Grossest foods you ever liked?

[gjbingham]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

Ha, finally my turn. My daughter spit out the bottle and toddled away!

I love squid in ink - pasta nera in Italy. Only available some nights in the seafood restaraunts. I'd get it every time its available. Excelente! Also mussles and most shell fish in Italy, down to tiny little bivalves the size of a quarter inch or so are incredibly good. Ricci - sea urchins- Nope! Won't do it again.

Cow tongue - I was raised on it as a boy. I had it on a train from Moscow to St. Petersburg in '99 just for chuckles. It was still great. Tripe is a no way for me too. Nasty texture. Sea cucumbers in the NW are really good, but a pain in the butt to harvest the meat out of. I can skip almost any food made with glands - liver-kidney, brains (not a gland - I know). Snails are no good and fish eggs are too salty.

I liked Bennigan's back in the good old days. There's not one anywhere nearby here. Appleby's - no way. Expensive for what you get and completely tasteless.

Good thread XJ!
Screaming baby is back. Gotta run!

[dmun]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

Cow tongue - I was raised on it as a boy.

Here's an old joke. This guy walks into a restaurant and asks the waitress to bring him anything, anything at all. She comes back with a sandwich.

He peeks into it. "What's this?"

She says "A tongue sandwich"

"Tongue? Tongue! You want me to eat something that came out of the mouth of a cow? Take this away" he shudders.

"And bring me a couple of eggs"

[RTflorida]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

Hey, wait a minute............THAT WAS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gjbingham]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

Good one David. Funny how tongue can taste so different from other meat in the animal. Perhaps its the cow vs. the steer. Unique taste, though once accustomed to it, its pretty good. I don't think the family would go for it though. Perhaps blended?

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

There's lots I like....

Alligator was good..."tastes like chicken"
Cow tongue ....lots growing up...hot or in sandwiches
Stuffed beef heart, liver and onions
Chicken hearts and gizzards with noodles
Kidneys in gravy on toast for Christmas day breakfast.
Polish pizza with sauerkraut!
Natural casing weiners

Other odd stuff though:
I did'nt go for the callos, a lungs and chickpeas tapa
...dad brought home chocolate covered ants
also fried grasshoppers (how 'bout those on your pizza)

Still no guts to try brains ....just another protein?

We just talked about sea urchins recently, eaten fresh with a spoon. Is that how you had them George?

yeah, forgot about McDonalds, Applebees, etc when I started the post!

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

"This is great, what's in it." When I replied, "raw tuna," she dropped a half eaten piece on her plate and never touched sushi again. Moral 1: don't ask until you've at least tried it. Moral
2: maybe some of our aversions are culturally created.

Jim

Absolutely true

It's why it's particularly fun to travel to other places and try different things.

mussels are a pretty good example....most western people have a hard time with this type of stuff at first but later can go for the whole plate. I still chuckle at my nephew...it barely hit his tongue before it was spit out. That's the brain working before the tongue even had a chance! Now he loves them.

And what about road kill? There are hundreds of deer killed daily by cars....what self respecting caveman would leave a fresh kill to rot in the sun?

[Frances]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

What's Applebees then?

I was thinking about this post last night (since brick cuts and dome angles no longer occupy my mind so much...) and came to a similar conclusion that some of you have - the things I really don't like and won't eat are the ones with a list of E numbers as long as you arm. The more processed and the more chemical, the more I'm not interested. Monosodium glutomate is right at the top of that list!

On the other hand I quite like food that can look back and things you can eat raw. Or make yourself.

What about oysters? Wierd food or what? The first time I wanted to try them as a small girl, one of them actually started moving and had me standing on my chair screaming. In the middle of the restaurant....

Love them now though.

[egalecki]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

What about oysters? Wierd food or what? The first time I wanted to try them as a small girl, one of them actually started moving and had me standing on my chair screaming. In the middle of the restaurant....

Love them now though.

My mom, in eastern North Carolina, gets these great oysters. They call them "salty oysters" locally- I think they're from tidal pools which get saltier than regular ones, and they have this extra briny wonderful taste when eaten on the half shell. Now, if you hand me a previously shucked, naked oyster out of one of those cans from the grocery store, well, that's just sad...

I might eat tongue if I hadn't seen it on the styrofoam platter with saran wrap on it in the store... but looking at the taste buds sort of ruined it for me.

And I think road kill deer might present a problem, flavor-wise, due to the way it died. Too much shock to internal organs can really make it taste strange.

I ordered calimaretti (?) in Venice once and it turned out to be the smallest squid I'd ever seen, whole. I think they were all about 1 inch or less in size, but they were wonderful!

[gjbingham]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

I used to love raw oysters. My beach cabin has thousands covering the beach. I've eaten so many that I've kind of lost my taste for them. Every once in awhile, I'll just walk out there and shuck and swallow a couple just for giggles, and to gross out the kids.

In Sicily, some of the restaraunts were famous for their mussels. They're served in thier cooked broth with lots of bread for dippping. Definitely, one of my most favorite meals. One of the doctors there finally got a recipe from an old Sicilian woman, sadly without measurements - but she did see it made, and we made it together several times. I've used it many times since, always just guessing on the measurements and had great results. I highly recommend it if you do like mussels:

about 2 quarts of mussels, or whatever you can get your hands on, put in a large pot. Set heat to high and cover for 5 min. or so. Sprinkle with large quantities of oregano and pepper on the shells while they steam. Stir every 2- 3 minutes.

In a separate pan with lots of EVOO (1/4 - 1/3rd cup?), sautee 3 - 6 cloves of minced garlic and about a half cup or so of Italian parsley. After a few minutes pour over the cooking mussels. Stir and add some white vinegar ( start with maybe a 1/4 cup and add more till you like the taste). Add more pepper and oregano and stir. Total cook time is about 10 minutes. Spoon out mussels in a serving dish and pour their broth over them. Sprinkle with a little more parsley and serve with a great loaf of bread.

Killer!!

[Frances]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

That sounds good! Go put it under its own heading where people can see it...

I make mussels sometimes, but I can see that this'll knock the spots of my version!

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

Naked mussels....just put them in a hot pot.....you'll be suprised how much liquid they put out....salty sea water.....just had em for the first time this way recently.....

[brokencookie]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

And I think road kill deer might present a problem,

Funny Story
Just south of me the county sheriffs would pick up fresh road kill and take to the prisons for use. Some con protested being feed "road kill" and got his lawyer involved. He won the court case but he is now in solitary confinement for his own protection. It seems that the other prisoners really enjoyed getting a little venision and were issuing death threats.

Must of been some mighty good tasting deer


Bruce

[gjbingham]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

I bet that road kill deer is a heck of a lot betterh than the slop they serve in prison. The con would probably give his left testical to have some good fresh road kill right now.

[Inishta]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

It seems the only boundary to what we eat is our own perception, beliefs, and cultural backgroung. Almost everything, and every part, that walks, flies, swims and grows is eaten by somebody. I think that some of these 'strange' foods must have been discovered out of desperation and in some cases curiosity. Haggis and scrapple, black pudding and pork brains, nutria and deep-fried guinea pig. Most cultures have their strange food. Here in Turkey iskembe (brain soup) and kokorec (grilled lamb intestine) are national dishes. I like to think I would try anything once but I'm afraid the seeing (or even visualising) some things have been enough to put me off eating various delicacies during my travels. Hats off to those willing to try!

Someone once said........."A hungry man can't see right or wrong. He just sees food"................I couldn't agree more.

[RTflorida]

Re: Grossest foods you ever liked?

Inishta, I agree with the seeing and viualising. I've encountered a few dishes in my life that were unusual to me, but sounded interesting....I could not get past the sight on the plate...I'm not big on presentation, but damn, it has to at least look eatible; too many times I've seen this with internal organs (intestines, stomach, varius glands, even beef tongue, all end up looking nasty and may very well taste wonderful......I will never know, could get past that it looked like wht it was.....a steaming plate of the above mentioned intestines from a goat. Might help if they don't tell ou whats in...then again it might not.

RT