Loren Pechtel

Yeah, I don't try to figure it out, either. I've got it worse than you--twice a year we actually go over to China. What she can get over there is far beyond what she finds in the market here.

As for snake: Picture this:

Attractive female says to me "I'm going to eat you".









She's my neice. We had recently been talking about the Chinese calendar and what animal various people were. She had found out I was born in the year of the snake. At dinner there was fried snake. She was holding up a piece of it when she said those words. Given her lack of English I'm sure no double meaning was intended.

I would have tried it except that it was hot--and hot food gives me a nosebleed.

Enai

Well, I'm no "other person" to me, but to the rest of the world I am. I like to eat raw liver, but I seldom do because I don't cook my food myself.

Joyous

Doesn't sound like there would be much cooking involved.

vixstile

I won't eat anything that has more than a single consistent texture, and that has any odor that can be detected from more than a few feet away.

Enai

I said:
True, but I did never eat the whole portion raw. I fried it and ate the raw stuff as a treat. I think it tastes better when raw.

Arvel Joffi

I could not convince my mom that I was not being melodramatic! I really was doing my level best not throw up on the table after taking one bite of fried okra. The bile was at the top of my throat; I don't know how I kept it in.

<shudder>

wonkothesane

Gosh, you know that like "ex-idaho" I am probably pretty adventureous by American standards, and esp. the uptight standards that I have come across in the southeast and midwest...(I eat sushi, no prob. for fellow east-coasters, but here in Illinois, it makes me some kind of freak!) And I usually *prefer* "ethnic" foor to standard boring greasey American fare (cheeseburgers and such) and usually the more exotic, the better I like it (Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethipoian - seriously, *Ethopian*...it's not a joke, really!) and I'm always looking to try new "weird" stuff, and I'd like to think that I'll try _just about_ anything once, *BUT*, even *I* have my limits...

Like, for example, I love Japanese bbq-d Eel (Unagi) and my mom thinks that's it's totally weird (even though she loves catfish, and I think that Unagi has a similar flavor) *but* she eats *pickled pigs feet* (someone else here has a relative who eats these, I notince) and that has got to be absolutely one of the most disgusting foods ever! I mean, in the jar, it looks like the little pig fetuses and other preserved animal parts that you see in jars in a high school biology lab! YUCK! (My mom also likes frog leggs - they do taste like chicken. Dark meat chicken, and I don't like dark meat chicken, so...also, why not just eat chicken??? And she also claims to like snails...ewww....)

And then there's this Vietnamese thing where they like take fertilized chicken (or was it duck?) eggs and let the fetus grow about half-way, then they like cook and serve it! Beak, feathers, and all - all in a warn yummy gooey jelly mass! BARF! (I think that they may even ferment or pickle it or something!) No thanks, I'll starve first.

Just thinking about it makes me want to toss my lunch!

Durian...I *love* Thai coconut ice-cream, and I like to try new exotic fruit, so one I bought some durian flavored coconut ice-cream...gawd, it was awfull! It tasted and smelled like someting that was rotting! Yech!

Okra...interesting...a stringy and *fuzzy* skin on the outside, with an inside of hard white round seeds and _slime_! Ummm....but actually, I *like* okra in stews and gumbo...but I understand why some people have an adversion to it...

To those with Asian wives...gosh, no offense, but I'm not sure that I would want to kiss some of these women right after dinner! (Duck brain breath! Arrgh!) Nothing against asian women - I dated one once, but she was a vegitarian...

Btw, do you know that southeast asian sauce made from fermented fish? It's very salty and smeels like old gym shoes...well, I actually kinda *like* it, but it puts most people off...

The food that I hate most would probably be simple canned pea...canning peas is a crime against nature and should carry the death penality, IMHO...

- bryce

hurtinbuckaroo

Haggis (this recipe found on Google):

Kill one sheep. Remove all organs carefully, without slitting the
stomach, bladder, gallbladder or intestines. Remove and wash the stomach carefully. Retain heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and spleen; wash them. Retain the thick, white suet fat on the carcass. Carefully remove the gallbladder (the bag of green gall) from the liver by slicing off the portion of the liver to which the gall is attached; do *not* break this bag of gall and spill it all over your meat. Discard gallbladder, unless you want to use it in a recipe with boiled oak ashes to make ink. Not in my food processor, thank you.

Toss all except stomach into a large pot. Boil for approximately 4-6 hours, expect the smell to be horrid. Boil stomach seperately for 3-4 hours or until fork-tender. Although it smells nasty at this stage, it will mellow out into a delicious savory aroma in time, reminiscent of a *good* beefsteak and kidney pie.

Remove organs, let cook, chop liver into small crumbles, the rest into larger chunks to taste. Boil down further in the original water (only change the water if if has NOT started to smell like tasty beef broth after 5 hours) until the lung pieces are really tender and taste like sweet beef. Add some barley, or wheat farina (cream of wheat if you like) to thicken. Pour in liberally some brandy, red wine, and chopped onions and garlic. Add some dried fruit: raisins, currants, dried cherries, anything dark and sweet. Chopped apples, minus peel, works well, too. Season with salt and pepper. Boil this down until sludgy and
delicious smelling and tasting, kinda like savory mincemeat.

Render down and/or chop fine 1 1/2 cups of pure suet. Mix the suet with 6 cups of flour, with your hands, and crumble it together until fine and grainy. Then add brandy and honey, just enough to moisten the dough and make it stick together to mold.

Pack the cooked haggis in the sheep stomach, and roll out the dough in a large flat, about 3/4", and roll up the filled stomach in the dough. Wrap a wet, light cloth around the whole thing, and steam it for another 5 hours.

When the pudding-dough is golden brown and puffy, your haggis is done! Yum.

philechat

Haggis do remind me of a Taiwanese dish called "coffin board", except for the stomach part. And as far as organ meat goes, there are specific ways to cook it such that it does not smell.

The best organ in my opinion has been fish liver--certainly no worse than fois gras, and the Japanese know how to dress this piece of organ next to perfection (visually) that you would not know where it comes from.

Monkeybot

In Japan, they have this weird mixture of tofu and egg that manages to combine the worst aspects of both -- the consistency of tofu and the flavor of raw eggs. It doesn't sound particularly disgusting -- hell, I love both tofu and eggs separately -- but together they are absolutely one of the foulest combinations to ever blight my tastebuds. Natto's neutral in my book, but this stuff (of which I even forget the name) is just vile.

And again, although it doesn't compare with duck brains, I was once served the following sandwich: slice of white bread, layer of mayonnaise, ham, another layer of mayonnaise, another slice of white bread. Some people probably like this combination, but I found it revolting. I had this sandwich at least 6 years ago, which tells you what a deep impression it left on my psyche.

There's some legendarily bad stuff in the South, like chitlins (are these the same as chitterlings?), but I can't say I've experienced too many up close and personal. I've never had okra in any form, much less any of the interesting concoctions made from pig parts. Guess I've dodged a bullet so far...