# Foods that make you think twice when you think/learn about what they are/how they're made... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 16, 2018, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645 "2018-11-16T21:16:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/81 "2018-12-15T22:34:46Z")
I’m surprised no one’s brought up wine and beer. Take crushed grapes or parts of plants you would never eat otherwise, mash it up and let it ferment to just before complete spoilage. Drain off the solids left behind and drink the liquid. Yum! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/82 "2018-12-18T19:22:00Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > I’m surprised no one’s brought up wine and beer. Take crushed grapes or parts of plants you would never eat otherwise, mash it up and let it ferment to just before complete spoilage. Drain off the solids left behind and drink the liquid. Yum! Just FYI, beer isn’t made from “parts of plants you would never eat otherwise”, and neither is wine. Wine’s made from fruit, typically grapes that are crushed, fermented, and often aged. Beer is made from grain- barley, and sometimes a proportion of other grains, typically wheat, rice and corn that’s mashed to allow the enzymes in the grain to break down the starch into sugar, and then that resulting sugary mixture is fermented. The only alcoholic beverage that I can think of that is/was clearly derived from a waste product is rum, in that originally molasses was a waste product of sugar refining without many alternative uses except being fermented and distilled into rum. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/83 "2018-12-18T19:58:25Z")
When you ferment something, the other byproduct of yeast is carbon dioxide. In modern production, it is used to provide a protective layer so that the product normally doesn’t even approach spoiling as it is not in regular contact with oxygen. And in most cases (e.g. not lambic) you don’t “let” it ferment but control that carefully. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/84 "2018-12-18T20:45:58Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > t. > > I forget which comedian said this, but it goes: “Two breasts, two wings, two thighs, two drumsticks…what’s left is the McNugget!”. I used to repeat that and it put my ex off McNuggets permanently. But of course, that’s not true. All of a chicken is deboned and turned into nuggets. The breast, legs, thighs, etc,- except the wings. ---
**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:** [December 18, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/85 "2018-12-18T22:22:03Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The only alcoholic beverage that I can think of that is/was clearly derived from a waste product is rum, in that originally molasses was a waste product of sugar refining without many alternative uses except being fermented and distilled into rum. Grappa? :dubious: Made from must, the waste from making wine. Tastes like diesel fuel, yeccch! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/86 "2018-12-18T22:34:36Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Grappa? :dubious: Made from must, the waste from making wine. Tastes like diesel fuel, yeccch! :mad: I’d forgotten about grappa(and marc, the French equivalent). I’d say it tastes more like kerosene with a grape tinge. But yeah, godawful stuff. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/87 "2018-12-18T22:38:19Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That is possibly the most pedantic distinction that I’ve ever seen here: “Well, technically, since the subanstance consumed by the insect and spit back out again comes from an organ in the throat and not from the stomach several millimeters away, you shouldn’t use the humorously colloquial term ‘barf’.” Gotta say, I expected the nitpick to be that bees don’t belong to the order Hemiptera. That reminds me of an old “Dirty Jobs” episode where Mike Rowe is harvesting geoducks (giant clams; it’s pronounced “gooey-duck” but they are neither ducks nor gooey) and one of them creates a fountain out of one end. He asks a scientist, “Did this thing just pee on me?” and the scientist replies, “No, it’s excreting secretional water from its gonad.” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/88 "2018-12-18T22:44:28Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I was told my Hungarian grandfather would saute chicken heads, crack the skulls open, and suck the brains out. Yeccch! Ever seen the Oscar-winning Danish movie “Babette’s Feast”? (Wonderful film.) It’s about some peasants in a desolate Danish village, set in the late 1800s, and two sisters with interesting (in a good way) pasts who take in a French refugee who “knows how to cook.” She wins a lottery and prepares a feast for the sisters and their friends, including a high-class gentleman known as “The General.” Turns out that “The General” is the only person who knows how to eat many of the things Babette prepares, including a dish called “Cailles en Sarcophage”, which was quail in pastry, with the head placed appropriately. You guessed it - “The General” bites the head open and eats its brain. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/89 "2018-12-18T22:47:30Z")
> [@TRC4941](#): > > Mine is simply The Egg > > I love them fried and scrambled. But sometimes when I think of what they really are…UGH What do you mean? They really are … eggs. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/90 "2018-12-18T22:51:39Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > I’ve read that milk was stored in calf’s stomach, like a canteen, and would start to curdle. And then our ancestors found out that the resulting product tasted good, and also enabled preservation of excess milk. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/91 "2018-12-18T22:58:03Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > I’m bothered more when I bite into a vein in a whole chicken piece than I do eating a McNugget. > > I forget which comedian said this, but it goes: “Two breasts, two wings, two thighs, two drumsticks…what’s left is the McNugget!”. I used to repeat that and it put my ex off McNuggets permanently. > > BTW, smoked turkey butts are great! Chicken butts, not so much. Ever since I took human anatomy, which in my case was textbook-only, I cannot eat chicken breasts or tenders without being reminded, in my mind, that the large part of the breast is the pectoralis major muscle, and the small inside portion, aka the “tender”, is the pectoralis minor. Poultry thighs have that lump of fat halfway down. So do human thighs, and so, for that matter, do hams or a baron of beef, which is a cow femur with all the meat on it. I worked many a buffet in college where a baron was at the end of the table, with a chef carving it to order, and halfway down, he would always remove a fist-sized chunk of fat. Several years ago, I attended a presentation by the autistic cow expert Temple Grandin. “Pink slime” was a big news story at the time, and in the Q&A, someone asked her about it. She replied that she was all for it, because the process extracts about 15 more pounds of usable (not necessarily edible) products from a cow carcass, and why not use it all if you can? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/92 "2018-12-18T23:01:34Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Yeah, he seems to be much more of a BS artist with an agenda to push, not an unbiased scientific writer. He even admits as much in an interview. Have you read his latest book? One wonders whatever possessed some people to eat hallucinogenic plants and mushrooms; not mentioned in the book is a certain Siberian plant that doesn’t have any psychogenic effect in people, but a renal metabolite does. Think about THAT for a few minutes. :eek: [https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545174066&sr=8-1&keywords=michael+pollan](https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545174066&sr=8-1&keywords=michael+pollan) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/93 "2018-12-18T23:05:40Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > BTW, smoked turkey butts are great! Chicken butts, not so much. I’ve tried them. They’re mostly fat with almost no true meat on them. A while back, “All Things Considered” did a piece about a Pacific island where they’re considered a delicacy, and someone looked into banning, or at least reducing, their importation because of obesity issues among the residents. Has anyone ever bought a stewing hen and made stock or soup from it? I see them at my local ethnic markets; they’re scrawny things that I’m guessing are quite likely too tough to eat, but I’ve heard they’re very flavorful. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/94 "2018-12-18T23:48:20Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Grappa? :dubious: Made from must, the waste from making wine. Tastes like diesel fuel, yeccch! :mad: “Craft” grappa seemed to be almost a thing for awhile, but I haven’t heard lately. It wasn’t terrible, not like the bottle a relative made and we kept around for years. > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’ve tried them. They’re mostly fat with almost no true meat on them. A while back, “All Things Considered” did a piece about a Pacific island where they’re considered a delicacy, and someone looked into banning, or at least reducing, their importation because of obesity issues among the residents. Primarily Samoa. Not so much as a delicacy I think as it’s a cheap but unhealthy source of protein. They also got the sides of mutton/lamb imported from New Zealand. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/95 "2018-12-19T18:42:08Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Here I am! > > I came in to say foie gras. So good, it’s evil. Or, so inhumanely produced, it’s evil. Texturally speaking, it’s like a meat pillow, meat butter, silken, delicious…so also, very evil. > > So, after much careful thought and research, I’m going with sweetbreads. Yechh. I had sweetbreads once. It’s not so much what they are or how they are made, but the food itself which was disgusting. It was like little bittly lumps of brain in a bed of slime. > [@RobDog](#): > > …But for no logical reason, I don’t think I could bring myself to eat brains. Nope. No Sir. > > Anyone who has, what’s it like? I had venison brains once, years before I knew about mad cow disease. As best as I can remember, the consistency was similar to fois gras, but the flavor is very mild, barely meaty, more a very mild nutty flavor. Given the ratio of grossness to pleasure derived, I don’t plan to eat it again. But if I were hungry enough I would. My cat loves brains, and back when she was younger and routinely killed things, we’d often find a snake or a bird or a bunny just missing the head. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645/96 "2018-12-19T19:59:50Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yechh. I had sweetbreads once. It’s not so much what they are or how they are made, but the food itself which was disgusting. It was like little bittly lumps of brain in a bed of slime. I’ve only had them fried I think, and they were delicious. > [@](#): > > I had venison brains once, years before I knew about mad cow disease. As best as I can remember, the consistency was similar to fois gras, but the flavor is very mild, barely meaty, more a very mild nutty flavor. There is no evidence that chronic wasting disease spreads to humans, though I personally would not eat brains for that reason, and very wary of the meat. Squirrel brains are eaten in the Kentucky area, and as I understand it while some people in that area got a prion disease, it cannot be definitively linked to brain consumption. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foods-that-make-you-think-twice-when-you-think-learn-about-what-they-are-how-theyre-made/824645.md?page=4)