Alligator tastes like pork to me.
Damn. I knew, just as I hit the Submit Reply button, that someone was going to call me on the “beet cooking-water” suggestion.
But I stand by my Borscht. If you take a peek at the side of the Manischewitz jar, you’ll see that sugar, vinegar, and honkin’ bunches of spices are part and parcel of the Borscht Experience.
And I also maintain that seven days is enough to make even the YOLK purple. If YHWH could make the world in seven days, seven days is enough to pickle an egg.
The brown buff pickled eggs, beet-free, sound interesting, and more old-world-traditional than the purple ones. I’ll bet if you called for a pickled egg to wash down your Guiness in county Cork, a platter of the brown buff ones would appear before you.
– Uke, off to the kitchen to experiment
I wonder what sick SOB was the first to slice off the sack from some pig or bull and look at the bloody, quivering mass and think ‘hmmm! I oughta eat these. Like the 1500 pounds of meat I just butchered aint enough, I might as well chomp on his balls too.’
Sick! Probably one of those old ‘waste not, want not’ farmers of old, who after clipping a herd of upset pigs, looked at the bloody tub of balls and decided 'well sir, jest gonna whomp ‘em up in some bacon grease and greens and see how they is.’
Mountain Oysters, Prairie Oysters, bulls balls, pigs balls, sweet meats, whatever. I had 'em and I don’t care if I have them again. Kinda gives a healthy man a funny feeling knowing he’s eating testicles not so dissimilar to his own.
Now, brains. GEEZ people! IS NOTHING SACRED? Pig and pork brains, sliced, diced, fried, stewed, scrambled and served up on bread or as a side meat. UGH! I watched some program via a cooking channel where somewhere over in the middle east they love the things. Some restaurant specializes in serving them up on subs, sandwiches, with eggs, poached, deep fried, baked, pulped, with a salad, or fried and slapped on a plate. Sheep, beef and pork brains! It was one of those lands where all of the guys have black hair, big black mustaches and dark complexions. They didn’t wear robes though.
Over here we have these sausages individually packed in plastic. Each is red. Each is about 5 inches long and 1/2 inch wide and surrounded by a vinegar based juice. They are curiously pulpy yet chewy and are called RED HOTS, because they usually are. They taste great! They are packed with some form of meat or meat combination, seasoning and grease. Guaranteed to rot out your stomach but taste good!
Then we have Slim Jim’s. These are long, thin, tough cased, blackish brown sausage sticks that are chewy and quite good, made mainly of beef and beef fat. Salty and flavorful, they sell well but cardiologists do not have them on their top 100 best foods list. Not even on the top 1000 best foods list.
We also have these little pastries, cupcakes, that come two to a pack. Mainly Devils Food, they come with a tasty chocolate icing, a soft tasty body (devils food cake) and a sweet, thick white cream in the center. (Pretty damn little sweet thick white cream if you ask me.) Tasty Cakes, I think they are called. I used to scarf them down as fast as I could get them as a kid. As I grew older, I had to slow it down a bit because shortly after eating one, I ran for the antacid tablets.
Then, one day I read the ingredients on the label and understood why those things have a shelf life of about 15 years. Cup cakes are made of flour, water, eggs, sugar, and so on. These things had this massive list of chemicals added to them that I had never heard of before and I came to the conclusion that no bakery ever made them, but some chemical plant does. I’m not real sure, but I think they might actually be made out of recycled automobile tires.
The Ex grew up in a town in The Great Farmland. Every year the Catholic church sponsored a fundraising event: a nut fry. Yes, folks, you heard it here first. These featured pig testicles (the swine were not consulted about this donation), dipped in batter and deep fried.
The Ex said the sight of nuns busily stirring boiling caldrons of testicles was one not soon forgotten. BTW, this isn’t a religious slam. The other church was Lutheran, and they featured a lutefisk dinner. I’ve spoken elsewhere, and bitterly, about the absolute evils of lutefisk.
Hey, Ike, don’t sweat the Puritan Pickled Eggs. Rombauer’s “Joy of Cooking” has a recipe, though it’s somewhat meagre on creepy speckley things.
Veb
OK, I’m stumped.
What is a ‘lutefisk’?
Come on you people in the UK. I KNOW you have some evil stuff there. I mean, I was stunned by ‘bubble and squeak’ and ‘Bangers and mash’ has to be experienced. (Fried sausages and potatoes – beware of the sausages.)
C’mon! Fess up or I’ll see if we can’t manage to get a ‘Billy-Bobs BBQ and Bail bonds’ to set up over there. The secret is that underneath all of that HOT BBQ sauce, those pork and beef ribs stand a good chance of NOT being pork or beef. More like Raccoon or Opossum. That’ll teach you to hold back.
I mean, I read how Wouschestershire (SP) Sauce is made and from the ingredients, I which I hadn’t because I like the stuff. Any nation which even thinks of combining such loathsome things to make a sauce with just has to have some nasty food around.
Okay, you asked for it, Sentinel.
Lutefisk starts out as dried cod. Yep, the fish. It is pale grayish-white, with approximately the same texture and appetizing qualities as the 2x4 it resembles. You would be much better advised to just slam it upside your head and spare yourself what follows…
The fish plank is soaked in lye (yes, lye) for a while, then rinsed off a bit and popped into boiling water. (Survivors have suggested that sled dogs and reindeer urinate in the water first.) The lye has given the fish an unearthly translucent, chewy quality and the boiling process reeks like a tackle box left in the sun.
Flies flock to this stench from continents away. Any house connected to a kitchen w/ boiling lutefisk will have to be burned. Imagine all your furniture, clothing, etc. reeking of improperly frozen fish sticks or slightly fermented shrimp.
The lutefisk is then served forth with some of the boiling liquid and drizzled with melted butter. Try to imagine hot fish jello. Or fish flavored gummi worms, with gravy.
It is absolutely the most revolting, nastiest olfactory and taste affront known to humankind. It makes Limburger Fondue look appetizing in comparison. (“One glop of smegma, or two?”) The most horrifying thing about lutefisk is that people actually eat it! In a previous thread, an alert poster pointed out that in northern states Swanson sells lutefisk TV dinners.
Do not, I beseech you, even try to imagine the taste of “nuthin’ says lovin’ like something from the oven” breakfast rolls from an hot appliance that recently rewarmed fish jello.
You asked.
Veb
My personal favourites are Porky Scratchings, though you’ve got to have good teeth.
I just have to step in and say that Marmite and Vegemite are so NOT the same thing. They may look the same but the taste is miles apart, Marmite has a sickly sweet taste and is absolutely foul, Vegemite on the other hand is food of the gods.
Talking of strange food, do many people mix their tastes? I used to love bacon and cherry jam but now as a vegetarian it stops at apples and peanute butter. Yum
“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.” Dennis Wholey
So this is “lutefisk”? The article I read about the “hakharl” said it was the most revolting thing the author had ever tasted.
Apples and peanut butter together isn’t strange. Lots of people eat them like that. But I lean ever so slightly toward sharp cheddar with apples. I think most people will dredge their bacon in maple syrup when they have pancakes.
Are you people disrespecting our National Fish?
- Yon Yonson,
Lumberyard Worker
Wisconsin
Originally posted by Sentinel:
Bangers and mash is great! It’s only fried sausages and mashed potato - what’s wrong with that? Okay, you need decent sausages, but they’re easy enough to obtain.
Bubble and squeak is a traditional way of using up the left-overs from Sunday lunch. You just fry them all together. Nothing to worry about there.
Worcestershire sauce is in a league of its own - I regard it as absolutly essential to have a bottle in the kitchen at all times.
As for nasty food, a lot of people seem to object to black pudding (it’s basically a sausage made of congealed blood and fat), but it’s part of a proper fried breakfast, and tastes very good (just don’t think about what it’s made of).
Proper, traditional, haggis seems to worry some people. I think that may be something to do with the sheep’s stomach that it’s cooked in. But what do you expect from a nation that deep-fries Mars bars (Scotland, that is, not England).
Then there’s tripe, dripping, jellied eels and mushy peas. The least said, the better.
I don’t think we have much else that you’d describe as nasty.
My usual policy is to ignore the ingredients - if I like the taste, that’s good enough for me! Personally, I can’t stand courgette or aubergine…
Bryan.
Well, now I know what ‘lutefisk’ is. (Lutefish) I’m sorry I asked. (YEECH) I have read about it somewhere else, some time ago and the author of the piece described it in similar ‘loving’ prose.
I have heard about people eating rotten fish as a delicacy, though I don’t know the name of it. The Eskimos seem to like dried, rotten seal flippers, and little birds wrapped in seal blubber, allowed to ‘season’ for 6 or 8 months outside in a stone mound.
Now MOONSHINE, I assume ‘Porky Scratchings’ are fried pork rinds? I like those from time to time also, especially since I got partial plates. Though, the occasional rocklike little crunchy bit did knock a tooth off once but the dentist glued it back on.
Haggis has become almost a national food, from what I’ve heard from Irish and Scottish acquaintances, even to the extent of being churned out in bulk and sold commercially. I haven’t tried it, and, yes, the bit about something being cooked in an animals stomach has a big role to do with it.
You can always tell when you get a ‘bad’ pickled egg when the yolk can be removed and bounced around the store or used as a golf ball.
A good place to find ‘weird’ foods is in any small store dealing with foods and such that does not belong to any major commercial chain. I like ‘Guava’ jelly, which is best found in the commercial citrus fruit stores, BUT can be found now and then in small, off the road places. Theirs is usually a home made brand which tastes better. The Guava is a smallish round fruit, yellow in color with a thickish rind. Inside is a mass of small seeds packed in pink or yellow jell. You can eat it raw, though the rind is usually what is eaten because the center, while tasty, is a pain in the ass to try to get all of the seeds out of the jell.
The clincher is the odor. At first it is curiously pungent, not repulsive, and doesn’t come into full strength until you open the fruit. But the longer you smell it, the more repulsive it gets! After a time, it is more pleasurable to take the fruit and throw it against a wall than to try to eat it. However, if you turn the fruit into jelly, which comes out in colors ranging from a delicate amber to a pleasant pinkish translucent brown, the aroma drops down to almost nothing and the taste of the jelly is light and wonderful!
It is best cooked outside to avoid having to wear a gas mask in the process to survive. Unless you have an infestation of roaches, then cook it inside and the bugs will flee in droves - along with any unwanted guests who have over stayed their welcome and the neighbors might not be real happy when the paint starts peeling off of their homes.
The finished product does have a light and wonderful flavor and goes quite well with peanut butter, meats or almost anything.
I like to apply a layer of potato chips (salty crisps to you British) on top of peanut butter and jelly before placing the two slices of bread together. Honey Roasted Cashews munched with Cheddar Cheese flavored pretzels is excellent. Then the old banana sandwich with mayonnaise, mustard and regular chips. (KRUNCHY! and tasty.) I had a girlfriend who used to love to mix creamed corn with her mashed potatoes before eating them.
Now, lately, I have heard of beer milkshakes being served somewhere. (Give me a BREAK!) They sound positively disgusting.
Well, I imagined. Then I puked. Thanks.
That would be zucchini and eggplant, right?
Or are you referring to Cinderella’s evil stepsisters?
my personal theory? The same one that explains chocolate covered ants, raw oysters, that Japenese fish dish that kills the eater if it’s not prepared correctly, pigs feet, haggis, menudo, lutefish, British food in general, and any other wierd food I missed:
“I dare you to eat that.”
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
Re: Lutefisk
Veb is entirely correct. It is NOT food. It’s befouled, lumpy, wallpaper paste.
A long time ago, my little cousin smelled it cooking (congealing?) at my grandmother’s house, and he started to cry.
I didn’t really want to bring this up…
But if you want a truly disgusting, nauseating and foul smelling snack look no further than the Balut.
World Class Nasty.
Balut. A fish, right?
I’ve had eel, something I wasn’t very fond of, especially after watching fishermen catch those slimy things in eel traps or nets.
Now, I’ve heard of Norwegians plucking out the eyes of fish and eating them like candy, which is probably another reason they’re considered a bit strange.
My grandfather used to swear that kerosene and goose grease smeared on bread and eaten cured colds. Another variation was to put a great mucking slab of raw onion on it first. Then again, the old fart also swore that goose grease mixed in a shot of whiskey was good for a cold also. I figure he probably was more into the whiskey than the grease.
Now, the British version of a ‘pudding’ is interesting because it has absolutely no resemblance to an American pudding. Theirs is like a soft pasty – not necessarily sweet – or cake while the American version is the thick, flavored, sweet paste.
Years ago I was in the Syrian Desert taking a short trip with some Iraqis and camels – before they started being unpleasant to everyone. I ate goat meat cooked over a dried camel dung fire, served up with rice and spices in a big universal bowl. Not big on hygiene, these desert folks. The flavor was, how to say it without getting the moderator pissed at me – unique. When you cook on a fire, no matter what you cook in, smoke flavors the food. Camel dung smoke, while mild, is not anything like Hickory. Goat meat is not exactly my favorite meat either, in fact, I place it way down on the list. Prepared that way, it gets remarkable. Then everyone digs into the common bowl with their fingers – not particularly washed – and eats. (When I got back to the States, the first thing I did was get the biggest, greasiest, most packed hamburger and French fries that I could find.)
Now, the British and the Americans are big on Beef Kidneys. (Though, I think the Brits eat almost any animal kidney they can find.) I hate, loath, detest and find utterly disgusting, the Kidney. I have a BIG PROBLEM with eating anything that urine ran through. When I did try it, I disliked the taste.
Now, here, in the States, in many grocery stores, we sell grape leafs packed in brine. From what I’ve been told, they are used in Grecian cooking.
I just happened to think of something, a food that is real common among U.S. kids, though I’m not sure if it is popular anywhere else.
POP TARTS. You know, those cardboard pastries with that micrometer thin film of jelly or jam sprayed between them and the cement-like strips of what they consider frosting applied to the tops? (Why don’t they melt in the toaster? I hated them when they first came out. I hated them when they stayed. I hate the new and improved version of them and figure that anyone who allows his or her children to eat those slabs of processed cement with the vitamin content of a brick should be brought up on abuse charges.
PLEEEZE assure me that other countries have had the good sense and intelligence NOT to import them.
Sentinel, you’re right, Porky Scratchings are fried pork rinds, but the ones we got in England weren’t light and fluffy and they had some very tough bits to them, not like the ones I’ve seen back in the States.