This.
This username/ post combo gives me pause.
I’ve put pesto on baked potatoes. People look at the bright green potato flesh a little sideways.
Pretty much the only thing that comes to mind is bitter melon. I’ve loved it since I was a little girl. Maybe my ability to eat pacific mackerel and sardines.
I’m adventurous in terms of the type of cuisine but I don’t eat any organ meats or “exotic meat” and I think I’m fairly conservative/comparatively limited where sushi is concerned. As in, I’m beyond California rolls but not quite up to uni-so in that grey zone of being okay with salmon/tuna/yellowtail/scallop but ick on mackerel/uni/horse. Actually, I’m kind of at the point where I only really want to eat fish and vegetables so while I may be all over trying various exotic cuisines, I don’t taste the craziest thing on the menu, nor will I make it at home.
I’ll snarf down jalapeno peppers and smile, while other folks look at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
For some reason, people tend to get grossed out when I have meat meals for breakfast. I’ve never seen the point in “dinner foods” or “breakfast foods”- if you like it at eight in the morning, why should you dislike it at eight at night? But when I say something like, “I just had chicken soup for breakfast, so I’ll have to decline the cream cheese bagel”, they think I’m crazy. “Ew, you had chicken soup for breakfast?”
People are weird.
Jesus, I’ll try anything once, but reading from the varied responses, I don’t think my list is all that daring.
The usual contenders of course: foie gras, oysters, rabbit kidneys, raw fishes/seafood, sweetbreads, even broccoli…
My recent “try something new” was pickled deer heart. It was actually very good, and tasted a lot like roast beef.
My fave snack o’ the moment: I take a nice cracker (water crackers, multigrain, spiced melba toasts), place a slice of gruyere cheese onto it, put a smoked oyster on top of that, and finish it with a dollop of dijon mustard. It’s really freaking good.
I have to comment that your haggis routine is really fucking funny. I need to go to bed!
Hell, half the things in this thread seem absolutely delicious, especially the strawberry ice cream with balsamic (there’s even a neighborhood ice cream shop that sells this exact flavor).
My contribution: pig’s ears. It’s not a go-to meal or anything; they’re way too much work and rather flavorless for what you get out of them. Though I’ve never tried, I’d be very willing to eat some chicken gizzards.
This morning at the auto shop I watched an episode of “Modern Marvels” that ranged from “Bologna is curdled meat paste?” to “Head cheese? Grandma started that recipe with the head of one pig,” to “Salami is the product of both a bacterial culture mixed into it and a penicillin culture on its wrapping? Still tastes good,” and finally how you make pastrami. There is nothing better than pastrami and the recipe wasn’t close to disgusting.
OTOH, after discussing Grandma’s head cheese they segued into Usinger’s braunschweiger, which I consider a food group. It’s made of liver. Didn’t need to watch how it’s made to know it’s disgusting.
Pickle Brine, straight from the jar. I wait until all the pickles are gone in case no one wants my yucky lips touching the jar.
Today, I did drink straight from the viniagrette dressing bottle though. And there’s still some left. Guess it’s mine now.
Head cheese was better than I thought it would be, and as for braunschweiger, which is pretty common in this Germanic area of greater Cincinnati, I have to say that I can find no fault in spreadable meat.
Oh that reminds me I haven’t had it in awhile but used to love Peanut Butter frito chips and sweet pickle sandwiches.
Pickled eggs are good. People freaked at work when I put a jar of them in our break room.
And yet your user name. :dubious:
Watching some stupid show recently I saw foie gras geese waddling about a French farmyard with the narrator claiming that the geese must waddle about for their health and that, technically, force-feeding them until their livers grew fat was very much like their natural binging before migrating. Said migration having only usually resulting in their deaths.
I live in an area infested with their Canada cousins. All year round. Sure, up until a few years ago we’d look above of a November eve and our hearts would gladden at the sight of those endangered creatures. No more. If those stupid fucking geese weren’t salmonella factories on the hoof I’d introduce one to my oven via the silence of a modern air rifle.
Dates. Steamed date cake.
Brussels sprouts, hot or cold.
Sauerkraut.
Hummus.
I’ve thought the same thing about French haute cuisine - that it is an elaborate, centuries-long practical joke.
Dates!
Sprouts! Tonight with French dressing!
Kraut! Used to think it was supposed to be heated fresh out of the can. Then went to a girlfriend’s NYE party and it had been drained of its effluvia and cooked with smoked pigs’ feet. In retrospect I shoulda proposed on the spot.
Hummus! Took a couple years but I finally admitted to my wife that I burnt out the old blender pureeing chick peas.
Yeah, I’m fat and I have a tale for every foodstuff.
Nah, I believe Pratchett’s on the money on this one : every country’s cuisine is based on EEEWW stuff, because back in the day the nobles pinched all the pork and beef, leaving the plebs with refuse to eat. You gotta get *real *creative in the kitchen to make sheep guts remotely palatable.
Raw tomatoes
Cottage cheese slathered with black pepper
Parmesan cheese on chili
Potato salad with plenty of paprika
Pepperjack cheese on a ham sandwich