I don’t think I’ve had any of the list! How’d that happen???
I had a bottle of what I THINK was ‘real’ truffle oil, it had bits of what I assume was truffle in it. I don’t know if it was real, or good, but I thought it was real good!
I would starve to death before foie gras, birds nest soup, or shark fin soup ever passed my lips. Starve. They are an abomination, like live monkey brains. :eek:
I’ve had expensive exotic mushrooms of many sorts, some costing over $20 a pound, but other than the relatively reasonable oyster mushroom, none I’d care to search out again.
When Wegmans grocery store opened up here years ago, they offered hard boiled quail eggs on their salad bar alongside the croutons, chickpeas, and bacon bits. But they have long disappeared.
How can you have had all that but never tripe? I’m not a fan, unless it’s grilled so it’s nice and crispy. Otherwise it’s just slimy and flavorless. Crispy and flavorless is much better than slimy and flavorless. Either way, though, it’s not like you’ve been missing anything great like face or tongue.
(Actually, face is delicious, but I don’t know that it’s really special–it tastes like any other nice cut of meat. Tongue, OTOH, is more unique and very, very good. One of these days I’m going to try headcheese.)
The big difference is that foie gras actually tastes like… something. The others are just jelly. But foie gras can be made without force feeding (don’t know if it’s any good), bird’s nest is usually farmed I think, and shark fin would be ethical (to me) if they actually ate the rest of the shark, and didn’t dump the still living shark. Legally, in some places like the US, shark finning is okay if they come into port with x shark carcasses and 2x fins. If they dump the bodies, living or not, it’s not cool.
I’m not sure if I’ve had it. I’ll eat haggis if I ever find it, and I don’t think I’ve had menudo. It doesn’t initially appeal to me. It does look weird, so does tongue about half the time. As far as face goes, I would try smalahove or other regional variants (many countries). But I’m sure if I found any, I couldn’t afford it.
Caviar – very nice
Escargot – I’ve had good and not so good, wouldn’t bother again
Foie Gras – like heaven
Iberian Ham – very yummy
Kobe Beef – good beef
Shark Fin Soup – why bother?
Sweetbreads in the form blood sausage. Excellent
It only wanted me to pick one goody …
Caviar - occasionally, sturgeon is great, but lumpfish and cod are more affordable.
Durian - not on a bet, I can’t get it past my nose to my mouth.
Escargot - meh, didn’t like it, no matter how much butter and garlic they dosed it with.
Foie Gras - yummy, goose is lovely, duck is more common. I prefer the goose.
Fugu - Nope, not going to try anything that is potentially a neurotoxin.
Iberian ham - lovely stuff, too expensive regularly.
Kobe beef - well, american raised certified wagyu. Nice, but I will eat regular beef until i win a lottery.
Shark fin soup - nope, I dislike dried fish products and I wouldn’t anyway because of how they are harvested.
Sweetbreads - yup, not my favorite innard, but OK in small amounts.
Truffles - yup, both white and black truffles.
I know the list is missing some stuff - birds nests? a big negative on those, same with civet shit or any shit coffee.
Caviar, escargot (love 'em, they’re not even expensive, least not here), foie gras *with *truffles, Iberian ham.
I also had beef tongue, which is very good and again not really “out there” in the context of French cuisine, but it drew some stares from furriners. I think it’s a bit rarer now, along with a lot of offal, because of the Mad Cow scare and resulting EU regulations. Been a while since I saw any on restaurants’ menus anyway.
I don’t think Durian’s all that expensive either - it’s just really weird. And stinky. But I’m pretty sure I could nip by the local Chinese/Asian quarter and nab some if I wanted to punish my sinuses.
Indeed - geese and ducks naturally gorge themselves before migration, and self-fed foie gras is pretty much identical to the other kind, taste-wise. Much of the taste has to do with how it’s cooked anyway. Force feeding just produces more pounds of liver per goose, although it does also alter the texture into something more “milky” or “melty” because the fat/meat ratio is greater.
Heh Rillettes are more of a “peasant dish”*, if you will. It’s what is done with what is left of the animal’s muscle tissue after all the nameable bits have been cut off. Typically they’re made with pork, so rillettes de canard are indeed a bit “higher class” - but you can get them at any country market. And they’re awesome. Saucisson de canard is also great, if a bit greasy. Best of the best : duck confit.
Foie gras is most definitely toff grub, even within France. I expect a lot of it is due to culture & image, marketing in other words, but it does take a lot of time and effort to get just one liver, and some more to turn that one liver into something that’ll send you straight to culinary heaven, so the price reflects that. It’s the same with truffles, really : I personally think they’re nothing to write home about, certainly nothing compared to a plate of sauté’d porcinis bathing in oil for example, but they’re a real pain in the ass to find or grow, so…
On the whole, I agree with Terry Pratchett’s theory that regional cuisines are the fruit of a conjunction of lower-class ingenuity and desperation. Any idiot with a fire can make a large block of beef taste good ; but you only come up with shark fin soup when somebody came and nabbed the rest of the shark. And only a great cook would make it taste even vaguely edible :).
Escargots don’t seem to be terribly expensive in the US so much as that they are only sold in expensive restaurants, so they just add to the bill. Maybe for the quantity they’re not cheap, but not obscene for an appetizer.
So, umm… will anyone admit to ever eating ortolan?
I understand there are two ways to prepare ortolan (bunting). In “Top Gear,” Jeremy got the tame kind: plucked, gutted, and head removed. The real ortolan is cooked with feathers and everything (or so I heard.) It was part of Mitterrand’s last meal.
I learned to make them by skinning the little buggers but leaving the guts and bones [and beak:o < barfy smiley] in place and grilling them quickly with a bit of salt, pepper and fresh thyme.
I refuse to eat guts, heads and bones. I also don’t eat ortolan as buntings are protected in the US and they used to be verging on hitting the protected lists. I will happily do farmed quail.
I read some book about a guy getting beef tendon in his pho because it’s really, really good - I see “tendon” on the menu and I think of things I cut off when preparing meat. Has anyone tried this? Is it really quite good?
There was a recent this American Life show about a guy in Spain who was making foie gras from humanely raised geese. It was interesting, an American chef is trying to replicate his results, but so far, has not had much luck.
I was going to post that sweetbreads are the opposite of expensive delicacies but I saw that this was already covered and decided not to post in this thread at all even though I voted. So you are not seeing this.
Rillettes are more of a “peasant dish”*, if you will. It’s what is done with what is left of the animal’s muscle tissue after all the nameable bits have been cut off. Typically they’re made with pork, so rillettes de canard are indeed a bit “higher class” - but you can get them at any country market. And they’re awesome. Saucisson de canard is also great, if a bit greasy. Best of the best : duck confit.