Last night I thawed and warmed a frozen package of chitlins for dinner. I’d never had them before and was looking forward to a new experience.
I couldn’t eat it; it smelled like vomit. And the texture, oh god, the texture. Like like like, well, I don’t want to say what the texture was like. Like cooked intestines in glue sauce or something.
I can see why it’s a poor folks’ food; no-one with the money to buy anything else would touch them.
Eeeeeyew, ick ick.
Like cooked intestines, you say? How surprising.
I’m not a chitlin fan, but just curious as to what process you were using to cook them.
They certainly are an acquired taste (and smell, and visual). My grandmother fixed them and it took forever - they have to be rinsed and cleaned several times. My father wouldn’t even come in the house when they were being served. “I grew up eating them, but I’ll be damned if I’ll eat them as a grown man.”
They were a pre-prepared “boil-in-bag” kind, Uncle Joe’s or some brand like that. I’m not much of a cook–if you can’t fry it, I don’t make it. 
Could be worse. No cite, but it came up once in another CS thread, that some American subcultures traditionally eat “dirty” chitlins, containing the remains of the pig’s last meal.
Maybe they’re better if you buy them fresh? I doubt it.
I find that hard to believe.
I had chitlins for the first time as part of a mixed grill at Las Vacas Gordas in Miami Beach. Also included in the meal were a black pudding (blood sausage) and a sweetbread (thymus or pancreas). All three were definitely strong, and very different, tastes–and definitely not for everybody.
But I was OK with it.
You know the old joke:
-How do you prepare chitlins?
-Boil the shit out of 'em.
This gave me my laugh for the day. The Dope earned its half-a-cent daily price from me today. Thank you, Mangetout. 
I tried chitlins once, just to say I tried them.
Once. Blecch.
When they were cooking, I couldn’t go near that area, the stench was so bad.
They tasted much like cooked intestines, only worse!
I’ve even been to the Chitlin Strut in Salley, SC - but still have never sampled them.
Chitlins sound bad enough…but frozen chitlins?
This is worse than the time I found that package of squid chunks in the 99 cents store. (No, I did not purchase said chunks. I merely gaped.)
My mom tricked me into tasting them once, by telling me they were noodles. I’ve heard the battered and fried ones are better, but I’m thinking it’s only because you can actually eat the batter.
I’ve had them in Spain, but only as a tapas thingy with a nice sauce. The texture told me what it was, the flavour was fine…again, I think it was the sauce. I wouldn’t cook them, and seeing what boil-in-the-bag can do to perfectly good rice, I’m sure they weren’t improved by that method of preparation.
Well, you can live on it, but it taste like shit.
[/Crocodile Dundee]
The texture brings to mind the possibility that I’ve somehow gotten a mouthful of old GoodYear tires.
No, the boil-in-the-bag anus tastes like shit.
The term for traditional rustic fare isn’t “poor folks” food, it’s “peasant” food, and people with money eat peasant food all the time. It’s all the rage during this “foodie” fad that’s sweeping the nation.