Foods that fall out of favor

[Lucky_13]

My mom occasionally makes oxtail soup with vegetables and rice. It’s pretty good.

The food I haven’t seen in a while, and don’t care to look for, is pickled pigs’ feet. They must have been a popular food at some point. Wasn’t there a song called “Give Me a Bottle of Beer and a Pig’s Foot?” Maybe I’m getting the name wrong, I’m not sure.

[stpauler]

What about horse? I remember watching an episode of “All in the Family” where Gloria brought home steaks and served them to Archie only to find out later that it was horse meat. Can one even buy that in the US anymore? (Here’s an article, in French, about stopping the sales of horse meat, at least in Illinois)

[SailedTheOceanBlue]

@sciurophobic

Green goddess dressing. I hadn’t seen it for years until I finally found a bottle of it recently.

There’s an superb recipe for it in The New Basics Cookbook although the use it as a dip and it’s chunkier. I’d post it but I’m sure it violates copyright and there’s a ton of recipes online.

MamaZappa You can still find that beef, both in the package and jarred. The packaged stuff is less salty than the jarred.

[Spoke]

Goose. Does anyone in the US eat goose these days?

Also bear meat. Frontiersmen scarfed that stuff down. I guess that didn’t so much go out of fashion as become scarce.

And of more recent vintage, does anyone under 40 eat deviled ham? Or make cracklin’ cornbread?

And I suppose that at one time, people must have actually eaten fruitcake.

Congealed “salads” used to be all the rage. Never see them any more.

Sorghum syrup is vanishing from the American consciousness, but used to be a breakfast staple.

[devilsknew]

The Mutton Button

@Charles Perry

Mutton aside, Owensboro doesn’t seem exotic. It’s an old, leafy city, fairly large for this part of the country (population 55,000), in the rolling country of the Ohio Valley. But if you take the Parrish Avenue exit from US 60 (Wendell Ford Expressway) on the west side of town and head east four blocks, you’ll see the Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn, the biggest mutton dispensary in the country. It moves 10,000 pounds of sheep meat a week.

You can’t miss it. Out front there’s a black iron pot big enough to boil a hippo in, symbolizing Owensboro’s annual World Barbecue Festival, held the second weekend in May. A sign welcomes you to “Owensboro, the World Capital of Barbecue.” The huge parking lot is dominated by another that reads, “If It’s Not Owensboro Barbecue, It’s Not Real Barbecue.”

When Hugh and Catherine Bosley bought the Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn in 1963, it seated 35; now it seats 350 and has 120 employees, and though chicken, beef and pork have been moving up, mutton still accounts for most of its business.

“About half our customers are from Daviess County,” says marketing director Pat Bosley. “But 8% come from out of state. There are pilots who fly in from nearby Air Force bases and have barbecue.” The number of out-of-staters is bound to go up–this seems to be the year the outside world has discovered Owensboro, with sizable mentions in the recent “Celebrating Barbecue” by Dotty Griffith (Simon & Schuster) and “The Barbecue America Cookbook” by Rick Browne and Jack Bettridge (Lyons Press).

To the left of the restaurant’s busy gift shop (barbecue sauces, Moonlite bill caps, country hams) is the entrance to the butchering operation. Bosley shows a cold room where mutton carcasses hang. “I figure I buy 10% of the fat ewes for sale in the country,” he says. "The average lamb might run 70 pounds. I look for a 2-year-old sheep weighing about 150 pounds.

“Mostly they’re from what I call the Midwest–Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas. There are only five major plants in the country that slaughter sheep of any age. Two or three are in Texas. They ship most of their mutton to Mexico.”

Mutton by Mail

The reason for having a butchering operation, complete with a resident USDA inspector, on the restaurant’s premises is that the Moonlite also sells meat wholesale to restaurants, grocery stores, schools and Wal-Marts from Louisville to Paducah. It doesn’t ship raw mutton out of the area, alas.

But it does ship barbecued mutton, cooked for about 12 hours in huge double-deck hickory pits 24 feet long and so deep the cooks have to move the meat around with pitchforks. You can order sliced mutton or chopped mutton, the latter being trimmings, which some people prefer because they include extra-browned bits.

The Owensboro way of serving mutton is on a hamburger bun with barbecue sauce, sliced onions and pickles, accompanied by a thin sauce called “dip”–mostly vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and spices. This is about all that’s left of America’s centuries-old mutton tradition. But sheep meat seems to have struck deep roots in northwestern Kentucky, so Owensboro barbecue should be around a long time.

[wonky]

My heavens, I think that barbecue sounds really good.

[Leiko]

@BaneSidhe

Wine coolers & Zima…just what all of the teenage alkies at my high school and college drank because they couldn’t afford the harder stuff or tolerate it for that matter.

Me, when I was a drinkin’ gal, I went right for Stoli. Yup, yup, yup…and if that wasn’t available, it was Jagermeister. Boy I miss those days sometimes.

There’s still wine coolers about, but now the college kids are more about “bitch beers”- Peels and Mike’s Hard (Insert Beverage Here), the Bacardi and Smirnoff “premium malt beverages,” and the like. Although, at least in the Albertson’s grocery store near my campus, hard cider seems to be making a push for space.

[audiobottle]

Regarding spinal cord and ox-tail, WhyNot was correct about there not being any spinal cord that low. The spinal cord doesn’t extend the full length of the spine, which is why the doctor gives you shots down low so there’s no risk of damaging the cord.
I had no idea that people ate ox-tails, but in Korean food at least, they boil the tail bones to make ox-tail soup. Pretty delicious.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@OtakuLoki

I’ll have to ask my father where he got it the last time he had an urge for it. I know he’s had some recently - I’d suggest trying specialty shops focusing on German foods.

Any German food is definitely in that out-of-favor category. In the 60s it was fairly common to encounter restaurants called Brauhaus this or Rathskeller that, but they’re scarcer than hens’ teeth these days.

My Grampa Doug was German enough to enjoy limburger & onion sammiches on pumpernickel, chased with beer.

[Dung_Beetle]

@jsgoddess

The only thing I’ve ever had that was flavored with rose water was Turkish delight, which sounded so good in the Narnia books but really repulsed me.

Yeah, tell me about it! I was so disappointed.

I found Limburger cheese at my local Publix, no problem. I don’t have any sense of smell, so I can’t tell you if it lived up to the hype. The kids said it was stinky, but they knew it was supposed to be, so what else would you expect them to say? It tasted pretty good on a Triscuit.

[aruvqan]

@Bridget Burke

My neighborhood grocery certainly sells lengua–along with other interesting parts. Cow heads in the butcher section herald the holiday season–time to make tamales!

However, “offal” is supposedly coming back into fashion in English speaking kitchens. From Slate:

?? you skewer the pig tails on a meat fork and give it a spin in the flames of a fire, burns off the bristles handily. I suppose you could use one of those creme brulee mini torches if you want. Her favorite way to do tails was to just keep grilling them over the fire until the skin was crunchy and eat with a little salt and pepper.

Myself? I loves me a ragout of chicken or duck hearts=)

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

@Beware of Doug

Any German food is definitely in that out-of-favor category. In the 60s it was fairly common to encounter restaurants called Brauhaus this or Rathskeller that, but they’re scarcer than hens’ teeth these days.

I think German food has a reputation of being heavy and unhealthy – giant chunks of meat straight out of James Lileks cookbooks, rich creamy sauces, lots and lots of sausages, pickled and vinegary sides and veggies. With so many restaurants offering salads, grilled entrees, and other lighter options, I can see how traditional German food would freak out the South Beach Diet crowd, or anyone watching what they eat.

[aruvqan]

@Mama Zappa

Dried beef. Not jerky - the stuff we had periodically growing up was very thinly sliced, fairly bright red, somewhat moist, VERY salty, and sold in small flat packages - seems like I’d also seen it in jars but Mom got the plastic-wrapped flat package. Mom used to chop it up and heat it up in a can of cream of mushroom soup (condensed, diluted with milk) and serve it ladled over toast. I have not seen the meat in stores since growing up (admittedly, I haven’t looked for it).

Wasn’t until I was grown up that I learned another name for this dish: SOS (S— on a Shingle). Mom, obviously, never called it that (nor did Dad, who’d likely eaten a fair bit of it in the Merchant Marines).

I actually rather liked it - somehow the curl-your-intestines salt level overwhelmed the rotting-vegetation taste of the fungus in the soup. I’m not sure you could persuade me to eat it these days though.

All real shit on a shingle is - a basic white sauce that you have put thoroughly rinsed and patted dry ‘chipped beef’. If you dont wash the gut wrenching salt off of, it is rather good. Avoid the cream of death soup also.

this is a pretty simple and basic recipe. Substitute fried crumbled breakfast sausage if you want a decent biscuits and gravy =)

[beowulff]

@Dung Beetle

I don’t have any sense of smell

Explaining the user name…

[Beware_of_Doug]

@Big Bad Voodoo Lou

I think German food has a reputation of being heavy and unhealthy – giant chunks of meat straight out of James Lileks cookbooks, rich creamy sauces, lots and lots of sausages, pickled and vinegary sides and veggies. With so many restaurants offering salads, grilled entrees, and other lighter options, I can see how traditional German food would freak out the South Beach Diet crowd, or anyone watching what they eat.

Well, natürlich…What I don’t get is that we’re still, lots of us, a heavy eating nation, and yet we still don’t want any part of a nice knackwurst and kraut. Not even now and then - it’s off the culinary radar for everybody. And we can’t really blame WW2, either.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@JXJohns

Central Iowa.

JXJ, you’ve probably noticed how difficult it is to get lamb in your area these days (formerly my area, too, and I’m back now and then). It used to be easier to get loin chops, or a leg around holiday times. I think it’s due to the brand name pork and beef crowding it out.

[Kalhoun]

@Shagnasty

Mutton - lamb is easy to find but I dare anyone to find it in the U.S. It must exist somewhere but I have never seen it. They still eat it in Europe however.

My mom used to make it quite often. There is a recipe at my dad’s for lamb shanks and it is the best freekin’ thing evah. If I ever remember to grab it I’ll post it here. It’s to die for.

[Kalhoun]

@MarcusF

As others have noted, mutton is now becoming available in the UK again, but it isn’t cheap! Like for like it may be a bit cheaper than lamb but it is very much a speciality product, normally organic and often from rare breeds, and it is way more expensive than lamb from the supermarket.

The biggest group to fall out of popular favour I can think of is offal in general. As a child I eat liver, kidneys, and heart but we never gave them to our kids and they look at you as if you were mad if you suggest anything like them.

All this lamb talk is killing me! We had lamb easily four times a year when I was growing up. Usually a leg o’ lamb. I had no idea there was some difficulty getting it. I’ll have to talk to my butcher shop guy.

[Kalhoun]

@Mama Zappa

Dried beef. Not jerky - the stuff we had periodically growing up was very thinly sliced, fairly bright red, somewhat moist, VERY salty, and sold in small flat packages - seems like I’d also seen it in jars but Mom got the plastic-wrapped flat package. Mom used to chop it up and heat it up in a can of cream of mushroom soup (condensed, diluted with milk) and serve it ladled over toast. I have not seen the meat in stores since growing up (admittedly, I haven’t looked for it).

Wasn’t until I was grown up that I learned another name for this dish: SOS (S— on a Shingle). Mom, obviously, never called it that (nor did Dad, who’d likely eaten a fair bit of it in the Merchant Marines).

I actually rather liked it - somehow the curl-your-intestines salt level overwhelmed the rotting-vegetation taste of the fungus in the soup. I’m not sure you could persuade me to eat it these days though.

We ate that during the lean days and I positively despised it. My husband actually asks for it but I can’t make it without gagging.

[wonky]

@Kalhoun

All this lamb talk is killing me! We had lamb easily four times a year when I was growing up. Usually a leg o’ lamb. I had no idea there was some difficulty getting it. I’ll have to talk to my butcher shop guy.

You can find lamb. You can’t find (much) mutton.