Is this a mythical food, or do some folks really eat pig intestines? I’m a resident of The South[sup]TM[/sup], and I’ve yet to meet anybody who’s ever seen them. You won’t find them on the menu at any restaurant that I’m aware of. Everything I’ve read about them would make them seem to be just about the nastiest thing you could put in your mouth. Have you ever seen them? Would you try them? Or has the generation of people who used to eat them disappeared? I’m curious to know, and this must be the right place to ask. I can’t even close by saying “yum” in sarcastic fashion, because, well, they’re pig intestines!
When I worked at Wal-Mart ('99 to '01), I was a cashier and rung them up occasionally. They were sold in buckets like you see five gallon sherbert sold in.
Also, I used to be in an online relationship with a Filipina (as in, from Manila) and one of her favorite foods was isaw, which are chicken intestines. According to her, they’re so popular over there that they’re sold out of vending carts like hot dogs are in NYC.
People realy eat them. I don’t know where in Florida you are, but here in GA you can find soul food resteraunts that will serve them.
I’ve eaten cornbread with chitlins. They weren’t very good – kinda tough and stringy – but hardly Fear Factor horrible or anything. I don’t like 'em and wouldn’t seek 'em out, but they aren’t horrible.
Then again, I’ve eaten a lot of stuff most people wouldn’t: whale, pony, octopus, squid, alligator, ants, snails … and so on. Mind you, with the exception of the ants, which had gotten into some maple syrup I put on some pancakes which I hurriedly gobbled down because I was running late for an appearance in a play … all the stuff I’ve eaten was cooked.
I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not sure I’m gustatorily normal enough to answer your question.
There’s no gagging smilie?!? :yukyukyuk:
**Evil Captor, ** you may have had Cracklin Cornbread. I once confused the two and my mother explained the difference telling me she doubted I had ever eaten a chitterling. Cracklins are fried pork skin, not intestine, and are apparently used in cornbread. I think I ate it in a restaurant once. Kind of messed up good cornbread but was probably better than the other.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_28208,00.html
My sister went to a craft show in a town once where they (chitterlings) were being cooked and had to leave because the “whole town smelled bad”…well, yummy yum…now why would you eat that?
They are eaten in Italy as well. I remember the mom of a friend of mien telling me how she uses to cook the intestines with some potatoes so that they can absorb all the, um, remaining aroma. The potatoes are then thrown away and you can go on eat your yummy intestine delicacy… Oh no, I can’t go on - Pukes
Could be. The cornbread was called cracklin’ cornbread but was described to me as having chitterlins in it. I guess I’ll have to seek 'em out. I mean, I like chicken livers just fine – though gizzards aren’t to my taste.
My father has them every Thanksgiving. We cook them on the gas grill to keep the odors out of the house and that day, every squirrel stays far away.
The smell is best described as fecal death. A smell so bad it will wake you from a sound sleep. I don’t know how anyone can lean over a plate of them, smell them and then eat them. 
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- Around where I live, chitterlings are a “black” food, essentially, and they are known for smelling bad while cooking. The store I work at sells them frozen, big five-gallon buckets, as well as smaller packages of a couple pounds–and people do buy the stuff. I don’t know any Klan members, and yet I can’t recall any white person I know saying they’d ever tried them.
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- Around where I live, chitterlings are a “black” food, essentially, and they are known for smelling bad while cooking. The store I work at sells them frozen, big five-gallon buckets, as well as smaller packages of a couple pounds–and people do buy the stuff. I don’t know any Klan members, and yet I can’t recall any white person I know saying they’d ever tried them.
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When I was stationed in Anchorage, I spent a lot of time in a soul food restaurant right outside the gate. I loved that place, but one day a smell worse than sewer gas permeated the dining area. I very politely mentioned to the owner that he had a problem and he, and the rest of the restaurant, proceeded to laugh at me.
“You wait,” he told me, “in about fifteen minutes they’ll be coming from all around to see when the chitlins are ready.”
And he was right. People started sending their kids up the block to get the ETA for the chitlins. I couldn’t believe it. It was darn near a festival when Roscoe made chitlins.
It’s a testament to how much I liked those folks that I stuck around with that smell.
Ain’t that the truth!!!
My grandparents were very poor. With 15 kids. “Make your own soap” poor. Grandaddy loved chitlins and although she loved him enough to spend half her life pregnant, Grammy would not cook them for him. He was sent outside with the cast iron soap pot and had to cook them over a wood fire behind the outhouse. And then he’d sit there and try to convince all us grankids that they were manna from heaven. Dear god, the smell. How anything can smell sharp and oily and rotten all at the same time is beyond me.
Yup. They do have a rather strong taste, so I can’t say they’re for everybody. But if you get the opportunity, give them a try. It could be a “Green Eggs and Ham” moment.
Interesting stories, if repulsive! I don’t guess we’ll see Emeril whipping up a batch of them on TV anytime soon… the smell would clear the studio! Bam!
I’ve had them. Well, not exactly chitterlings but something my grandmother called ‘hog maws’. I have no clue if that’s how they’re spelled but that’s how it sounded when she said it. She used to make them every New Year’s Eve. JChrist, they made her house smell like shit. I didn’t even try them until I was eighteen. Sweet merciful heaven, they were so good! I damn near kicked myself for not trying them sooner.
I have no clue what the difference between ‘hog maws’ and chitterlings are. I haven’t had them in years, either. From what I gather, they were a bitch to clean and Granny just doesn’t want to be bothered with them anymore. Sadly, I’ll never cook them and wouldn’t even begin to know where to get them.
My BF has eaten tripe, which is the stomach lining or intestinal lining of some creature or other. He likes it.
But then, he’s weird. 
I grew up in rural Louisiana, I got my first job as a supermarket bagger and “take to the car person” when I was 15. The first week there, the store put buckets of chitlins on sale for 10 cents for a five gallon bucket. I thought that I was going to die. Black women bought 5 or 10 or them at a time. A few white women did as well. I suppose they were eating them a lot.
I went to France a month ago and they had them on the menu in a few places but I didn’t order them.
They’re eaten in Argentina too. My Mom was born there, and got a hankerin’ for some several years ago.
They were having some sort of big family party, and Dad was barbecueing. Mom must have found these things at a Mexican food market. She braided them, and I guess there’s some sort of trick to keeping the snoodge in the intestines. (They were small intestines, not large, so the snoodge wasn’t as gross as all that, but still!) She cooked them on the grill - Dad wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.
I did try one. Tasted a little like liver, only nastier. The Argentine relative liked them, but I haven’t seen Mom making them again. I guess she didn’t like them as much as she thought she had.
They have a chitlin’ festival in Sally, SC
http://www.chitlinstrut.com/2004ChitlinWebHome.htm
Yes, I have been there, but I didn’t eat the chitlins