There is a current contestant on Master Chef who said he’d never eaten an artichoke. A few episodes ago he claimed he’d never eaten pasta. :eek: But he’s in the top 5…
No. Give it another try, they are delicious. (basically the outside is inedible, except for a tiny bit on the bottom inside of the outer leaves which you scrape off with your teeth. The inside is all yummy.)
Find an italian restaurant or somewhere that’ll serve you one and show you what to do. It’s worth it.
EDIT: ooh, I bet there are videos on youtube showing it
You’ve got, like ten miles of sea coast. You may as well be in Missouri.
Five guys makes a burger that tastes like a burger. It’s not as good as what i can make at home, but i eat their burgers. With a little ketchup. Maybe cheese and mushroom, depending on my mood.
Where do you folks live that mutton is considered a “mainstream food item”? I’ve never seen it sold in any supermarket in North America or Europe. On rare occasions I’ve seen it on the menu of Indian restaurants, but whenever I’ve ordered it it turned out to be goat.
I’m sure it’s possible to find real mutton if you know where to look for it, but “available only if you know where to look for it” is not really my idea of “mainstream”.
Just remembered another and that is quail, which is readily available in many stores here in Australia.
They sound delicious, but the effort that would be needed to suck the meat off those tiny bones seems somewhat excessive. 
It’s served occasionally at St. John Bread and Wine in London. But when I ordered it it was a terrific disappointment. I was expecting to get a whole roasted or braised carcass, sort of like a quail or a pigeon. Instead I got a perfectly formed cylinder of room-temperature shredded meat caked in gelatin. It looked like the chef had opened a tin of cat food and let it slide out onto a plate. The taste was just as appealing.
Ick.
And to kambuckta, sucking the meat off the little bones is part of the fun of eating small birds.
The effort is worth it, for good quail!
I’m not sure what the “effort” is in eating meat off a bird bone. It’s certainly no more effort than cutting a piece of meat with a knife and eating it with a fork.
I don’t drink so there is a wide variety of alchohols that I have never tasted… scotch, gin, vodka, tequila, vermouth, etc etc etc. It would be easier to list the ones I have: red wine, dad’s beer, and probably white wine.
puzzlegal writes: Never tried squirrel, but would if I had a chance.
Squirrel can be got in the UK by mail-order from specialist game dealers. I’ve done so: casseroled as one would do with rabbit, I found that it tasted fine, and rather like rabbit. Have something of a back-story here: in UK, squirrel-to-eat is always the American grey squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis – introduced to these islands something over a hundred years ago by people who meant no harm, seeing it as a fun addition to Britain’s wildlife: has since then been ousting from the relevant ecological niche, our IMO more attractive native red squirrel Sciurus vulgaris – smaller, less robust and less adaptable. Native species now found in few parts of Britain, and still in retreat. For me, anything which harms and reduces in number, the loathsome grey invaders, is good – I’d be inclined to eat them even if I thought they tasted vile.
(Actually, I find grey squirrels quite lovable in their own right: just wish that it were possible to partition Britain squirrel-wise, in a way which was fair and would continue to hold good.)
In my experience, a lot of London’s nu-wave gourmet restaurants do this…take an exotic meat and reduce it to an unrecognizable purée presentation. But most of what I’ve had has tasted GREAT.
To be fair, I wouldn’t call St. John Bread and Wine “nu-wave”. Its driving philosophy seems to be revival of traditional cuisine, or more specifically of traditional but now unfashionable food animals and animal products. They’re big on offal, smaller game animals and birds, and garden vegetables. The presentation is usually quite simple, which is why I was surprised that they ran my squirrel through a blender.
When I was a kid, my father used to hunt quail. We would eat what he brought home.
It was OK. Tended to be a bit dry and the occasional shotgun pellet made it necessary to eat carefully.:eek: