What is the most unusual food you have cooked or eaten?

Anne Miller wrote:

T Bate wrote: nopales (the pads not the fruit). He removed the spines, and I fried them with eggs.

I have had that dish, once when we lived in Mexico.  The dish was fixed by a neighbor.  Tasted like green beans and scrambled eggs to me.

I would probably try it again if the occasion arises.

I think "green beans" is a fair assessment, but to me they are milder tasting than green beans.


I've noticed that some people have put things that didn't occur to me to be unusual, so I guess I can add to my list.

Calamari/squid/octopus - chewy, but I like it.
I grew up on beef organ meats -
tongue (I love it, but the price has shot up to unreasonable levels),
kidneys (not a fan, but it's doable in small bits if soaked in vinegar water first to leach out the . . . you know . . . urine taste),
liver (not a fan, unless it's raw. Occasionally, I crave liver, and when I do, I crave it raw with salt on it),
heart (tastes good).

Maieshe Ljin wrote:

Susan Mené wrote:

Agreed! My brother made acorn bread when we were in our teens and it was dense-that was the first word that came to mind when I ate it.  
I would love to forage acorns and black walnuts and give a try at reducing their bitterness, and then using them in different recipes.  Unfortunately I developed an allergy to all tree nuts about a decade ago.

I also have varying allergies to almost all nuts—except for acorns, which are fine. So unless you have specifically reacted to them, there is an untested possibility that acorns are safe. I found out via the skin prick test, then trying small amounts and increasing.

But yes, there are so many butternuts and hickories around that I wish I could eat from. There are still jewelweed seeds though…

Thanks! You know, I haven't been tested for quite a while, and never specifically. to acorns.  Time to get retested.

Anne Miller wrote:

T Bate wrote: nopales (the pads not the fruit). He removed the spines, and I fried them with eggs.

I have had that dish, once when we lived in Mexico.  The dish was fixed by a neighbor.  Tasted like green beans and scrambled eggs to me.

I would probably try it again if the occasion arises.

Interesting, I had thought all North Americans had access to Mexican cuisine. I only had Nopales once when a workmate threw a party after some longer business exchange in the US. Honestly I can't remember how they tasted.

Anita Martin wrote:Interesting, I had thought all North Americans had access to Mexican cuisine. I only had Nopales once when a workmate threw a party after some longer business exchange in the US. Honestly I can't remember how they tasted.

Nopales is not usually on the menu at Mexican restaurants, at least the ones I have been to.  They are also not common at most grocery stores that I frequent.

Tacos and enchiladas are the most popular dishes.  Some restaurants have fish dishes though still none that I have been to.

Anne Miller wrote:

Anita Martin wrote:Interesting, I had thought all North Americans had access to Mexican cuisine. I only had Nopales once when a workmate threw a party after some longer business exchange in the US. Honestly I can't remember how they tasted.

Nopales is not usually on the menu at Mexican restaurants, at least the ones I have been to.  They are also not common at most grocery stores that I frequent.

I've noticed lately that a lot of the Mexican restaurants that I go to serve nopales as a side garnish on the dishes served.

You can get them in jars at a regular grocery store, like Walmart. They will be labeled Nopalitos or Tender Cactus.

Armadillo. Best meat I have ever eaten.
Whale. Worst meat I have ever eaten. Was served it unaware, not being able to read the menu except for the word 'steak'.
Horse, raw. Pretty good.

Nancy Reading wrote:What is unusual is definitely dependent on your culture and location (Haggis anyone ?)

Exactly!
Before I emigrated from the country I was born,  I learned I was eating:
Blood sausage, calf's brain, veil, caviar, headcheese and who knows what else!?
I wouldn't  (and haven't) touched those, and more, since I became an adult living in another country, having access to foods information and variety of cultures I became interested in.

It's kind of weird that while my grandmother had huge farm, where I spend time for many years with lots of animals, I just never made the connection back then !?

On a side note, WOW! some people certainly have/had more "culinary balls" then I ever could! LOL

When I was in Peace Corps training in Cameroon, Africa, I was invited to a rather fancy dinner.  One of the dishes was huge slugs, bigger than my thumb.  If you could overlook what it was, they were tasty, about the consistency and flavor of scallops.  Once I was at my post in the bush, the locals ate termites.  I didn't mind eating them cooked, but I always turned down the offer of eating live ones right out of the termite mounds.

A well grown rice field rat (caught far away from Villages) is high priced in Thailand.
Tastes like rabbit I would say after trying it.

I lived and taught in rural Alaska in a native American community.  I ate what they ate when at community gatherings.
Odd things I ate:
*Mousefood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousefood
*Walrus Skin (it's like really greasy pork)
*Seal Meat (very dark meat... looks like liver, but tastes like fish)
*Whitefish eggs minutes after being taken out of the fish
*Fermented Seal Fat (imagine a rancid chunk of yellow fat with the texture of a bicycle tire)
*Whale blubber

Here is a video I made with (mostly) my pictures.

The oddest I have ever tried, and it was truly delicious, is a pheasant that my grandpa shot. It was in the fall, so he didn't pluck it or empty it until... a lot later. Specifically, he waited, he said, until the brain started draining through its beak, approximately 10 days[ It was hung on the porch by the feet.]
Mom was terrified at the bluish flesh of that pheasant. Yet it was the most tender and the sweetest meat I ever had. When he plucked it, he didn't have to scald it: It was so tender that just pulling gently on the feathers was enough.
What he explained to me is that, essentially digestion is a form of putrefaction.
If you start the putrefaction outside of your body, digesting the pheasant prepared that way is a lot easier on the system. Cooking it well kills whatever might harm you but the controlled putrefaction has tenderized it.
He baked it and added a bit of wine and quite a few mushrooms.
I suspect that is why they hang deer for a week or so before processing it, but the deer must be gutted.
Grandpa passed of old age and hanging pheasants was no longer practiced in my family. Pity!
Another thing grandma did was crocking meat: She raised goats and sheep and pigs and chickens, but especially ducks and geese. Ducks and geese, when roasted, drip a lot of fat, and duck fat in particular is highly superior because it is finely grained and solid at room temperature. It can even be reused if you filter it properly.
So you bake the goose or the duck on a rack and you recover the fat, filter it while it is still hot and save it for future use in crocks [I use a half gallon container with stainless steel lid and ring].
after that, whenever you have cooked too much meat, or just to 'can' it, remove the skin, the bones and the gristle and pack it in crocks while hot. Then pour the hot duck fat over it so it is completely covered. Agitate a bit to remove air bubbles and seal it: there will not be harmful bacteria from the air because you deprived the meat of air..
Whenever you want some of that cooked meat, dig it out and it is ready: You can eat it cold or hot. Just make sure you reheat the duck fat and filter it to put it back on so there is no trapped air
The fancy "pâté de foie gras" that is so expensive, is technically just crocked goose liver.
By the way, stuffing the goose is not really necessary as a goose will stuff itself naturally if you give it a rich diet.  The cruelty is only necessary to "Go big or go home" as they say here. The livers of well fed geese are naturally fat. Those livers just are not as big so it take more livers.
The rillettes are the same type of preservation but with slow cooked pork  finely shredded in its own lard [or into duck fat] to make a spread. a rich meat dish that sounds pretty fancy but is incredibly easy to make.
In those days, everyone had a cold cellar to store these crocks of meat. It is only when they are stored in a warm room that the fat may go rancid.

Anita Martin wrote:
I have eaten natto and all  kinds of fermented stuff, but have never eaten a typical northern German "Grünkohl mit Pinkel", a dish made with kale and some kind of sausage.

Natto is the most revolting thing I've ever eaten, kudos to you!

And the taste of blood sausage is ok, but the texture makes only a few bites possible for me.  My brain starts telling me, "little popping blood corpuscles!" and I'm done.  Weirdly, I love the popping texture of fish eggs.  Brains are weird.

Ironically, in Hamburg it's only on menus as "Grünkohl" and while I like kale I never felt the urge to make a meal of it.  Then a co-diner ordered it and I said, "Wait, there's a sausage in there?"  Also a big chunk of ham!  The kale itself is a tad on the salty side, but otherwise one can pretend one is being healthy by eating a huge plate of greens. :)

I work right next to the Fischmarkt, and have bought smoked eel from "Aale Dieter" https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aale-Dieter - I found it ok, but the cats went completely bonkers for it, climbing all over me.  They ended up with the majority of it.

And traditionally here herring "Matjes" season involves a lot of brötchen with thin slices of herring.  The skin being left on is fine but I balk at fins.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:The oddest I have ever tried, and it was truly delicious, is a pheasant that my grandpa shot. It was in the fall, so he didn't pluck it or empty it until... a lot later. Specifically, he waited, he said, until the brain started draining through its beak, approximately 10 days[ It was hung on the porch by the feet.]
Mom was terrified at the bluish flesh of that pheasant. Yet it was the most tender and the sweetest meat I ever had. When he plucked it, he didn't have to scald it: It was so tender that just pulling gently on the feathers was enough.
What he explained to me is that, essentially digestion is a form of putrefaction.
If you start the putrefaction outside of your body, digesting the pheasant prepared that way is a lot easier on the system. Cooking it well kills whatever might harm you but the controlled putrefaction has tenderized it.
He baked it and added a bit of wine and quite a few mushrooms.
I suspect that is why they hang deer for a week or so before processing it, but the deer must be gutted.
Grandpa passed of old age and hanging pheasants was no longer practiced in my family. Pity!
Another thing grandma did was crocking meat: She raised goats and sheep and pigs and chickens, but especially ducks and geese. Ducks and geese, when roasted, drip a lot of fat, and duck fat in particular is highly superior because it is finely grained and solid at room temperature. It can even be reused if you filter it properly.
So you bake the goose or the duck on a rack and you recover the fat, filter it while it is still hot and save it for future use in crocks [I use a half gallon container with stainless steel lid and ring].
after that, whenever you have cooked too much meat, or just to 'can' it, remove the skin, the bones and the gristle and pack it in crocks while hot. Then pour the hot duck fat over it so it is completely covered. Agitate a bit to remove air bubbles and seal it: there will not be harmful bacteria from the air because you deprived the meat of air..
Whenever you want some of that cooked meat, dig it out and it is ready: You can eat it cold or hot. Just make sure you reheat the duck fat and filter it to put it back on so there is no trapped air
The fancy "pâté de foie gras" that is so expensive, is technically just crocked goose liver.
By the way, stuffing the goose is not really necessary as a goose will stuff itself naturally if you give it a rich diet.  The cruelty is only necessary to "Go big or go home" as they say here. The livers of well fed geese are naturally fat. Those livers just are not as big so it take more livers.
The rillettes are the same type of preservation but with slow cooked pork  finely shredded in its own lard [or into duck fat] to make a spread. a rich meat dish that sounds pretty fancy but is incredibly easy to make.
In those days, everyone had a cold cellar to store these crocks of meat. It is only when they are stored in a warm room that the fat may go rancid.

I really enjoyed (and learned from) this post!  Thank you so much for sharing this info and your memories.

Thomas Dean wrote:I lived and taught in rural Alaska in a native American community.  I ate what they ate when at community gatherings.
Odd things I ate:
*Mousefood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousefood
*Walrus Skin (it's like really greasy pork)
*Seal Meat (very dark meat... looks like liver, but tastes like fish)
*Whitefish eggs minutes after being taken out of the fish
*Fermented Seal Fat (imagine a rancid chunk of yellow fat with the texture of a bicycle tire)
*Whale blubber

Here is a video I made with (mostly) my pictures.

You win! Hands down!

I have eaten gamle ost in Norway.  It means old cheese.  It is stinky dry crumbly strong flavored cheese and one grain can smell up a house and apparently old people loved it because most of their taste buds were gone.   Much nicer was something called gulbrandsdalost. It's a bit like marzipan but it is an actual cheese. I liked it enough to buy it in Ireland and in Canada.  Where it was very pricy.  I like scorzonera. Its a root vegetable.  You parboil the thing, then lightly rub off the outer skin (rub it off, don't peel) and then cook it.  Tastes wonderful.  If you don't parboil it, your hands will gum up and be yellow for days from the white sap. (It has been used to make rubber).  norwegen brown cheese and heres the link for the old cheese  Old norwegen cheese

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:The oddest I have ever tried, and it was truly delicious, is a pheasant that my grandpa shot. It was in the fall, so he didn't pluck it or empty it until... a lot later. Specifically, he waited, he said, until the brain started draining through its beak, approximately 10 days[ It was hung on the porch by the feet.]
Mom was terrified at the bluish flesh of that pheasant. Yet it was the most tender and the sweetest meat I ever had. When he plucked it, he didn't have to scald it: It was so tender that just pulling gently on the feathers was enough.
What he explained to me is that, essentially digestion is a form of putrefaction.
If you start the putrefaction outside of your body, digesting the pheasant prepared that way is a lot easier on the system. Cooking it well kills whatever might harm you but the controlled putrefaction has tenderized it.
He baked it and added a bit of wine and quite a few mushrooms.
I suspect that is why they hang deer for a week or so before processing it, but the deer must be gutted.
Grandpa passed of old age and hanging pheasants was no longer practiced in my family. Pity!
Another thing grandma did was crocking meat: She raised goats and sheep and pigs and chickens, but especially ducks and geese. Ducks and geese, when roasted, drip a lot of fat, and duck fat in particular is highly superior because it is finely grained and solid at room temperature. It can even be reused if you filter it properly.
So you bake the goose or the duck on a rack and you recover the fat, filter it while it is still hot and save it for future use in crocks [I use a half gallon container with stainless steel lid and ring].
after that, whenever you have cooked too much meat, or just to 'can' it, remove the skin, the bones and the gristle and pack it in crocks while hot. Then pour the hot duck fat over it so it is completely covered. Agitate a bit to remove air bubbles and seal it: there will not be harmful bacteria from the air because you deprived the meat of air..
Whenever you want some of that cooked meat, dig it out and it is ready: You can eat it cold or hot. Just make sure you reheat the duck fat and filter it to put it back on so there is no trapped air
The fancy "pâté de foie gras" that is so expensive, is technically just crocked goose liver.
By the way, stuffing the goose is not really necessary as a goose will stuff itself naturally if you give it a rich diet.  The cruelty is only necessary to "Go big or go home" as they say here. The livers of well fed geese are naturally fat. Those livers just are not as big so it take more livers.
The rillettes are the same type of preservation but with slow cooked pork  finely shredded in its own lard [or into duck fat] to make a spread. a rich meat dish that sounds pretty fancy but is incredibly easy to make.
In those days, everyone had a cold cellar to store these crocks of meat. It is only when they are stored in a warm room that the fat may go rancid.

You make me wish you had a cookbook with all of this stuff in it. Not sure I'd want a bird that had aged so long its brains had liquefied, though.

For the "viande faisandée", I could only find this:
https://blog.epicery.com/viande-faisandee-viande-maturee-quest-ce-que-cest/
Which I am afraid is not terribly helpful. The sad fact is that just like in this country, the "old ways" are disappearing, pushed back by commercialization and the fear of getting sick from eating tainted meat. Similarly, we rarely "glass" eggs in pickling lime, as we can pretty much buy eggs or get hens that also lay in  the winter, but glassing eggs is pretty much a lost art.
So now, for another example, a hen's eggs can stay safe under a brooding hen, whose temperature is 105-110 degrees F (40.5-43.3 C) for 21 days, but many people would have a conniption if an egg carton is left out of the fridge for more than a few hours.
Plainly speaking, that is not necessary: If you harvest your own eggs, you can keep them safely, unwashed on the counter top for about 20 days. In these large commercial battery houses where those unfortunate hens are kept in a tiny cage on a slanted wire so her daily egg can be immediately harvested, WASHED, [which unfortunately washes away the preserving "bloom" of the egg], there is a great fear of contamination. The industry has brainwashed people into keeping their eggs in the fridge. Since those eggs have the bloom washed off of them, it may be better because the egg could be contaminated easier once the bloom is off.
When a hunter harvests a deer, though, the hunter does a first cleaning in the field, removing the guts and other organs, and then hanging the deer for a while. That is very much the same treatment as my grandpa's pheasant, and for the same reasons. The deer's body, just killed, is loose: you can bend the joins easily. Then comes a state of "rigor mortis" [stiffening of all the muscles fibers] and as you wait longer, the meat "relaxes" and you can bend the joints again. At that point, the meat is getting more tender and flavorful, just like grandpa's pheasant. Note that  the word "faisandée. comes form the French word "faisant", meaning pheasant. Viande faisandée. literally means meat that is treated like that of a pheasant.        [Pheasant is a notoriously drier meat. Hanging it in this manner allows the meat to reach its first stage of putrefaction, stage at which it becomes tender].
Another thing to remember, is that humans, from their earlier days were hunting meat and treating it without today's conveniences. I suppose a number of them died from eating tainted meat, but most made it through, so I suspect that in the back of our head, we have an idea that a meat is "safe" or not safe" from our ancestors' memory through the generations. It "smells right", or doesn't "smell right".

I had steak tartare once, at a well regarded restaurant that specialized in that dish. Obviously their preparation and cleaning protocols were up to snuff, since none of us got sick.

Once was enough. It was weird and slimy but flavourful. Now, my meat goes on the grill.

Though it would be interesting to sample traditional Inuit meats, fresh and raw from seal or whale, as a cultural experience. I read once that sailors from the Franklin expedition were offered these things but chose to starve to death instead.

The confit is a very old method to keep cooked meat safe without a fridge. It is most often done with ducks or geese because these birds render a great deal of fat, and this fat is extremely healthy. It does not have a gamey taste, which I appreciate. It is also very fine grained, so it penetrates all the nooks and crannies of the meat to be crocked. It doesn't allow for air to get through. Long after the war, mom had a crock, an earthen container with a good fitting lid. She ended up using not just ducks and geese but also any cut of cooked meat: pork, beef, chicken. The never tried with a turkey, but she probably could have done that... [ not fish, though] in duck/ goose fat.
As you may know, these animals can be fattened by forced feeding to artificially make them produce enormous livers which are then processed as "foie gras" [fat liver paste]'.
I don't like that idea, although they do not appear to suffer and allow the farmer to grab them and feed them every day. I find that unnecessary: Ducks and geese naturally tend to overeat anyway. You will not get these enormous livers but a good goose will still give a fair amount of fat, even if not artificially fattened. You just might need the fat of 3-4 geese to correctly crock your cooked meat.
It helps to skin the animal and render that fat separately and filter it with a flour sac if you want to use that strictly as a preserving method and process the fat separately, but both methods work fine.
Put the goose in water with a bit of salt for about 24 hrs., then rinse and cook your meat the way you intended, usually baked, on a rack so you can harvest the fat if you kept the skin on.. [I usually keep the skin on: Hubby like the crackling skin]. Once the goose is cooked and the meat falls off the bones, that's when you are ready to proceed: Remove the goose from the pan and recover the fat. Make sure you filter it well.  [A flour sac is good for this, or a jelly bag. Do not wait or the fat will start to harden and then you may not be able to keep the meat covered. Remove the bones so it is easier to keep the meat submerged. Cut the meat in manageable pieces and put it in a clean crock [or one of these half gallon ball jars with lid]
Heat up the fat if it has cooled [this way, it flows in all the nooks and crannies]. Push the meat under the fat and hand tighten the lid [no need to process in a canner, Yippee!] You are done!
The success of the method depends entirely on making very sure the meat is totally submerged. so make sure you will have enough goose fat to do the job.
Grandma kept it down in the cellar. Mom felt better putting it in an icebox which wasn't really handy, and once she could afford one, in a fridge.
If you take care to completely cover the meat and can keep it in a cool place, a crock of meat can remain very good for 4 years.
Using the meat  is simple: You can eat it cold, like sandwich meat, or make a soup: Bring it up to a warmer area and fish the meat out of the crock. If you don't use all of it, it can go back in the crock. Just make you you cover it again with some hot fat.

T.Bates mentioned calamari/ octopus, tongue, saying that the calamari was a bit chewy. The secret with tender calamari or octopus it to not overcook, just like deer heart. Tongue, on the other hand, I put in the pressure cooker so I can peel the tongue. After that, the way I like it best is with a spicy tomato sauce.
For the kidneys there is a trick: they have to be peeled carefully, and it is not very easy to peel each little ball. Cut the kidney lengthwise so you can cut out the objectionable membrane, that  thick vein, on he inside; It is especially that tough vein that doesn't taste good. After that they need to soak. [in the fridge, 24 hours, but I didn't put vinegar. I didn't need to.]
to cook them, I roll them in flour and fry them with winecap mushrooms or whatever tasty mushrooms you have, also rolled in flour. Cook in butter. Finally, and that's the best part, add either a Madeira wine or a good Burgundy. I guarantee, there will not be any pee taste!]. Wine is so expensive in this country that I substitute my cheap beet wine. It is really tasty!

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:Put the goose in water with a bit of salt for about 24 hrs., then rinse and cook your meat the way you intended, usually baked, on a rack so you can harvest the fat if you kept the skin on..

What temperature and cooking time/pound do you use? I'm struggling to get my goose to be tender when I cook them. Mind you, I haven't had many to practice on as we don't have enough space to raise too many.

Going back to the perception of usual or unusual:  calamari, scungili, and polpo ( squid, conch, and octopus) are so commonplace
for my husband's family that I have long since stopped thinking of them as unusual.  Growing up, I never once was exposed to them; however, had it landed on my plate I would have been required to try it.  A wonderful rule of my mother's.  I hated it sometimes as a child, but it has opened my mind to trying anything.  

I hear that moose eyeballs are creamy and delicious, but I wouldn't know.  

The "steak Tartare", is essentially raw meat [freshly ground, of course] with mustard and capers or cornichons  chopped onion, mustard, lemon juice,  Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Those are the basic ingredients of the classic Steak Tartare. The Steak Tartare "Madame" has a raw egg yolk added on top.
It was really our British friends across the channel who eventually convinced French gastronomers [and French laws] to change  and not use horse meat. But originally the real Steak Tartare was made exclusively with horse meat. The reason is simple: That meat is devoid of fat, so it is better cooked very little or it becomes... tough like the sole of my shoes.
In the 60s, I was sitting at a cafe when I overheard behind me a British couple looking at a menu... in French.
The names of the various meats were unrecognizable to them, and so, they settle on the only one they recognized: "Steak". but it was "Steak Tartare". I turned around and sure enough, a couple in their 50s, freshly unloaded at the Gare Du Nord. Sweet people, but they had no clue. I explained:" Actually, you might be happier with "Boeuf Wellington" or "Poulet Marie Brizzard. You see, Steak tartare is actually ground horse meat, and it is served cold ... and raw". They were very shocked, absolutely horrified: You eat horsemeat???. I confessed: "yes, ma'm. It is absolutely delicious, nutritionally superior and very good for you". They remained unconvinced.
You see, horses, in England are most often used as 'saddle' horses, and they think of it as a 'noble' and intelligent animal who should not be butchered.
In France, in the 60s and 70s, horses were most often used as draft horses, for ploughing. There are definite criteria for the shape of the limbs, how the hose stands, so that a horse is fit to the task. An inferior subject is culled while still young            [barely adult size, before reproducing], and that horse meat has to be used. That's why: Steak tartare. But horse meat, to connoisseurs in France has the reputation of being actually superior to beef. A butcher shop selling horse meat has to be clearly marked as "Boucherie chevaline" and is not allowed to sell other meats. Pox on he who would sneak beef for horse!.
The French tend to undercook their meat and overcook their vegetables. Raw horse meat is perfect in that regard, and you must use meat that has been ground under your eyes: since you will eat it raw, you cannot use meat that was ground the day before and is sitting in a tray.
It is nowadays impossible to find horsemeat in France: French farmers use small machinery [they have small plots of land], and a saddle horse is a luxury that few can afford. What a pity. The steak tartare is one of my favorites. I've had steak tartare of beef. It just isn't the same: there is a stickiness due to the raw fat. Americans like their beef "well marbled", so that it acquires that delicious grilled taste.
My British couple was outraged, almost angry. I almost let them pick "cuisses de grenouilles" [Frog legs", but I didn't have the heart. they were so cute.

Hundreds of whole mice while living primitively. A deadfall trap squeezes the poop out then throw that sucker in a fire to singe off the tail and hair and you have veritable easy of flavors! Nibble a thigh here and the brains there or blend them all in one mouth size bite!

I guess the most unusual foods I've eaten are rattlesnake and alligator. The rattlesnake because it needed to be killed and we didn't want to waste it. Alligator because it's not that uncommon in Louisiana, where I lived at the time.

I have to add that a fascinating book on unusual foods is Bill Mollison's The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition. He's traveled all over the world and lived with some amazing peoples. He tells you how to prepare these foods too.

Oh, thank you, Cécile, for reminding me of a thing I love here:  ein halbes Mett.

It’s half a bun (the halbes) piled high with raw ground pork and topped with raw minced onion.  As an American from the land of trichinosis, the thought of eating raw pork makes me twitch.  But here you can get this in almost any bakery, not even in the refrigerated case.  So far I have not died, though I have had to discreetly pick bits out from between my teeth.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:It is nowadays impossible to find horsemeat in France:....

In Italy a few months ago we were supposed to have a local meal involving stewed donkey. But for similar reasons, it is now impossible to find donkeys. We had the same meal with old cows instead, apparently. Long-stewed meat, I suppose it could have been anything.

I was surprised to find in Japan that horsemeat was actually quite better than I thought it would be. We ate it as sashimi, at a place that did sashimi of many other animals as well (deer, chicken, beef). What was really interesting was learning that each type of sashimi had a specific anti-parasite accompaniment: garlic, horseradish, wasabi, ginger.

I used to eat horse meat when I was in France, and here in California when I could find it. I quite like it. In France they have separate butchers for it (Or did fifty years ago when I lived there).
I was very upset when it was made illegal in California. Pure sentimentality.

Tereza Okava wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:It is nowadays impossible to find horsemeat in France:....

In Italy a few months ago we were supposed to have a local meal involving stewed donkey. But for similar reasons, it is now impossible to find donkeys. We had the same meal with old cows instead, apparently. Long-stewed meat, I suppose it could have been anything.

I was surprised to find in Japan that horsemeat was actually quite better than I thought it would be. We ate it as sashimi, at a place that did sashimi of many other animals as well (deer, chicken, beef). What was really interesting was learning that each type of sashimi had a specific anti-parasite accompaniment: garlic, horseradish, wasabi, ginger.

In the French version, it is mustard and Tabasco sauce that are anti-parasitic. So yes, just in case. I cannot handle wasabi, and horseradish, only in very small doses. I last was in France in 2005, with my students and I wanted to show them a "Boucherie Chevaline" with the picture of a horse hanging outside, but the one I knew in the Latin Quarter in Paris was gone. My sister told me she hasn't seen one in a while in Brittany or Normandy either. It is a pity. I can be sentimental as all heck about horses, but when they have to go, people might as well make use of the meat, rather than take it to the glue factory, which only uses the bones and I believe the hooves too.
What happens to the meat? Well, I suspect a few Fidos and Tabbies are the beneficiaries.

Real Scottish Haggis, while delicious, is definitely not something you can get here in the US. Ground up sheep heart, lungs and liver, cooked inside a sheep stomach.

I have also tried chitlins, and while many do not consider that unusual, eating pig intestines in hot sauce was pretty unusual for me.

Bruce Southers wrote:Real Scottish Haggis, while delicious, is definitely not something you can get here in the US. Ground up sheep heart, lungs and liver, cooked inside a sheep stomach.

I have also tried chitlins, and while many do not consider that unusual, eating pig intestines in hot sauce was pretty unusual for me.

I have not tried Haggis yet, but pig intestines, yes. Folks can be disgusted by intestines, and yet, sausages are often wrapped in them. The dish you are thinking of in French is "andouillette". Andouillette (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃dujɛt]) is a French coarse-grained sausage made from the intestine of pork, with pepper, wine, onions, and seasonings.
The intestine is turned inside out and scrubbed so that what goes in the sausage is only the white muscle that helps in pushing the transit down the duodenum on out. It doesn't taste at all like what it was pushing through. The wine, onions and seasonings make it pretty good. If you were not told what the main ingredient is, you would have to look it at pretty close.
The other one is "boudin", or blood sausage. My dad helped the local butcher prepare the blood, and he told me that was pretty gross: The pig was dispatched, then hung by the ankles and very quickly bled. but you don't put the blood as is inside the sausage. [That would be a disgusting blood clot!]. You have to remove the platelets [which helps blood coagulate]. You have to use a little reed, partly split in half and keep stirring for what seems an eternity, until all the platelets stick to the reed. [Essentially, you are left with the part of the blood that will not coagulate. To that, you add seasonings and 1/4" little cubes of fat, you pour it into a long sausage casing that you tie and you roll it [like a garden hose] inside a pan. Boiling it in water on low heat eventually hardens the sausage, which is really excellent. I love it fried in butter with a bit of applesauce nearby. Yum!

Bruce Southers wrote:Real Scottish Haggis, while delicious, is definitely not something you can get here in the US. Ground up sheep heart, lungs and liver, cooked inside a sheep stomach.

I have also tried chitlins, and while many do not consider that unusual, eating pig intestines in hot sauce was pretty unusual for me.

I had haggis in Scotland.  It was ok, but not my favorite.

Brian White wrote: I like scorzonera. Its a root vegetable.  You parboil the thing, then lightly rub off the outer skin (rub it off, don't peel) and then cook it.  Tastes wonderful.  If you don't parboil it, your hands will gum up and be yellow for days from the white sap. (It has been used to make rubber).

The scorzonera sounded very familiar so I looked it up. It is Schwarzwurzel in German, a previously common vegetable that fell a bit out of favour due to its laborious preparation. I remember I looked it up for some other thread here on permies, it is black salsify in English. Is it not known in the US?

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Plainly speaking, that is not necessary: If you harvest your own eggs, you can keep them safely, unwashed on the counter top for about 20 days. In these large commercial battery houses where those unfortunate hens are kept in a tiny cage on a slanted wire so her daily egg can be immediately harvested, WASHED, [which unfortunately washes away the preserving "bloom" of the egg], there is a great fear of contamination. The industry has brainwashed people into keeping their eggs in the fridge. Since those eggs have the bloom washed off of them, it may be better because the egg could be contaminated easier once the bloom is off.

I was mind-blown when I saw a post in my FB feed from a US lady that lamented that she had to throw away a big carton of eggs because she had forgotten to put it back in the fridge the night before. I know all the facts about eggs being washed in the US etc. but leaving eggs at room temperature for a few hours? You could always boil them if you were afraid. Throwing away precious food in that way was something I could not wrap my head around, but the lady insisted she was not going to poison her family willingly. I am well aware most permies would not be so hysterical but it made me realize that some differences are deeply engrained in everyday culture - like the "3 second rule" or whatever it is called. A German would laugh very hard at this. As long as your food did not drop on dog poop a lot of people would still eat it, especially if it dropped in your own house.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
It is nowadays impossible to find horsemeat in France: French farmers use small machinery [they have small plots of land], and a saddle horse is a luxury that few can afford. What a pity.

I believe there is only one horse butcher in Munich (located on the famous Viktualienmarkt).
I confess I was never tempted to buy there, and not only because the market is very pricey altogether.

Anita Martin wrote:The scorzonera sounded very familiar so I looked it up. It is Schwarzwurzel in German, a previously common vegetable that fell a bit out of favour due to its laborious preparation. I remember I looked it up for some other thread here on permies, it is black salsify in English. Is it not known in the US?

I see it in upscale grocers in the US. I don't think I've ever bought one.

Regarding eggs, I can’t count the number of popular restaurants I have seen that stack unrefrigerated cartons of eggs next to the flat top during the breakfast rush.

I got to taste a White Sapote when I was in Hawai'i with a friend. They are in the persimmon family, but I'm not aware of anyone growing them in North America. Not sure what the range is - what ecosystem they need.

I grow white sapote in California, as do some acquaintances. I'm about at the northern extent of its range, it's much more common in southern CA. My neighbor's Mexican gardener was excited to see it.
However, it's in the citrus family (though nothing like the usual citrus). Black sapote is in the persimmon family. Sapote just means fruit, there are many unrelated ones.

i know i've mentioned it elsewhere here on Permies, I think the most unusual food for my cultural background was roasted silkworm larvae, although at the time i ate them absolutely without a second thought, they smelled so amazing and the taste and texture didn't disappoint.

Similarly, fried grasshoppers (yum) and dried salamanders (okay, if hard to tell apart from dried squid), a bit outside my normal diet. This was in mountainous rural northern Japan, far from the ocean, where traditionally they did not turn up their noses at available protein.

Another food I loved that I didn't expect to enjoy was jellyfish: in Japan I often enjoyed this vinegary jellyfish and mushroom salad.

I saw that Jay mentioned rattlesnakes.

If anyone wants to try some here is how to cook a snake:

https://permies.com/t/72090/Cook-Snake-Deboning