Movie night and you’re out of popcorn salt? Make your own by blending regular table salt! I don’t see any reason you couldn’t also blend in other dry seasonings. Just keep in mind the friction can make the blades surprisingly hot which can be a problem for things like sugar and garlic granules.
Confession: I don’t really care for popcorn. Or movies. Salt’s good, though.
I religiously adhere to the idea that it’s a bad idea to look too closely at what sort of meat is in things like commercial sausages, chili, or anything else like that which is composed largely of finely ground meat.
I started following that idea after a co-worker bought a convenience store preserved sausage of one sort, and told me how delicious they were. I picked one up, looked at the ingredients, and first in line on the ingredient list was “beef lips”.
I figured that I was probably better off not knowing about that sort of thing in foods that I already liked. I also wondered why the manufacturer didn’t just call it “beef” and leave it at that.
Yep, agreed.
I personally have no problem at all with any sort of muscle meat-- be it heart, lips or even tongue. It’s organ meat I draw a sharp line at. I’ve heard one of the ingredients of real Mexican chorizo is ‘lymph nodes’. Ugh, no thanks.
Speaking of Mexican food (not to knock it, in general I love it), years ago one Sunday in my 20s when I was somewhat hungover, a friend asked if I wanted to get lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Detroit’s Southwest side, which has a Mexican population with several more or less authentic Mexican restaurants. I had heard that Menudo was a good hangover cure so I ordered a bowl of it. It came with several large floating rectangular chunks of stomach or intestine, with honeycomb striations on the inside side. The aroma wafting off of it was…not pleasant. I had always thought of myself as an adventurous eater, but I could not bring myself to even taste it. I said to the server, I’ll pay for it, but please take it away and bring me a nice burrito platter.
But I digress…this is ‘Crap foods you love’ not ‘Crap foods you hate’.
I wouldn’t characterize menudo or other organ meat dishes as “crap foods” unless they’re highly processed or otherwise made very unhealthy (deep fried chicken livers might count, for example).
And as an aside, I used to feel the same way you do about organ meats, but gradually I began to try bits and pieces and I found that most of them are rather tasty. Now my favorite ingredients for Vietnamese beef soup (pho) are tendon and tripe.
Yeah, I’ve never been able to do menudo either, despite a couple of Mexican-American friends of mine extolling its virtues and deliciousness.
I figure if I have the chance to sample some home-made menudo made by someone’s abuela, I’ll give that a shot, but I’m not about to order it in some restaurant.
I like the meatballs in pho, and really don’t want to know what they’re made of.
I don’t think of menudo as being a ‘crap food’ in the OP’s sense. I was making a lame jokey reference to menudo being a ‘crap food I hate’ in the sense of the original function of its organ meat. I sincerely apologize to the OP and everyone else in this thread. Nothing to see here, move on… 
Back to the homemade popcorn toppings: I’d always heard that nutritional yeast was good but was skeptical. I finally tried it myself recently and damned if it isn’t excellent. My current popcorn topping go-tos are regular or bacon salt, grated (real) Parmesan, and nutritional yeast.
A friend swears by spirulina sprinkled on popcorn. Maybe I’d like it (I think oatmeal with spirulina, olive oil, and salt is yummy) but I dunno, that sounds really wierd.
There’s nothing super exotic or White-people-scary in Vietnamese meatballs. It’s generally just minced pork mixed with garlic, ginger, green onions, cilantro, mint, fish sauce, and lemongrass. In Vietnam they might mix in some organ meats, but in the US the pork is cheap enough there’s no need to bulk it up with anything else.
Interestingly, menudo tastes only very slightly of the unpleasant aroma that turned you off; it’s relatively bland and takes on the flavor of the broth and seasonings. So if you’re confronted with it again, don’t fear it too much.
And another crap food I love: waffle fries, potato or sweet potato. Salt, seasonings, deep fried, wonderful!
so did ya try it ?
Subway tuna. I don’t often go for chain shop sandwiches, but I have always enjoyed the tuna salad at Subway. It’s very different than the tuna salad I make at home, and it reminds me of my high school cafeteria, but dang if I don’t occasionally crave it on the Italian herb bread with tomatoes, onions and jalapenos.
Probably the best example of this is “Potted Meat Food Product,” in which one of the ingredients is “partially defatted pork fatty tissue.”
I frequently have hash browns for breakfast, consisting of shredded potatoes that have been reconstituted into rectangular patties and then frozen, like these. Oven brown and serve as a standalone, or with a couple of fried eggs. Sop up runny yolk with a forkful of hash brown patty, mmm.
Heat up some 'lil Smokies sausages and Tator Tots in microwave The oil from those greases the bowl for your egg.
Drop in an egg. Microwave some more depending on how well done you like your egg.
Egg with sausage and potatoes in one dish done in about 3 minutes.
It’s been about 40 years, but I used to love Jack in the Box tacos. I haven’t seen a JITB in decades.
And I must have a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme a few times a year.
When my dad and I would go fishing, he’d always pack box of Saltines, a can of Vienna sausages, and a tube of braunschweiger (an inexpensive processed liver spread). So I’ll always have a soft spot for that stuff.
The weird and “poor quality” meat (and meat-like ingredients) don’t bother me in the slightest – all that stuff is meat, IMO; it’s all stuff that our prehistoric ancestors would have relished.
Oh no… just go to a Hispanic market and look at the commercial chorizo brands. It’s a laundry list of different sorts of glands.
Looking at Walmart near me, one brand has “pork salivary glands” as the first ingredient, another has “Pork(salivary glands , lymph nodes, and fat)”, and ISTR that in the past, I’ve seen thymus glands listed on some brands.
I’d honestly rather NOT know- “Pork” would have sufficed, and I’d have been none the wiser. But now that I do know, I tend to buy ground pork and follow this recipe for homemade chorizo (it’s fantastic).
On a whim I got a box of boring old ice cream sandwiches the other day. They’re sublime.
The thymus gland is actually a delicacy that some people eat, with or without relish – sweetbread or sweetbreads.