I used to buy my daddy a jar of pigs feet every Father's Day. :)

A sister worked at a grocery store one summer in the meat department and she said "If you knew what was in ham salad, you'd never eat it again." I can imagine, but I don't care. I love it anyway.

Now that I think about it, Tripe IS stomach (I think).

Anybody ever had pickled pigs feet? My mom used to eat that shit as a snack LOL.

Yum Yum! I grew up eating barbacoa (head of cattle) in South Texas. It's such a specialty, that it's only sold on Sundays! For the best taste, you really should cook it in a pit. And no, it's not the same kind of barbacoa sold at Chipotle... that's just regular beef, not the head, but same principle.

I also love sweet bread, which is the thymus gland or pancreas of a young animal (lamb, calf, etc). When it's fried and served with a nice jus or creme sauce, it's delicious!!

And of course, you can never go wrong with foie gras (duck/goose liver), or pâté.

I grew up eating all kinds of "delicacies" like this as I grew up on a ranch, because we never waste a part of an animal, but now that I'm married to a chef trained in french cuisine, he appreciates my "sophisticated" palate!

I'll try almost anything once, and I generally like what I've tried so far, with the exception of a couple of things.

I tried frog legs, and loved the taste. It tasted just like fried chicken, like people I know have said. However, I just couldn't get past the look of them. Long, linky, frog legs. I couldn't get past that, and because of that, it changed the taste entirely. Since frog legs are psychological for me, maybe if they were cut in small pieces on a plate, and I wasn't told what it was, then I would like them, I guess.

I wish I could like raw oysters, because I love them steamed. My uncle makes them look so good when he eats them raw. He puts hot sauce on them, and lets it slide down. I tried it, made an attempt to chew, and I gagged because of the slime. Then I tried another, and attempted to let it slide down, but that was worse. I want to like them because they look good when I see other people eat them. I guess it's just an acquired taste.

That's it right there.

My parents grew up poor in the 1920s and '30s way, way up in the mountains of North Carolina. Both on farms. No McDonald's down the road, no pizza on call. My mom was one of 8 kids. You ate what was put on the table and were glad to have something - anything - to eat.

The parents both enjoyed pickled pigs feet, brains with scrambled egg. They crumbled their cornbread into milk and craved buttermilk on hot summer days. Mom would often talk about grabbing a chicken out in the yard, wringing its neck and all the rest for fried chicken - that was a special dinner! She would yearn for fresh squirrel, which her daddy or uncles would kill out in the woods.

I still marvel that she would feed us, about once a week or so, slices of fried fatback with the rind on one side.:eek: Yes, that was our meat for the night, with fried cabbage, diced and fried potatoes and biscuits or cornbread (made with bacon grease).

I later learned that very, very few people ate like that, even in the South.

My dad and I would enjoy a snack of potted ham on crackers. Potted ham is a step below deviled ham!

It spread because until 100 or so years ago, pretty much everyone except the very rich fell into the category of people who couldn't afford to waste any of the animal. And lots of those people had to sell (or pay as rent) the "desirable" parts, so all they had left was the organ meats and the like. Sometimes I wonder if modern American disdain for organ meats is really rooted in an association of those foods with poverty. We shun them because we've risen above them to the middle class. (Well, that and we've lost a real understanding of where our foods come from and what's involved in getting to our tables.)

Otherwise, ditto what Low C Sharp said.

Sorry, but blech. :D

Seriously, I love calf's liver. I love haggis. But I've never understood how anyone can think that foie gras (which isn't just duck or goose liver -- it's the liver of a goose or duck that had been force fed corn to make it fatter) or pâté tastes anything approaching good. I know many people sincerely like them, but I wonder if for some the opposite of what I described above is going on -- these foods are considered delicacies and are foods of the rich, so we should like them. But I just can't take the flavor or the texture.

I love blue crab and raw oysters. When I went to school in Maryland, I'd stop by one of those roadside crab stands when I was coming home for breaks and pick up a styrofoam crate full of steamed crabs. The first time I did this...my mom LOVED them, my dad said it was too much work for too little meat, and my sister said, "yuck! I am not eating this!" My mom and I decided we'd pick the rest in the morning and make crab cakes. When I woke up the next morning, she was already at the kitchen sink picking crabs! Everyone loved the crab cakes.

I will not eat any kind of organ meat. We used to go to a mom-and-pop place for Sunday dinner when I was little, and my mom always ordered the chicken livers and my dad got the chicken gizzards. Both were sauteed with onions. My sister and I HATED going there, because we couldn't stand watching our parents eat that stuff.

I have a serious ethical problem with foie gras, and it has even been banned in California. The preparation is incredibly inhumane, and I don't think any animal should have to suffer to that degree to become my appetizer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)

I live in the Philippines right now.

It's not so much the idea of the food, but the texture. When I was younger I'd eat chicken hearts and gizzards all the time. I still can't stand cottage cheese or bananas though. Yogurt can be hit or miss as well. Chicken feet never were attractive however... I do still love getting a fresh crab and picking it to death. I had that last weekend. I really dislike things that still have heads on it such as fish.

I still don't understand how we got some of the vegetables we have like artichokes. How desperate do you have to be to decide "hmm this prickly thing will be great steamed/boiled if we scrape the innards off with our teeth." Eggs are another difficult idea. How many times does someone try raw eggs before they realize cooking is important?

Seaweed!

It's bad enough when it touches my leg in the ocean..

The ducks don't suffer to make foie. They even walk up to get fed. I read US abdomens all day and diagnose humans with foie gras...hepatic steatosis. It's fatty liver. The ducks are fed a large amount of food through funnels, but no one holds them down to do it... they walk up with their mouths open.

I love foie. I love beef tongue and sweet breads. Tripe is not my thing unless it's shredded on a bowl of Pho. Chicken hearts are the best thing in the world when you're in Brazil at a churrascaria. I don't like blood sausage or brains. Chicken and cow liver are gross. Gizzards give me bad memories of childhood. Fried soft roe is pretty tasty.

lol
Well, I drown my french fries in mustard. :o