Weird Food People Eat
 

Hey, wanna piece of candy?

Uh...no?

Damn whippersnappers, and their disgusting chemical laden candy. Why can't they eat all natural scabs and boogers like we did?

That must surely have been a special for halloween right?

Oh man, I love weird food. I'll try an awful lot of stuff once, usually twice. I get a lot of funny looks when I try something and go "OH GOD this is weird/gross, YOU GOTTA TRY THIS!" but anybody I can convince to try it, whether or not they thank me for the positive taste experience, at least usually ends up thanking me for the experience of trying something different.

The last thing I tried that's made everybody I know cringe was, I thought, pretty mundane, but still terrifies many people... headcheese. Which, well, if you don't know what it is... it's pretty much scraps of meat from a pig or cow's head that's been boiled and scraped; it's encased in gelatin (that's come out of the head as it boils) and sliced thin as a cold-cut style lunchmeat.

Surprisingly good, too, I have to say. It's spiced such that it tastes a lot like corned beef, and the texture isn't actually anywhere near as awful as I thought it'd be.

the durian tasting, on the other hand, kind of went in the opposite direction.

I think the problem with headcheese is the name. Like tripe, it just doesn't sound appetising.

The name isn't appetizing, but I don't think that's the only problem. The description isn't appetizing either.

Durian-flavor ice cream, OTOH, is rather mischievously good. You can tell why Singapore doesn't allow it to be eaten on the subway, though.

Neither is the appearance or the flavor.

The closest I come to eating something weird is grits. Or the occasional chicken liver.

If grits are weird, you must have a really, um.. plain diet?

Durian was.. the bites of it that were good, tasted like a delicious sweet custard. the bits that were not so good tasted like... spoiled onion-custard-egg pie that hasn't set up yet. every bite was somewhere different on a scale between those extremes, and the whole thing had the texture of scooping the guts out of an alien.

everybody should eat one of them bastards at least once. durians, i mean, not aliens.

Having watched people happily eat bugs/ reptile penis/ fish eyes etc and then gag over durian fruit, I think I'll give it a pass. But then I think mango is repulsive...

Saveloys, trotters, faggots, jellied eels - no problem.

Have you every thought of becoming a restaurant critic, SW?

I don't find 'em weird, it's almost everyone I know that finds them weird.

:yum:

Oh, I do freeze Hershey bars before I eat them, as with most chocolate.

That might be a little weird.

I don't eat meat (and that seems pretty weird on this board!) and when people say to me "but lettuce is alive too" I try to explain my reasoning of 'drawing a line'.

I think most people 'draw a line' even if, like mine, it isn't necessarily too straight - where is your one? What won't you eat?

I'll try most anything. not sure where the line is honestly...
A personal favorite is octopus. I don't know how weird that is though.

I won't try anything if I don't know what it is.

"Here try this."

"What is it?"

"Just try it."

"Fuck you."

Also, I draw the line at anything's organs. Outside of the aforementioned occasional chicken liver.

Yeah, Vegetarianism is not quite so prevalent/catered for over here. I don't even think most fast food places have a veggie burger on the menu.

My line... It can't look like animal. I'd love to be veggie in theory, but in practice I love meat too much :) :yum:

For a Japanese friend's 65th birthday I gave her a piece of Jinenjo root so she could make some kind of special Japanese 65th birthday girl treat she had been raving about. You grate the root (ha! try that) and it ends up being this slimy gelatinous mess that makes raw egg seem like sand in comparison. This glop is poured over a bowl of hot rice into which a raw egg is stirred. It ends up being foamy and gelatinous and very, very slimy. My then GF jumped up from the table and ran into the bathroom, loudly retching. It took every bit of concentration I had to eat my bowl, while Toshiko was having the time of her life.

There were lots of other culinary adventures with Toshiko, many strange, but none as slimy. (I passed on the natto)

HA! I just wiki'ed the root and noted this passage:
Toshiko was making vague and joking remarks about sex and the greater the length of the root being more desirous. I think a lot of what she was saying went over my head partly because her English was so poor and since I was about 20 at the time and hadn't yet realized that 65 year olds had sex lives.

Really? That surprises me. I think of the UK as pretty veggie-unfriendly, because there's usually only one or two veggie items on the fast food menus. I assumed that the US would be more veggie-friendly. They seem to often be leading the way in health trends.

Nope. Here in hippy Ann Arbor there are quite a few good friendly veggie restaurants. but If you go to a BBQ at someone's house, it's always a good idea to take your own burgers unless they've told you they will cater for you. It just doesn't occur to people. They're more likely to make sure they have non-pork products.

I'm pretty sure there's no Veggie Burger at McDonald's. You can have a limp salad. With bacon bits. 'Cause bacon doesn't count.

That is simply terrifying.

Carrot Juice is Murder

Yes, but I'm a) poor and b) already fat enough as is. :D

You must've eaten a thawed frozen durian. A stinky mush doesn't make a good eat. :headshake If you could afford it, try a fresh one. I guarantee you, it'll taste better. And the texture is so much better. Have you tried jackfruit?

It wouldn't entirely surprise me; I've heard that the majority received in the USA are first frozen. It was whole, though, and unfrozen when I got it. I want to find a hopefully better one and give it another try. The bites that were good were actually excellent.

Jackfruit, now, that shit is some amazing business. I was kinda floored at how good it was. i've had it fresh and had it dried, and it's good either way. I don't even know how to begin to describe the flavor, but mostly because it was quite a while ago and all i really remember is it being damn good, and also having an interesting texture.

i am hoping to the heavens that i get a new car tomorrow to replace my existing bald-tires-failing-electrical-brakes-dead-clutch-cylinders-busted-exhaust-falling-off hoopwagon, and then i can actually make the trips back to the asian markets again to pick up some more fascinating fruits, vegetables, and miscellaneous offal to try. jackfruit is right up on the top of the list, cause man it was good.

It wasn't that long ago that I learned exactly what "pork melts" were, and I still haven't quite worked up the cajones to try to cook some.

We use pig's spleen in faggots.

What are pork melts? :p:

pig spleen!

one of the local markets carries some of the most.. disturbing offal. deli containers of congealed blood, shrink-wrapped packets of pig uteruses(uteri, i guess), every bit you can imagine. tongues and stomachs and chicken's feet and the whole gamut of inside bits you don't usually think to eat. i'm going to work up the guts (hah) to buy something interesting and see if i can cook it properly sometime...

Make sure you find recipes according to your taste.
My family were proper East End (of London) and ate every part of the pig, as per Asian countries. In Grandad's time, Irish relatives still died of malnutrition-related complaints, if not actual starvation. But when I went to a restaurant with my Hong-Kong born colleague (a couple of years ago now) the food she ordered (not on the Western menu) was difficult for me to eat. It was extremely fatty, gristly and extremely salty.

This is not a criticism of Chinese food - I'm sure if you sat a rural Chinese person down to eat "hot meat pies, saveloys and trotters" they'd be as out of their depth as I was.

I have no issue eating offal, I just prefer it in a familiar form.

Does that involve having carnal knowledge of the organ? And does the sex of the swine from which it originated matter?

A lot of people don't like it, but ...

I eat scrapple with relish.

I mean I like it a lot.

I hate relish. Nasty pickly stuff.

Depends on the relish.

I can't startle anyone here with grilled-cheese-peanut-butter-and-green-relish sandwiches. I've tried, but it seems most Dwellars regard them as simply down-home and not bad.

Cheese and Major Grey-type chutney... that's good, grilled or cold. Cold it's almost a Ploughman's Lunch.

Ha! I was raised on cheese and chutney sandwiches. Gran's homemade mango chutney ftw! Though her tomato and chilli chutney was also to die for.

A friend has been bringing me ham and bacon, from a pork store near him in South Jersey. Everything they sell is smoke cured, no added salt. What a wonderful difference. :yum:

not overly kosher, though... :lol:

not Branston?

Oh I could seriously go for some Branston's and cheddar right now.

Neither am I.

Branston's good. Gran's homemade pickles and chutneys better.

I like Branston with the small lumps. Spreads better on crackers.

Duly noted. Spread-friendly is a good thing.

Vegemite spreads better than Marmite, unless I just got a thin-textured jar or something. Vegemite can't drip off the knife on the way from jar to toast.

Did Gran pass either recipe on to family?

Ummm.....yes kind of. Dad knew all her recipes. I suppose my uncle probably did as well. I daresay my paternal cousins, wherever they currently reside, will be concocting similar chutneys.

My Mum has some of Gran's recipes. And is a bloody good cook when she can be bothered. But she doesn't really do much cooking these days.

Gran tried to teach me. So did Dad. But at the time I wasn't really interested :P


[eta] I'll ask mum if the chutney recipes are in the box. If they are I'll post 'em.

I don't know that I've really *got* a taste so far, one way or the other. I haven't really eaten much organ meat and the like unless it's in a sausage, so it'll be a bit of a new world and i'll have to experiment to find something that agrees with me.

I had a bit of haggis once, but it wasn't traditionally prepared in a stomach, and probably was missing a fair amount of the inside bits. It was REALLY good, though, for even a pseudo-haggis.

White or Dark, but Never Scrambled

Why don’t we eat turkey eggs?

Money shouts like a bitch.

I've had quail eggs.... But how, in 45 years, have I never had a fucking turkey egg?! This is unacceptable.

I want one. Today!

I'd like to try one but at $2-$3 per egg, they would have to be very yummy to make it a habit.

I know, wouldn't it be awful if they were the best fucking eggs we ever had?

I know of an Amish fellow who raises and sells turkeys, next time I'm that way Ima hit him up for a turkey egg.

I hate duck eggs- waaaay too fucking eggy.

Depends on the ducks, and what they're fed. I've had some very "gamey" duck eggs in the past, but right now I use nothing but duck eggs from a lady here in town, and they're great.

What kind of duck?

Um... The kind that lays eggs? I dunno, if you tell me what my choices are it might ring a bell with something she said.

If they are domesticated ducks this says they are most likely a type of mallard. I learned something.

I thought mallard meant male duck. They would be rare eggs indeed.

Eta: Drake means male duck. I learned too!

No no, mallard was a president.

Mallard Fillmore http://comicskingdom.com/mallard-fillmore

Wow, that comic's gone downhill since I was a kid. And it wasn't very far up the hill to begin with....

No, no NO! Mallard was a train.