The food thread.

[SuperSwede]

What is the worst thing you have ever eaten? Do you have any local food that few people would eat?
Please share.

Here comes a "speciality" from Sweden.. Surströmming (Fermented Herring).
It smells... a little like rotten stuff

Read more about it here:

http://www.svensson.com/norge/sur1.htm

[warren0728]

as i said in a previous post...it is probably duck tongue. Not as much for the taste (although the taste wasn't that good either) but for the texture.

I ordered them on a whim (oh no drinking wasn't involved at all ) after a night out with my buddy in nyc...and the waitress (who spoke very little english) actually pointed at her tongue two different times and said...duck tongue?...to make sure i was really ordering the duck tongue!

They were served to me unceremoniously on a plate and there must have been 20 or so of them ....it looked exactly how you would picture 20 duck tongues on a plate! I should have taken a picture of them before i ate them.

The texture was bad but the worst part was there was a hard piece of gristle running through the tongue so you had to kinda gnaw the meat off of the gristle.

Will never order it again....my friend ordered the eel and it was actually quite tastey!

ww

[SuperSwede]

So you were out to try the worst the house could offer?

[Tim]

as i said in a previous post...it is probably duck tongue.

ww

Well here you go Warren. Plus a few other delicacies!!!

http://www.hpmuseum.org/china/trip3/dishes.htm

And:

https://aardvarque.com/2006/mel-s-tr...n1085.jpg/view

[SuperSwede]

Hahaha... I loved this part!

"The most challenging dish: They set down a dish in a brown sauce and I thought they were being sloppy because some of the brown sauce spattered my way. Then more spattered and I could see that some of the ingredients of the dish were moving . A few minutes earlier, the waitress had come by with a bag of live Shrimp for our approval. I said "Those are going to be dead when we eat them right?" and Maggie smiled and said "yes". Never believe a Chinese woman when she tells you your food will be served dead! They were alive and kicking, and squirming, and there's something about eating food that's looking at you..."

Thanks for that link Tim, it made my day

[warren0728]

the ones i had did not have the pointy bits like in your first link (they were cut off) but just the big meaty part of the tongue....which made them look more like a tongue....the saucey appearance of the duck tongue in your link was similar to how mine looked though.

ww

[tot_Ou_tard]

Well here you go Warren. Plus a few other delicacies!!!

http://www.hpmuseum.org/china/trip3/dishes.htm

And:

https://aardvarque.com/2006/mel-s-tr...n1085.jpg/view

We have a winner!!!!

[duhvoodooman***]

"...there's something about eating food that's looking at you..."

Funny you should mention that! I participated in a plant startup in Japan in the early 80's that required being there for about 10 days. On the last evening, the QA manager, who was my counterpart, invited me out to dinner with him, and took me to his favorite neighborhood restaurant. It was a tiny little place, with maybe 20 seats, total, and the owner was also the chef/maitre'd/waiter/busboy/accountant/janitor/etc. We sat at the counter, which had a lower level upon which you ate your food, and a higher level (just above eye-level, when seated) where the chef placed the plates of food when he finished preparing them.

Dinner was a succession of individual small courses consisting of a wide variety of different food types and methods of preparation. Since my host and the chef conversed only in Japanese, I had absolutely no idea what I was eating. My host's English was quite poor, so my questions of "What's this?" were answered in a largely unintelligible fashion, because he had no idea what the English word was for most of what we ate. I do remember one course quite clearly, though--and there was absolutely NO QUESTION what it was!

About halfway through the meal, my host pointed to a large fish tank in back of the chef. It quickly became evident that this was not an aquarium! In it were 20 or so fish swimming around that were the same approximate size and shape as a bluegill sunfish, for those of you familiar with that type of fish (see photo below). Their length was approx. 9", I'd guess. Anyway, the chef netted two of these fish out of the tank and busily went to work preparing them. Because of the two-tiered counter, we couldn't see what he was doing on the other side, though the chopping and cutting sounds of his knife made it fairly clear that he was preparing a raw fish, or sashimi, course for us. Now, I happen to love fresh sashimi and sushi, and it clearly doesn't get any fresher than this, so I wasn't at all alarmed. When he finished, he put our two plates up on the second tier of the counter, and we each reached up and moved them down onto the first tier to dig in. That was the disquieting part....

What our friend the chef had done was to neatly filet the fish, cut the skin off the meat, and then slice it up into fine strips, mixed with mild white radish and with some wasabi and soy-based dipping sauce on the side. All well and good. The problem was that he hadn't killed the fish before fileting them. In fact, they were still very much alive. And how do I know this, you ask?

Well, what he had done was to take each of the poor fish, now denuded of the major portion of it's flesh and skin, and run a thin wooden skewer (much like a giant toothpick) through the tail and then through the fish again just in back of the head. This held the fish in a sideways arched position--basically a "letter C" when viewed from the top. He then placed the fish on the plate, with the cut-up pile of sashimi within the arch of that letter C shape. So, as I ate its admittedly very tasty flesh, the fish would occasionally wiggle its tail, flap its fins or move its mouth. And the eye pointed toward me watched me the whole time, or so it seemed. So, while it was delicious, I have never felt so guilty about eating anything in my life!

Attachment 198

[Tone2TheBone]

*throws up again* bluh-eck.

I catch bluegills in the spring. Good fighting fish.

[Tim]

The best weird dish I ever ate was in Thailand. I was supposed to meet a friend at a street corner in front of a Thai restaurant. I waited an hour for him. I got a little hungry so I stepped inside to order some food. I sat near the window so I could see him coming.

The menu was in Thai of course so I had no idea was it said. So I went by the pictures. Some of it looked pretty gross. So I chose the best looking picture. It looked like fried chicken. Just like the Colonel’s, but a little skinny.

When the meal was served it looked pretty good. I had Thai rice, streamed vegetables, noodles and the fried chicken. It was all very delicious.

When I got back to the barracks I bragged how I was able to order a meal at a Thai restaurant, that didn’t speak English. Just then the Thai house girl came up and asked what I ordered. I told her about the excellent chicken dinner I had with all the trimmings. She started to laugh. I asked her what was so funny. She looked at me and said “you funny American. You ate dog for dinner”.

I looked at her and said; no you’re kidding me right? She said no I am serious. After the stomach did a flip-flop I said, well at least it tasted like chicken. That explained why it was so chewy.

From then on everything I ate I made damn sure I knew what it was. The worst tasting was the rattlesnake. I only ate one small piece. That was enough.

[warren0728]

She looked at me and said “you funny American. You ate dog for dinner”.

hey tim...did your waitress give you good service or did you have to "hound" her to bring you your food?!

I'm surprised you didn't like rattlesnake...maybe it was how it was prepared. When i tried it, it tasted really light...not really like chicken but a light non-overpowering flavor.

ww

[Spudman***]

Oh Warren

That was pretty funny, "hound her". Good one.

The worst thing I ever ate was fresh off the dairy farm where I grew up in Montana. I was being an 11 year old smarty pants and one of the hired guys thought he had had enough of my mouth and promptly filled it with cow poop.
No I didn't enjoy the taste or texture, but it sure explains a lot about why I am the way I am.

[SuperSwede]

Spud, what an awful experience. I hope they hanged that man the following sunday (all small towns in Montana has a tree for hanging criminals, right?)

[Spudman***]

Spud, what an awful experience. I hope they hanged that man the following sunday (all small towns in Montana has a tree for hanging criminals, right?)

I think he got a raise for doing that. He was hung already.

[Tone2TheBone]

She looked at me and said “you funny American. You ate dog for dinner”.

I looked at her and said; no you’re kidding me right? She said no I am serious. After the stomach did a flip-flop I said, well at least it tasted like chicken. That explained why it was so chewy.

From then on everything I ate I made damn sure I knew what it was. The worst tasting was the rattlesnake. I only ate one small piece. That was enough.

..."you'd be surprised how downright delicate the flavour is... (dog)"

Love,

Little Big Man

[SuperSwede]

Tim, what kind of dog was it? I think if I had to eat dog meat I would prefer a poodle...

[Tim]

Probibly whatever was roaming the street that day. All I know is it was dead and cooked.

[Tone2TheBone]

For what it's worth horse meat makes excellent burgers. Especially in a carnival situation. I speak from experience.

[SuperSwede]

Blah.. I think that REAL asian restuarants should allow you to pick from a cage with several different sorts of dog. Just like the fish in the aquarium we heard about earlier.. - "I want that Golden Retriever with lime/garlic sauce, preferably alive when served". MMmmm.. YUmmy.