<p>I have a friend who spent time in the backwoods of Indonesia who was served a strange looking dish. It wasn’t bad, and he inquired what it was. Local leader pantomimed flying. He guessed every bird whose name he knew in the local dialect. No, the leader replied “hair” and flying again. Hairy bird? No, bat. He should have read this thread first!</p>
<p>Stellaluna :eek:</p>
<p>This thread is an integral part of my new dieting plan.</p>
<p>How about home cookin’? This country gal was raised on armadillo, rattle snake, mountain oysters (bull parts), sweetbreads (cow parts), etc. Calves’ brains scrambled with eggs makes for a mighty tasty breakfast, yummm! </p>
<p>To change it slightly, the worst menu item was the Valentine’s Day Special of Shrimp and Steak for your sweetheart. They didn’t lie. I was served shrimp and steak. Sort of put a damper on the romantic evening looking at that single little shrimp.</p>
<p>This foreign service brat has eaten warthog, camel burgers, rocky mountain oysters, calve’s cheeks, jelly fish, sweetbreads, and ants. But my husband is the brave one. He orders the weird stuff, I taste it.</p>
<p>Was once have dinner with H’s Italian cousins (a large family) and fried rabbit was served. A large platter was passed around, and as guests we were served first. That was fine. I have eaten rabbit quite often and didn’t mind it. When it was time for seconds, the platter was again presented to me, and the hostess was saying something. I understand Italian pretty well, but there’s a slight time lag in comprehension. After about 10 seconds, it dawned on me what she was saying: “Testa.” She was offering me one of the two rabbit heads on the platter. I politely declined and also decided it was not necessary to watch as they explained how delicious it was to suck the brains out.</p>
<p>This is reminding me of this passage from this months Gourmet;</p>
<p>[A</a> Brain is a Terrible Thing to Waste, Italian, Offal: 2000s Archive : gourmet.com](<a href=“Epicurious – Recipes, Menu Ideas, Videos & Cooking Tips | Epicurious”>Epicurious – Recipes, Menu Ideas, Videos & Cooking Tips | Epicurious)</p>
<p>"My mother, Rose, was considered a “delicate” Italian because she was put off by sheep’s heads. The truth is, they grossed her out. Her sin was absolved, however, when she learned, from my father’s mother, how to prepare them. She did her work in the basement, presumably so the gore wouldn’t traumatize us kids. Nonetheless, I always managed to pad downstairs to catch a glimpse of the skulls, fresh and bloody from the butcher.</p>
<p>First my mother would soak the heads in salt water for a few hours to remove any remaining cartilage,
skin, or bright red blood. (“I hated cleaning them,” she told me recently, “especially the nose.”) Then she’d cleave them in half—”I was always impressed how the eyes, tongue, and brain were all so perfectly contained in their own compartments,” she said—splash the lobes with tomato sauce and top them with bread crumbs seasoned with rosemary, salt, garlic, and oregano. She would bake them in a slow oven (250 degrees) for four or five hours, during which a heavenly waft would rise through the house. It was a crisp, bready fragrance.</p>
<p>The aroma actually made my mouth water. But once the piping-hot heads were laid before the family patriarchs, I got spooked. There were the eyes in their sockets staring up at me, the tiny teeth in their jaws, and the nasal cavities exposed. It was my first inkling that something scary could also be sensual. Like my earliest forays into sex, I must have found this recognition embarrassing. My mother swears that I once closed the kitchen door to prevent my friends from seeing my father and his brothers reveling in their orgy of brains. "</p>
<p>I saw the bags of snakes while visiting Hong Kong. Also, frogs in burlap bags. Big frogs hopping on top of each other, poor things. And other skinned hanging mammals…I didn’t look too closely as it all makes me sick.</p>
<p>Domestically, the worst thing I’ve ever eaten is tongue. Cow tongue I guess. As a child, the deli usually had it sitting in the display case, big papillae and all. For some reason, my mother made us try it as kids. I threw it up. My brother still asks my (very nice) mother why she did that (she conveniently forgets).</p>
<p>I think fruit bat soup is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. In my deepest starvation I don’t think I could eat the head of anything.</p>
<p>Frogs… LOL! Our family dipped into our video collection and watched *The Triplets of Belville * a couple of weeks ago. There is a scene in the movie in which an old lady fishes for frogs by throwing a dynamite stick into a river… You have to watch the film to really appreciate the humor.</p>
<p>2331clk, my D’s reaction to the tongue was very similar to yours. :)</p>
<p>Beets with whipped cream - yummm.</p>
<p>My mother claims that part of her aversion to eating eggs is due to her grandmother’s cooking breakfast of scrambled eggs and brains when she was a child. If she didn’t eat them while they were hot, they sat there cold until she finally gagged them down and or threw up.
Thank heavens we can now check brains off the “too dangerous to consider” list of foods.<br>
When I was in High School (back in the Jurassic) we had a cooking lesson on “variety meats” - ie, the disgusting stuff nobody wants to eat. If forced to eat any of them, tongue (provided the “skin” is already removed) and heart are at least muscle. Liver, kidneys, tripe… this is only for people who are starved for calories.</p>
<p>Liver it is the organ that metabolizes every nasty thing that enters the body (pesticides, antibiotcs, etc.). So it is probably the unsafest part of an animal to eat.</p>
<p>That’s totallly my excuse to throw out that ugly thing in the turkey! I have never served liver since I hate the smell or taste, so what does D2 fall in love with at cool new French Bistro at her school? pate. “It tastes like meat, concentrated” Gag!</p>
<p>My cat’s favorite wet food is called “turkey liver and giblets dinner” - gag… IMO, it smells just like “pate” (I tried that stuff).</p>
<p>I also do not get the excitement about raw oysters. Slimy, stinky and polluted.</p>
<p>Good oysters are neither slimy nor stinky!</p>
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<p>Sounds like Depression era food. As for the onion sandwiches, I used to eat provolone sandwiches and put a slice of onion on it. Then I realized that I really didn’t need the provolone–it was the onion that I liked. So I got rid of the cheese. I learned the same thing with the cheese and bread and butter pickles sandwiches…</p>
<p>PS: I love natto, but then my mother was Japanese.</p>
<p>Tongue looks awful cooking (my French family was fond of it), but it tasted fine and didn’t look nearly so nasty once it was sliced. I’ve eaten frogs a few time. They have a slightly fishy taste on top of their chicken taste. I’m not crazy about them.</p>
<p>I’ve tasted brains. They were very tasty, but I don’t order them on the rare occasions they are actually on a menu.</p>
<p>I love sea food, all types. Had a starter plate with anchovies, humus, and various Greek things come to the table for lunch today. One “thing” was some sort of purple octopus parts. Marinade? I ate one. Not my thing.</p>
<p>“purple octopus parts”</p>
<p>I saw calamari in the deli section of local family grocery. I thought I might prank my son (back in grade school) and send a peanut butter sandwich with those legs sticking out of the sides. Never did it, enjoyed imagining him pulling it out at lunch.</p>
<p>What’s gross about peanut butter and jelly? Some Americans put ketchup on hot dogs.</p>
<p>I had something in a sushi restaurant once. It wasn’t on the menu, but I saw another guy eat it and I thought I’d give it a try. I had my mother talk to the sushi guy and ask what it was. They went back and forth in Japanese because neither could come up with the English name for it. </p>
<p>They finally came up with “sea cucumber.”</p>
<p>[Saltwater</a> Aquarium Reef Tank Invertebrate Photo - Keoki and Yuko Stenders’ Plump Sea Cucumber (Actinopyga obesa)](<a href=“http://saltaquarium.about.com/library/photos/blpicinvertkeokiblackspotcuc.htm]Saltwater”>8 Top Reef-Safe Sand Sifters)</p>
<p>And yes, I did eat it. Chewy and grainy…I wouldn’t order it again and I’ve never ordered off menu at a sushi restaurant since!</p>
<p>One of my D’s was on a high school exchange in Japan and the host family took her to a street fair/market. There was a vendor with grilled stuff on wooden picks - he cajoled D into trying what was described as “sea pinapple”. She managed to swallow the grainy tough seafood instead of some fruit… I suspect it was a sea cucumber… host family and others made a big deal about how brave she was and that no other US students had tried it. (She says that if she had known that, she wouldn’t have!)</p>