View Full Version : Bored with Organic Food?
ethics
11-04-2002, 08:33 PM
Organic food is so passé; the hot new thing in healthy cuisine is brains!
But of course brains have never really gone out of fashion:
* in Kentucky people often wake up to a hearty breakfast of scrambled squirrel brains with eggs;
* the Chinese love their pig brain soup;
* Germans love their begenwurst, or pig brain sausage;
* and Indians enjoy curried sheep or goat brains.
* And who can resist the fabled calf brains of the French and the Italians?
Brains are now set to take the health-conscious community by storm, thanks to the Russians. Russian scientists have recently discovered that pig brains contain anti-aging properties, and this clearly offsets the unfortunately high cholesterol content of the silky smooth meat. With the way Russians believe in this stuff, especially in the "derevni" (villages, boonies), I can tell that the fad will go overly well there. Good luck to all the pigs!
Anyone has the most disgusting dish they ever had in their life?
Fried beetles for me! Yum!
<small>Actually, they were disgusting as hell</small>
drslash
11-04-2002, 08:47 PM
I once heard of somebody having monkey brains. The restaurant brings the monkey to your table and you get to play with him for a while and then off to the kitchen. I think this was in Pakistan or Turkey.
ethics
11-04-2002, 08:56 PM
Originally posted by drslash
I once heard of somebody having monkey brains. The restaurant brings the monkey to your table and you get to play with him for a while and then off to the kitchen. I think this was in Pakistan or Turkey.
Ewww, India I think.
It was portrayed in Faces of Death I documentary (viewer discretion is DEFINITELY advised).
You don't play with the money, you stick him in to a guillotine type of a thing with their heads sticking out, you then bash their heads with a metal spoon till you kill them. Then you scoop the brains out nice and warm and raw.
Man, I think I am done with the appetite for this evening.
ShinyTop
11-04-2002, 09:03 PM
I am glad I already ate that deep dish pizza.
ethics
11-04-2002, 09:03 PM
Originally posted by ShinyTop
I am glad I already ate that deep dish pizza.
LMAO!
rofl
BigDeputyDog
11-04-2002, 09:13 PM
I don't have any horrible food stories (heck, I'll eat almost anything!) but I do have one about a horrible location...
While partaking of a meal consisting of chili cheese dogs one day, my partner and I were sent to assist on a possible airplane down... Grabbing up the mostly untouched meal, we headed out red lights and siren... Upon arrival, we found that a small, single engine plane had collided with a commercial liner and both had gone down in a bean field adjacent to a trailer park... With sandwiches still in hand, we were assigned one section of the field to canvas for valuables and anything left of the victims... Needless to say, at that point food was the last thing on our minds...
BDD...
ethics
11-04-2002, 09:15 PM
Augh. That's not good.
What valuables did they instruct you to find? Jewelry and stuff or like the Black Box type of things?
BigDeputyDog
11-04-2002, 09:20 PM
Jewelry, money, papers, etc... Anything of value... They were worried about looters...
Also, the M.E. wanted any and all body parts to try and make identification... very few parts bigger than a foot were found...
BDD...
ethics
11-04-2002, 09:23 PM
Was this your first time being exposed to something like this? I've worked in a hospital but brutal reality was sort of contained, controlled, you know what I mean?
Something like this tragedy, I mean how do you prepare for it mentally? Or do you? What goes through your mind when you see your first body part?
Sorry for the gory mood, I am genuinely curious, only because I sort of worked in the same type of environment, albeit different immensely also.
BigDeputyDog
11-04-2002, 09:32 PM
I've never been what one would call a squeamish type... As a kid, I was fascinated rather than repulsed by a wound... That's probably why I was headed for a medical degree before circumstances beyond my control required me to drop from school... LOL
I am a trained accident reconstructionist and a fatality specialist... I've probably set in on as many autopsies as most doctors have, if not a few more than some... I'm the one they call to put the pieces together to determine why people have been killed in an automobile accident... I've seen just about every way a person can be maimed and killed in, on or under a motor vehicle... I'm also a certified first aid instructor and acted as first responder on all first aid runs in our district... I was a paramedic before they knew what a paramedic was... ;)
BDD... :{)
ethics
11-04-2002, 09:34 PM
Jesus H...
I didn't know. That's great to know!!!
I will certainly be picking your brains (no pun intended please!!!) in the future when the topic calls for this!!! :)
I guess the answer to my question is that by the time you saw a body type, you already "been there done that" type of a thing?
BigDeputyDog
11-04-2002, 09:36 PM
Been there, done that... got the T-shirt, belt buckle, horse blanket, cap, whole ball of wax... hahahahahha
BDD... :{)
jamming
11-04-2002, 09:38 PM
My worse one was in the countryside where Americans haven't ever set foot in the memory of the people there. They had a Coke from WW2 that was only syrup, and damn they knew Americans had to drink coke and they had one there, so I drank at the time a 40yr old Coke that was 15 years older than I was.
mikeky
11-04-2002, 11:06 PM
Squirrel brains are starting to get a bad rap (link to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), so people may start passing on them (and maybe other animal brains as well if studies show a possible link?).
As far as disgusting dishes, I had lamb curry once at an Indian friend's house, prepared by his sister. He swears it's usually not like that, but I'm never, ever going to take that chance again. :eek:
ethics
11-04-2002, 11:36 PM
Originally posted by jamming
so I drank at the time a 40yr old Coke that was 15 years older than I was.
I guess this forum has gotten quite quiet in anticipation of the next, evolving question.
WHAT DOES A 40 year old COKE TASTE LIKE!??!~ :(
Jedi Writer
11-04-2002, 11:36 PM
A duck egg with the embryo inside is buried in the ground and left for quite some time till it gets real ripe, I mean really ripe. Then you dig it up and yummy.
Used to be a great delicacy in the Phillipines.
No I didn't eat it. I am not completely crazy.
ethics
11-04-2002, 11:37 PM
Originally posted by mikeky
As far as disgusting dishes, I had lamb curry once at an Indian friend's house, prepared by his sister. He swears it's usually not like that, but I'm never, ever going to take that chance again. :eek:
Indian food, so my Indian friends tell me, is supposed to be good for you. But I can't even tolerate the smell of curry. Yes, I know not all of Indian food is curried but the Indian eateries around me are stinking with it.
Sierra Mike
11-05-2002, 12:02 AM
Originally posted by Jedi Writer
A duck egg with the embryo inside is buried in the ground and left for quite some time till it gets real ripe, I mean really ripe. Then you dig it up and yummy.
Used to be a great delicacy in the Phillipines.
No I didn't eat it. I am not completely crazy. This is an export from China. I've had them before...I would not recommend it. It doesn't taste bad, per se, but I can't get used to the smell.
A lot of folks in China still love these things, and you can tell them by the smell of their breath...and by me taking a great big step back. ;)
SM
ethics
11-05-2002, 12:04 AM
Hold on, that egg has had a developed embryo?
Now that's just $*#*$ gross. No offense to the Chinese.
Sierra Mike
11-05-2002, 12:04 AM
Originally posted by ethics
Ewww, India I think.
China. Misappropriated for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and attributed to India. Not that I've ever had it, and I'm not sure it's still practiced there.
SM
Sierra Mike
11-05-2002, 12:05 AM
Originally posted by ethics
Hold on, that egg has had a developed embryo?
Now that's just $*#*$ gross. No offense to the Chinese. No, I don't think it's an embryo...just yolk. Which is still kinda grody.
SM
ethics
11-05-2002, 12:07 AM
Originally posted by Steve Moore
China. Misappropriated for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and attributed to India. Not that I've ever had it, and I'm not sure it's still practiced there.
SM
I must research this tomorrow. Too sleepy to do it now but you may be right.
Just want to make a note of it lest I make the same mistake again. :)
jamming
11-05-2002, 01:13 AM
Originally posted by ethics
I guess this forum has gotten quite quiet in anticipation of the next, evolving question.
WHAT DOES A 40 year old COKE TASTE LIKE!??!~ :(
Really Really Really bad Cane-Syrup with other seasonings thrown in. Luckily in hind sight, it was a lot better than the local beer, which was homebrewed and gave my driver the craps.
ethics
11-05-2002, 01:23 AM
Originally posted by jamming
Really Really Really bad Cane-Syrup with other seasonings thrown in. Luckily in hind sight, it was a lot better than the local beer, which was homebrewed and gave my driver the craps.
Ahhhh. I hate sugary cane like that. I think I will skip my daily Coke tomorrow. :)
Jedi Writer
11-05-2002, 01:31 AM
Originally posted by ethics
Hold on, that egg has had a developed embryo?
Now that's just $*#*$ gross. No offense to the Chinese. In the Phillipines it definitely had an embryo in it. Dead and how developed I do not know but definitely an embryo when I encountered it.
ditch
11-05-2002, 05:47 AM
Never tried 40 year old coke. But as a kid our family used to have crumbed brains and bacon with vegetables for dinner fairly often. Strange Australian custom maybe. I loved them. Offal such as liver and kidneys are fine also although i haven't eaten them in a long time. The Lebanese restaurants in Sydney serve brains in lemon juice and garlic. Very nice.
For dessert we used to have......
ditch
11-05-2002, 05:51 AM
Could never stomach pigs trotters and always send the tray away when having Yum Cha at the Chinese restaurants. Aussies eat kangaroo, buffalo, emu and New Zealanders eat possum. Not a lot of any of these but they are available.
ethics
11-05-2002, 08:11 AM
Cow Tongue is very popular in FSU. Stick garlic cloves in it and then boil it. Some horsredish and you are set!
How does Possum taste, Ditch? And don't tell me like chicken either! ;)
jamming
11-05-2002, 08:47 AM
Emu is tasty we have some farms that raise them and Ostriches. It tastes like a game meat though, very similar. Now I really like Beefalo, which is a cross between a Cow and an American Bison.
We have a gamefish in the estuaries of Florida, called a Snook, it is the worlds best meat to have smoked. I would almost take up fishing again for that. However, there are not as many of them in North Florida.
I spent a month on an estancia one summer when I was a kid. The cooks usually made tortas fritas on rainy days (no work in the fields), but this one particular day they had made empanadas as well. They were so fresh that they were still warm, and I tore into them with gusto. They were damn good eatin', and I was about halfway through my second when a cook came out of the kitchen. "What's in these?", I asked (in Spanish). "Sesos" was her one-word reply.
It gave me pause. But I had enjoyed the first 1 and 1/2 so much that I knew whatever revulsion I was feeling was probably unrelated to what I was eating. So finished the second, and had a third.
There is very little I haven't eaten and even less I haven't liked. If you want a bad food story I can tell you about my Grandma.
About 20 years ago, she was in the bus station in Phoenix and got a cup of Het Chocolate out of the vending machine. Little cup comes down, then some boiling liquid. You can get Cocoa, coffee, chicken broth. I am sure most people have at least seen them before. Any case, she is drinking the cocoa and there is a chunk of something in it and she thought it was cocoa that hadn't broken up, so she bites it in half and swallows the other half. After taking a couple more drinks she looks in the cup and there is the back half of a 1" cockroach floating in the cup. She threw up, and the bus station people put an out of order sign on the machine. I just wish it would have happened 15 years later when she could have sued Greyhound for millions.;)
wapu
Sierra Mike
11-05-2002, 08:21 PM
Originally posted by Jedi Writer
In the Phillipines it definitely had an embryo in it. Dead and how developed I do not know but definitely an embryo when I encountered it. Ick. Probably explains why I've pretty much avoided the Philippines in my travels.
SM
I have a story, not so much about the most disgusting thing, but it is food related.
A few years back, I worked in a store in the mall, and when it was time for dinner break (I worked nights), I went with a friend to Wendy's and got myself a double-stack and fries and soda. Ate the burger, but noticed that it tasted weird, but since it was getting late and I had to go back to work, I ate it quickly and went back.
That night I started having really bad pains. Started off as cramps, thought that maybe I just had to go to the bathroom. Over the course of the night, the pains got worse. I finally fell asleep, only to wake up vomitting all over my bed and bedroom floor. By morning, I was a crumbled up mess on the bathroom floor, and my body wouldn't stop with the vomitting reflex - I started puking up blood, and my grandmother (who was visiting us from NY at the time) got so scared, she called my parents (who were at church or something, don't remember exactly), and they in turn called a friend of mine who lived close by to take me to ER.
In ER, they saw I was in really bad shape - I was yellow from whatever was going in on my liver and kidneys, and I remember I was in much pain, felt REALLY sick, and just could NOT stop the vomitting, no matter what I did - the only thing that helped ease the nausea was sniffing rubbing alcohol, which I did and the nurses tried to take it away from me, saying it was bad for me.
They gave me several shots of something to stop the vomit reflex in my abdomen and put me on an IV. In about 3 hours, I had gone through 3 bags of liquid, I was that dehydrated. The Doctor tending to me had no idea what was wrong with me, and since there was nothing in my stomach they could analyze, decided to stick me in the hospital for observation - I was there for 3 days, until my symptoms dissappears and all tests the dr's administered showed negative for whatever they were testing me. The doc's concluded that I probably had a stomach virus or stomach flu, though they said they'd never had to put someone in the hospital for 3 days for one. I ended up having 7 bags of IV liquid during my 3 day stay at the hospital - and no food or drink. I lost about 10 pounds.
I haven't touched a wendy's double stack burger since - though I do admit, I do occassionaly have the bacon burger with all the veggies - but I don't eat at fast food places as much anymore. In fact, thanks to that incident, I developed a STRONG food aversion to meat, and didn't have meat for over a year - it wasn't until I started becoming anemic (for lack of iron and protein in my diet because I hate soy and wasn't having nearly enough of it or beans) that I had to force myself to eat meat.
Just thinking about it makes me sick... yuck. I haven't been a big red meat eater since, and being from south america, that is a HUGE deal.
ethics
11-06-2002, 12:43 AM
EMIG, that's sick but that's gotta be the only way to go around something like that, no?
Well, I wasn't going to boot all over my friend's parents' nice dining room... On a more serious note, it was actually a learning experience for me. I became much less fussy about food, and more willing to try new foods. The results have been good overall. I still don't think I'll be trying monkey brains or rotten duck embryos any time soon, though.
Misu - Sorry you had to go through that. Glad you came through it relatively unscathed. I'm Uruguayan also, and I think I'd turn to dust if I couldn't eat beef.
Originally posted by Jedi Writer
A duck egg with the embryo inside is buried in the ground and left for quite some time till it gets real ripe, I mean really ripe. Then you dig it up and yummy.
Used to be a great delicacy in the Phillipines.
No I didn't eat it. I am not completely crazy. It's called Balut, and they're usually buried in straw and turned to allow the embryo to develop, and then buried in the ground for ripening. In the LA area, there's a lot of stores that sell them...in Little Tokyo and Little Saigon. The oriental markets here are cross cultural ;)
ditch
11-06-2002, 05:17 AM
Originally posted by ethics
Cow Tongue is very popular in FSU. Stick garlic cloves in it and then boil it. Some horsredish and you are set!
How does Possum taste, Ditch? And don't tell me like chicken either! ;)
Chicken?? Never tried that. They tell me it tastes like possum.;)
ditch
11-06-2002, 05:23 AM
Originally posted by jamming
Emu is tasty we have some farms that raise them and Ostriches. It tastes like a game meat though, very similar. Now I really like Beefalo, which is a cross between a Cow and an American Bison.
We have a gamefish in the estuaries of Florida, called a Snook, it is the worlds best meat to have smoked. I would almost take up fishing again for that. However, there are not as many of them in North Florida.
Crocodile is another one that I forgot. Yes, Ostrich is popular in South Africa, dried till its like leather and called biltong. Its OK.
I have tried snook also in SA. Same fish as the one in Florida, I don't know. The waters around Capetown where they catch the snook are very cold, not like Florida I would think.
jamming
11-06-2002, 07:30 AM
Who knows if the Snook is the same or relatives (the Internet may know), but we do have Gator Meat products which I imagine is probably like crocodile. We have a Saltwater Crocodile here in Florida, but it is an endangered species. I have had Emu Jerky, which is a dried meat.
EMIG - thanks, everyone thought I was crazy for not eating meat. Like I said, it was a hard time, heh
Jamming - I think the gators are actually farm-raised for that purpose. You don't want to eat a gator that's been out eating god knows what in the waters of FLA. iCk.
My dad ate some really weird things during his life - but I have to say, the weirdest thing I think he ever ate was 1 week before his death (and no, it didn't cause his death, my dad apparantly was very sick from a long time before this), he had some venezuelan dish that entails a heaping serving of Yellow rice (rice cooked with Safron), in the shape of a pointy hill, garnished with SCORPION TAILS, protruding from the rice pile.
My dad said he was hesitant about eating it at first, but when he saw everyone else eating the scorpion tails, he figured what the hell - so he dug in, and said it tasted like chicken.
Everything seems to taste like chicken - here's a thought: EAT CHICKEN! heh
I blame the US "farm"(read: small box) raised chicken as part of the reason teenage girls have such huge hooters these days. I blame the hormones in the chicken coupled with the hormones in the milk. 2 things that were not as popular nor as drugged in previous generations.
wapu
I have eaten dog.
ethics
11-06-2002, 02:01 PM
Originally posted by wapu
I blame the US "farm"(read: small box) raised chicken as part of the reason teenage girls have such huge hooters these days. I blame the hormones in the chicken coupled with the hormones in the milk. 2 things that were not as popular nor as drugged in previous generations.
I agree. Chickens and Milk. I walk down 5th avenue and constantly saying, "Damn! Why weren't they this big when I was a teen?"
ditch
11-06-2002, 03:45 PM
Originally posted by wapu
I blame the US "farm"(read: small box) raised chicken as part of the reason teenage girls have such huge hooters these days. I blame the hormones in the chicken coupled with the hormones in the milk. 2 things that were not as popular nor as drugged in previous generations.
wapu
I have eaten dog.
Those possums in NZ have a similar effect. :)
jamming
11-06-2002, 04:00 PM
Originally posted by wapu
I have eaten dog.
Was it a Chow-Chow?