# Food you bought for novelty... and liked. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354 "2014-10-24T14:30:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/41 "2014-10-26T01:20:32Z")
Once they had a sale on [Bandi’s Buratino](http://postimg.org/gallery/1zaya8cuc/), a soda made of water from Borehole #39209 in Lithuania, so I picked up a bottle. It’s pretty good, but nothing like the stuff that came from Borehole #27553 back in '03. > [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I tried some dried cranberries I saw at Big Lots. They were OK, but nothing spectacular. Then I tried the dried cherries- WOW! Now I buy as many bags as I can whenever I can. Big Lots near me haven’t had them for quite a while, but Aldi does. Big Lots has had dried cherries? How much did you pay for them? I hate dried cranberries, because they always are covered in sugar, which is all you can taste. Dried cherries, on the other hand, as you say, are indeed amazing. They’re just really expensive. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/42 "2014-10-26T01:43:05Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Once they had a sale on [Bandi’s Buratino](http://postimg.org/gallery/1zaya8cuc/), a soda made of water from Borehole #39209 in Lithuania, so I picked up a bottle. > > It’s pretty good, but nothing like the stuff that came from Borehole #27553 back in '03. Is there a context to that? ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/43 "2014-10-26T02:29:46Z")
The last time I got the dried cherries at Big Lots, they were $3 for a five ounce bag. Aldi’s are $2.49 a bag. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/44 "2014-10-26T03:15:05Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > [Chicken in a Biskit](http://www.junkfoodguy.com/2011/08/11/classic-thursdays-chicken-in-a-biscuit-baked-snack-crackers-jury-duty-movies/) > > Meat-flavoed crackers! Who can resist?!? They don’t exactly taste like chicken, but man are they yummy! We loved those things in high school, which is the last time I had them. We used to keep a couple boxes stashed in the library study room, under a removable shelf at the bottom of a bookcase in the room. Ah, good times. I didn’t even realize they still sold them. I’m gonna have to try them again for nostalgia’s sake. I just seem to remember them tasting like crackers dusted with chicken bouillon cubes. Salt, MSG, chicken flavor. What’s not to like? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/45 "2014-10-26T03:57:34Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > The other is Cynar, the Italian Liqueur with a big artichoke on the label. Horrible, right? Turns out that it’s awesome! Neat, on the rocks, or in any number of cocktails that could use a rich, herbal bitter note with just enough sweetness to not be one-dimensional. De gustibus non disputandum est. I found Cynar to be godawful- bitter, with a rotten vegetable background flavor. Anyway, the foods I tried for novelty’s sake were some canned octopus and things like that. Not bad at all- kind of like sardines with a different texture. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/46 "2014-10-26T04:37:08Z")
Can of herring in mustard cream sauce, occasionally found in Aldi’s. Just excellent and delicious on rye bread. Also smoked mackerel fillets in a little sardine-size can found at Dollar Tree, like sardines. Only in better looking fillet form. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/47 "2014-10-26T04:44:09Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Can of herring in mustard cream sauce, occasionally found in Aldi’s. Just excellent and delicious on rye bread. Damn those are delicious, my mom introduced me to them. Try the herring in wine cream sauce it is the best one, even my kid ate a whole can. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/48 "2014-10-26T14:30:11Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Which is sort of like hating the little cubes of white bread you dip in different fondues. The difference is that the cubes of white bread have texture, bite, “chew”…call it what you will. Tofu is just…there. Jello has more texture. It’s not quite slimy, it’s not quite pudding-like, not quite snot-like, and the firm stuff is vaguely like congealed fat (in a bad way)… There’s nothing particularly offensive about tofu’s taste…it has no real flavor. It’s the non-texture is repugnant. Eating anything with sauce and tofu is like having little semi-congealed lumps of snot mixed into the sauce. When I was a kid, my grandpa used to take an onion, dice it roughly, fry it up in some butter and dump a can of “Conner’s Kippered Herring” in. He served it over a bagel. I never tried it as a little kid, but about 10, 15 years ago, I gave it a shot when I saw them on sale at a grocery store and I’m hooked. Salty, buttery, fishy, sweet (from the lightly carmelized onions)…mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/49 "2014-10-26T16:24:34Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Can of herring in mustard cream sauce, occasionally found in Aldi’s. I found some herring in Dijon mustard sauce once, but I haven’t been able to find it again. I think it was in the British food section of the market. IIRC they have the same brand, but no Dijon; and they cost like $5 a tin so I don’t buy them. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/50 "2014-10-26T16:45:56Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > 😕 > > 😕😕😕 Tofu doesn’t HAVE any smell. Or taste. What have YOU been eating that you think is tofu and it ‘stinks’??? I’m genuinely curious. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that when I was in college, you could always tell when it was veggie night at the cafeteria because you could smell the burned-rubber odor of baked tofu way at the end of the line. I actually bought a container of the stuff once to try it in an omelette. I never knew you could ruin perfectly good eggs, but that did it. Tofu may not have a particularly offensive odor in its raw state, but cooking it seems to release something, at least in my experience. My last girlfriend and I always went to a Chinese restaurant on Valentine’s Day. She would invariably order chunks of tofu floating in red pepper oil and braised frog’s legs. Believe it or not, I found the latter to be the less objectionable. Frog’s legs don’t really taste like chicken; they’re more of a cross between fish and chicken. Not great, IMHO, but not bad at all. Escargot baked in garlic butter, on the other hand, are exquisite! :o ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/51 "2014-10-26T16:57:32Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Did the vendor say, 'I’ll sell ‘em for less, but I’d be cutting me own throat!’? Don’t tell me you’ve bought burgers from that guy too?!? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/52 "2014-10-26T16:58:27Z")
They’re not bad. Just don’t try to find out what’s in them. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/53 "2014-10-26T23:12:45Z")
Not food, but I once ordered a bottle of wine from the Bekaa (sp?) Valley of Lebanon strictly for the novelty of drinking wine from what was a prominent war zone, oft-mentioned on the evening news and in the newspapers, when I was a kid in the '80s. It was good. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/54 "2014-10-27T01:36:56Z")
Hm. Retsina. I was at a Greek restaurant and they had retsina by the glass. The whole table of us [about 7 people] bought a glass and passed it around so we could all have a taste. I ended up finishing the glass. Who knew pine tar enhanced wine could be good. [As I grew up drinking lapsang tea, the tar flavor was something I was accustomed to.] Same thing happened with a small bottle of imported German water, Gerolsteiner. The summer house had a high sulphur content water table, so that slight hint of sulphur in my water is sort of a warm comfy remembrance of summers past. Musk candy, Vegemite, bunches of random stuff I have no idea what actually are from the chinese grocery store … I bought musk candy because it sounded interesting and liked it. Vegemite I was given when very young and always liked it. And mrAru will hit the candy aisle at the Chinese grocery and buy whatever looks interesting. Some is a success, some is just plain weird. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/55 "2014-10-27T03:26:42Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Is there a context to that? Only for connoisseurs of borehole water. ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/56 "2014-10-27T14:31:20Z")
My husband asked me to pick up beer a couple months ago while I was at the LCBO and I went crazy wandering in the aisles of amusingly named beers. Several were yeah never again choices but the Game of Thrones Ale and Banana Bread beer both had us searching out all available stock at all stores we’ve visited since. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/57 "2014-10-27T15:00:57Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I was at a Greek restaurant and they had retsina by the glass. The whole table of us [about 7 people] bought a glass and passed it around so we could all have a taste. I ended up finishing the glass. Who knew pine tar enhanced wine could be good. My landlord in Canada is Greek by birth. This summer, he gave me a bottle of home-distilled uozo that his family brought over with them when they came to visit. It’s just grappa (which normally tastes like diesel fuel) infused with anise, but WOW! it does go down well, and it leaves a very pleasant afterglow! :o ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/58 "2014-10-27T19:47:47Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > The first time I bought TrueLemon I bought it as a joke, since individual packets of lemon flavoring seemed like an insanely niche product. Turns out I really like the stuff, since a little pinch in a water bottle adds a nice hint of flavor and it has some uses cooking. They also make orange, lime and grapefruit. I see by their [web page](https://www.truelemonstore.com/default.asp) they have other products. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354/59 "2014-10-27T19:58:22Z")
> [@Moonlitherial](#): > > and Banana Bread beer. My local grocer started carring this. It is quite delicious. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-you-bought-for-novelty-and-liked/702354.md?page=2)