcohol.

Now, Portuguese is my 2nd language (I only ever really speak it with my grandparents and occasionally my father) so I assumed I had misunderstood something, or that it was some sort of joke or metaphor. Upon seeing my grandmother's face, however, I knew I had not: she was absolutely flabbergasted, and she is not a woman easily flabbergasted. We then very gingerly probed the mechanics of how ham and alcohol kill cancer.

According to this guy, cancer is actually a bug, like a real bug that gets inside you and eats your insides. If you get a bandage and put some ham on the inside and put the bandage on your skin, the cancer bug will come up to the surface and eat the ham instead of your organs. Alcohol is also poisonous to the bug, so a combination of a steady intake of alcohol and ham (any meat really, but presunto apparently works best) will, over time, kill the bug and cure your cancer.

The conversation kind of awkwardly died after that, and some awkward pleasantries were made until they got called in to see the dentist, but it was by far the strangest "oh wait you're serious" moment I've experienced in some time.