Let's talk about Haggis

[Abagadro]

This thread reminds me of an episode of Boondocks where the gist of it was pointing out that the only reason these type of culinary items became "cultural" was because the culture was poor as dirt and that shouldn't be an endorsement of the cuisine.

[Wolf]

Tripe though is harder to find these days.

Yikes.  I remember selling that in the grocery store.  Surprisingly people used to buy it and rave about how great it was.  Anything that smelled as weird and had that funny texture\color was not something I was planning on eating.

Skipping ahead without reading the thread. We actually have tripe soup as a national meal. It's fucking awesome.

Sadly, Hungary doesn't have any foods that can be considered 'vile'; the most controversial Hungarian food I can think of (tökösmákos rétes = strudel with poppyseed and pumpkin filling) is merely described as "odd". We need to try harder or something.

God I hate Hungarian Cuisine. You guys put sugar in everything. And I mean everything. I mean I decide to go safe and order a cucumber salad and I get cucumbers with sugar. Just cut the damn thing and give it to me, I'll deal with the spices.

[Calantus]

That doesn't sound like the cucumber salad I know. The one we have the cucumber is sliced and salted, then rinsed and mixed with sour cream, pepper and some other things I cannot remember. It's basically salty, wet sour cream and cucumber. Of course that might be a Romanian dish because I can't remember who in the family is Romanian and who is Hungarian.

[Wolf]

That would be Snezhanka, it's Russian IIRC, but it's more likely for Romanians to have it than Hungarians. It's definitely not Hungarian though :)



A regular cucumber salad in the Region would be Sliced cucumber with vinegar and salt.

[cmlancas]

No mention of Rocky Mountain Oysters?  :-D


Every so often in my store I get questions for goat testicles. Apparently it's for some sort of mexican recipe. Anyone know more about this?

[Signe]

The texture is eww.  They should call them Rocky Horror Mountain Oysters.

[Simond]

Anyone fancy some jellied eels and pie, mash & liquor?

[Engels]

I got to have fresh 'straight off the scalpel' rocky mountain oysters once. I was visiting some friends in North Dakota, where they had a farm next to some cowboy ranchers. Turns out, it was the week they decided all 20 head of young male cattle needed to have their balls sliced off. Since I couldn't help with the corralling or the other manly activities involved, I got to carry bucket of bleeding balls across two fields to the kitchen where the women dropped them in a McCormick spice breading mix and fried them up.

They were rather good, if memory serves.

[Merusk]

I love Hungarian food, and as you say, have never come across anything in all the times I've been there that struck me as particularly gag-inducing.  It's not great if you don't like heavily smoked meats, but that's about it. 

The worst Hungarian dish I ever had was the eggplant paste whose proper name escapes me.   It's all orange and my girlfriend's grandparents used to make it... (tho they were Hung/ Rom so it might have been Romanian.)

  And when I say it was the worst, it doesn't mean I hated it.  It was quite tasty, it was just the most 'Off" thing that took a little getting used to.  Spread it on some dense white bread and eat it with breakfast. Mmmm, good.

[WayAbvPar]

This thread reminds me of an episode of Boondocks where the gist of it was pointing out that the only reason these type of culinary items became "cultural" was because the culture was poor as dirt and that shouldn't be an endorsement of the cuisine.

Amen.

[Endie]

That would be Snezhanka, it's Russian IIRC, but it's more likely for Romanians to have it than Hungarians. It's definitely not Hungarian though :)



A regular cucumber salad in the Region would be Sliced cucumber with vinegar and salt.

That cucumber in sour cream or yoghurt with various herbs thing is pretty much universal once you get to the danube and points south-east, as well as a lot of North Africa: I have Greek, Turkish and Iranian relatives and they all eat it.  It's about the only thing they have in common.  Tzatziki in Greece, Maast-o-Khiar in Farsi, Raita or Rathia depending where in India you are, etc...

[Jimbo]

I used to get drunk on Red Horse and balut!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut

God I miss Angles City/Clark AFB, Philippines, arrived with an earthquake, chased out by a volcano, and had more fun than should have been allowed.

[Engels]

I used to get drunk on Red Horse and balut!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut

!!!

[penfold]

I remember a dish so strong smelling that my father was forced to prepare it at the bottom of the garden, and we shut all the windows, lest the house stink of blacan for weeks on end. Blacan is a fermented shrimp paste, really nice if you put a teaspoon of it in a curry, but my father did something odd involving a gas torch. Tiny little dried fish fried with peanuts was another stinky snack he liked.

Ihad a lovely octopus and raddicio salad for lunch today. The octopus was soft and tender, and a pleasant suprise and so often it's not prepared right and ends up rubbery. Really isn't a big deal on a freaky food thread tho.

Blood Sausage (black pudding), a regular weekend breakfast for me. Pressed tongue is a regular sandwich filling too. Stuffed lambs hearts are good. Ox tail I buy and cook when ever i see it during the winter, its the best casserole meat and I know of. Pigs trotters and green pea soup were another childhood favourite. Sweetbreads I've had before (thymus gland of calves). I like snails, and have had abalone before too, which is a sorta endangered giant marine snail. They tend to taste of what ever you cook them in, so the snails are sorta chewy garlic and parsley butter flavoured things. Abalone was sorta chewy and fishy. Jellyfish i had once, at chinese banquet. That was.... weird. I would love to try that cheese, lutefisk, and that pressed smoked sheeps head you get in petrolstations in Iceland just to say I have, and will more or less eat anything if its a local dish and not just a grossout dare.

Having said that, I ate a bunch of fishes eyes a few months ago (dug them out of the fishes heads on the plate rather than bought or prepared), just to freak out my bro and mate whilst we were eating. You know those chewy sweets with liquid centres ? Well.......