This shouldn't even be edible/on a menu/or sold in the grocery store/meat market
 

I did a search and I found a lot of threads on here about food, from nasty to good. But, what about food that folks like that you think shouldn't even be edible. Not food that folks like, but you don't like, but food folks like that you think shouldn't even be sold. I'm talking where you say, why in the hell would that even be sold in stores or on a menu in a restaurant? Or who decided to even make this food?

Back in the day, my mom had this thing for chicken gizzards. Nasty as hell. She liked cow tongue too. WTF? Why that shit is even sold in the stores, I will never understand.

What about y'all?

Living in Maryland, blue crabs are an important part of our culture. But when I look at one I have to think, "Who in the world decided they'd try EATING this???"

I Phi, I have something that I like but I don't think anyone else would. Underwood Deviled Ham. It's...how can I put this...smooshed up meat and fat and who knows what else and put into a can. I'm sure it's terrible for me but every once in awhile I treat myself to some of it on Wonder Bread slathered in mayonnaise. Yumm!

Haggis
Pig Intestines (aka "chitlins") and/or stomachs of any kind
Cow tongue
Pig tongue
Pig snout
Pig feet
Pig brains
Liver of any kind
Tripe --I don't even know what it is, but I saw it at the grocery store once, and it looked disgusting like Who would think of this as food?. Really?

Yuck!

I'm sure there are more, but some things probably exist for eating that I've never heard of, yet.

Ewwww....:(

I never said it was haute cuisine but I think it's yummy. So there :D

I have a friend who loves cow brain. I find it repulsive.

People who couldn't afford to waste any part of an animal.

Oh, I know someone else who likes it -- though I like homemade deviled ham better.

As for folks who think tongue, intestines and other offal and organs would fall into this category, I suggest that they not look too closely into how sausage or the casing it's in are made. :D

I can't say I love heart or tongue, though I've eaten both, but the line's not there for me. The line for me probably is blood, a la black pudding.

I loved when my grandmother made cow tongue as a kid. I didn't even think twice. As an adult, I won't prepare it or eat it because I realized it is a cow tongue which is just too close to making think about the cute furry animal it used to be attached to. I have no problem eating meat; I just don't want to think about it.

Ok, I take that back. I might consider ordering a cow tongue sandwich at a deli where it is disguised as lunch meat.

My mom used to love chicken feet in chicken soup. She kept chicken feet in the freezer.

If it LOOKS like part of the animal that I could have petted or touched, as opposed to indiscriminate meat, I probably won't eat it. Not so much for the taste appeal, but the look of it.

Geoducks.

Century Egg.

Yuk.

I get the "snout to tail" approach, and why those dishes came to be: people ate what they could, because the alternative was not to eat at all.

I do eat things others would think are "gross" like haggis, insects, organs, weird spices and exotic meats, and other local dishes when travelling. I'll try most foods (except the ones I'm allergic to obviously).

The foods that gross me out most are the ones that take foods and turn it into something truly vile for no obvious purpose. I get the pickling of veggies, salting or drying of fish and meat to keep them edible, but some things are just really taking it one step too far.

I could see this, though. It's still ham and I would consider that to be "normal" food no matter how it's prepared. I was talking about things that don't even sound normal. Brains, assholes, shit like that LOL.

I feel you. This makes sense. But how it got spread like it did is what I'm trippin off of.

I think that's what a lot of it is, though. We might taste something, like it, but when we find out what it is, we automatically think it's nasty as hell. That happened to me with raccoon. My mom made it and at first, I was eating it like it was steak. I thought it was roast beef, but when she told me what it was, I was mad as hell, and didn't want to finish it.

Pigs feet

This makes me chuckle. I'm a Pennsylvanian married to a Baltimorean and I just DO. NOT. GET. the fascination with picking crabs. So much work for just a little meat. I sort of dread the times we're visiting the in-laws and they get steamed crabs, because they all go to town and I always forget how to do it. Plus the Old Bay all over the place makes my hands itch.

Sad thing is, though, I LOVE crabmeat. I'm just lazy, I guess. :rolleyes:

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

Thank you for that disclaimer because I think I almost had a heart attack when I started reading your post!

lol
Hilarious! I guess this is what I should have posted instead of my long list. :p

Here we go, another GCer turning a fun, laughable thread into a shit talking one. I see your point to some degree, but to turn around and call somebody "ignorant" because they choose not to fuck with certain foods is an "ignorant" comment in itself. If you want to call folks on here "ignorant" for having thoughts you disagree with, add yourself to the mix, because everybody (you included) has ignorant thoughts on different topics every day.

I took an African American history class in summer school when I was an undergrad, and my instructor was basically saying something similar to what you said here. He was talking about how the same thing happened during slavery.

And why are you so "amazed" with this? I've tried chitlins and they don't taste all that great. They would be better if it weren't for the smell. I've also tried other foods that most folks would consider "normal" but don't taste all that good unless I add something to it. chitlins stink, hot dogs don't. I'm not putting anything in my mouth that smells like shit. Point blank.

^^^Talk about your first world posts. Like he said, it's a fun thread. If you don't like the topic, don't post in it.

I don't care where I grew up or what circumstances - I would find liver gross because it looks bloody and gooey before you cook it. Don't get me started on the time I walked in on the GIANT TONGUE STANDING UP IN THE KETTLE on the stove. Ewwwww, still scarred by that one.

My stomach is uneasy just from reading this thread.

Head cheese. To me, it smells absolutely repulsive. My ex's dad loved it and his wife would always make him sit outside to eat it. lol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_cheese

Neck bone. Again, I can't stand the taste or the smell of it, but my mom cooks it down with "collagreens" (collared greens :P). I just hide in my room while she cooks it and I eat around it when I'm eating the greens. Every time I look at it I just think, 'who puts themselves through this misery?' And then there my parents are, going to town.

I don't think I Phi was being offensive in the first post. It's no worse than saying that Uggs are Uggly (see what I did there?) and they shouldn't even be sold because they're so offensive looking.

I understand people believing that every part of the animal should be put to use. It's logical and, in a way, respectful to the animal.

But...this is just a fun thread; something silly we can just enjoy. Let's keep it at that level, ok?

Thanks :)

ok, this ^^ is officially weird.

Bitch please! You took what I said literally? And then turn around and call me ignorant? You don't have any business calling anybody ignorant. Your ignorant bitch ass can't see the difference between fun and serious. Either post about food you think is way out there or sit down and shut the fuck up.

And this dumb shit isn't even worth a response.

:o

LOL yeah, I had to add it or folks would think twice before ordering at Chipotle!