I’ve read it was probably invented accidentally by ancient shepherds who tried keeping their animals’ milk inside sheep stomachs, kind of like wine sacks. The milk reacted with the rennet inside the guts, and voila, cheese formed!
And you’d be wrong.
I occasionally get a jar of pickled herring, but I prefer it with just wine sauce. I tried a jar with sour cream, but didn’t care for it. I usually eat the herring and onion on a Triscuit.
At some basque style restaurants, Pickled beef tongue is served first, along with the salad. I’d chop up the tongue and add it to the salad. Very nice.
I have had it, and altho not a fan of liver, I rated it “Okay to try, but not a fan”.
I notice many recipes call for the herring and sour cream to be mixed together. That’s not how I eat it. I have the herring and onions on one side of the plate and the sour cream beside it. That seems to provide the best contrast of flavours. I find the creaminess of the sour cream nicely complements and mellows the sharp taste of the herring.
I have it only on special occasions like Hogmany and Robert Burns Day.
Another Sardinian speciality!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/callu-de-cabrettu
I don’t really deride things I’ve never tried, which wouldn’t make a lot of sense, I just maintain that there are some foods I have no interest in trying based on what they are. This includes grasshoppers, snakes, haggis, and even beef tongue. I’ll consume eel and sea urchin in the form of sushi, but only when expertly prepared by a first-class sushi chef. The beauty of the presentation and the exquisite sense of flavour harmony makes all the difference. But even then I prefer more conventional sushi like otoro (fat tuna belly), yellowtail, and the like.
And while I dislike the basic flavour of liver, there’s a spicy liverwurst that’s quite good on crackers and also makes decent sandwiches. And if I ever find a top-notch Jewish deli in the area, authentic Jewish-style chopped liver is to die for! The only time I’ve ever had it locally was on special occasions when an upscale local deli shipped it in from Moishe’s in Montreal.
Beef tongue is not common - there’s only one per animal, and it’s relatively small - but it’s far from unusual, at least in terms of taste and texture. It’s surprisingly tender when prepared correctly, with a mildly beefy taste. I love beef tongue. It’s one of those childhood comfort foods for me. Unfortunately, my wife developed an aversion to it (at least the way I prepare it) during one of her pregnancies, so in the last 30+ years, I think I’ve only made it twice.
Yes! 
I’m guessing here that sheep and goat stomachs work equally well, but produce different kinds of cheese?
That’s not exactly true. It’s a canned food and considered to be at its peak 6 months to a year after canning, easy to get to America in that time by sea (most airlines won’t carry it). It does keep fermenting in the can, though, and heat during transit can really accelerate that process.
I’ve been in the presence of a can opened under water and was instantly gagging from ten feet away and had to retreat. Several others in the area retched. The water mitigates but does not remove the threat and you’ve got take it out of the water at some point to eat it (but why?).
I read somewhere that it should be treated as a condiment. You don’t eat a spoonful of it in the same way that you don’t eat a spoonful of mustard or wasabi.
Aha, his version of “Cailles en Sarcophage” from “Babette’s Feast”!
When I see hard-boiled eggs in a jar, like in a dive bar, they make me think of Rocky Mountain oysters. Uncooked they look like just what they are: bull testicles. They’re usually deep-fried or very thinly sliced and sauteed. But nope, not gonna do that.
I had the Italian version of that (almost the same name) recently. The version i had was reconstituted and mashed and had more mayonnaise in it than i really like. It’s fine. Bland, not terribly appealing, but i see the appeal as a cheap protein & calorie dense food.
Am I a bad person for thinking of that pivotal, classic scene from “This Is Spinal Tap” and that it could come about in this manner?
YouTuber EmmyMade tried balut, and when she tasted liver, that really freaked her out.
George Washington Carver was a famous agronomist that popularized the eating of tomatoes. He also popularized the eating of peanuts.
The “poison apples” myth was also propagated by deaths linked to tomatoes but actually caused by acidic tomatoes leaching lead from pewter dishes used by the wealthy, and also by their botanical relationship to the nightshade family, many species of which are poisonous.
Tomatoes were also shunned when first bright to Europe because their blood-red colour was associated with evil and witchcraft.