Weird Food People Eat

[classicman]

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.

[Gravdigr]

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.

[monster]

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

[footfootfoot]

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:

Non-food uses

The jelly-like substance made from grating the yam, tororojiru (Japanese: とろろ汁), is often served in, or alongside, a number of other dishes. Interestingly, perhaps, this was widely used in the Edo period as a personal lubricant for sexual activities,[citation needed] and it was thus considered improper for it to be eaten by a woman. This aversion also derives from the loud slurping sound one makes when eating it, which is considered to be un-ladylike.[1] However, now in Japan, it is usually accepted that women eat tororojiru with that kind of sound.

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.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by monster

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

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.

[monster]

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.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by DanaC

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.

That is simply terrifying.

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by Rhianne

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'.

Carrot Juice is Murder

[sad_winslow]

Originally Posted by limey

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

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

[Tulip]

Originally Posted by sad_winslow

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.

You must've eaten a thawed frozen durian. A stinky mush doesn't make a good eat. 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?

[sad_winslow]

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.

Originally Posted by Tulip

You must've eaten a thawed frozen durian. A stinky mush doesn't make a good eat. 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?

[Sundae]

We use pig's spleen in faggots.

[Tulip]

What are pork melts?

[sad_winslow]

Originally Posted by Tulip

What are pork melts?

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...

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by sad_winslow

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.