I really will try, and usually like, most foods out of my frame of reference. Not being a native to the south I've adopted and tweeked versions of biscuits and (fresh sage & pepper) gravy, collard greens, chicken and dumplings, chess pie, "kilt" lettuce etc. I love the tangy salt cure and unique differences of regional country hams. The smooth flavor of the lowly paw paw is a delight to my senses. However, there's something recently availible on salad bars that simply revolts me. It is, to most I encounter, familar and known as "corn bread salad". This stuff apparently has many incarnations, but the overall idea is to substitute crumbled corn bread for potatoes in your standard southern potato salad. Layer it or mix it all together with mayo, celery, onion etc I can't go on. The very idea makes me green. I like cornbread, I like salads with mayo, but this is just wrong on all levels to my sensibilities. I cannot mentally consider the stuff much less let it near my mouth. I must say here that polenta has never thrilled my soul either (a comon side at the home of my parents). But my reaction to polenta is nothing compared to the internal gates closing shut at the thought of "cornbread salad".
Is there a regional or ethnic combo or foodstuff down which path you cannot go? Has it made you the odd man out? I've voiced this opinion of mine in public and risked being stoned.

My parents used to eat something called breaded tomatoes, which is canned tomatoes heated on the stove with pieces of bread torn up in it. The sight or smell of it would make me gag.

I know that dish Rebecca! I agree, it's yak unless...and some will yak at this...I add lots and lots of sugar with a touch vinegar to make it sweet-sour.

Most of the stuff that actually looks like food, I can handle.

Headcheese and chitlins don't make the cut for me.

Weirdly enough, growing up, the one thing I had the biggest problem with was iced tea. We didn't drink it at home, so I honestly found it a bit baffling to be confronted with the stuff at every turn. At some point, I wound up at a summer camp which served sweet tea by default at lunch and supper. Getting a glass of actual water was apparently too much hassle, so I learned to add a ton of the reconstituted lemon juice that comes in those plastic lemons to some unsweetened tea. Apparently I couldn't handle sweet tea with lemon.

Nowadays, I do enjoy a glass of unsweetened tea, but I much prefer it very dilute, with a bit of fresh lemon. Acquiring this taste was a survival mechanism, not something I sought out.

Can't do either chitlins or pig feet although there are a lot of people here that can and do. Yuck! Cornbread salad sounds revolting......can't imagine why someone thought that would be a good idea!

Octopus stew , tripe , eel.

Oh, you know, about that cornbread salad.

The ones I've seen have been variations on a) wilted salad, b ) taco salad and c) BLT salads, but they feature cornbread instead of croutons or corn chips.

That potato salad version does sound gross.

I'm not wild about cornbread crumbled up in a glass of buttermilk, either, now that I think about it.

I was watching some girls who go to Mississippi State today on the Today show. They were crowing about this cornbread salad and how good it was. I'm anxious to hear from anybody here who knows of this swill. Please 'suse me in advance if we have fans.

Oh Yes I totally agree about the possibility of cornbread croutons. This sounds reasonable and potentially good. In fact, I've occasionally used a few Fritos corn chips as a source of crunch over top of a regular salad.

Awwww Ms Veneering I luuurrve me my smoked eel sushi.

Pepperpot soup was a fairly frequently occuring dish in the dining hall when I was in college and I found it quite tasty. I remember a business dinner soon afterwards when that was the soup and someone asked, innocently, "What's in this?" I responded, brightly, "Tripe!" to see everyone push the bowl away in unison.

Ignorance was bliss.

I occasionally enjoy a well prepared menudo, but in general, other than liver, I'll take a major pass on organ meats. And "parts".

Fried chicken's feet. I've tried them on two separate occasions at separate restaurants. No go. Ever.

Otherwise, I'm pretty good about trying (and liking) everything. Unless it's cooked with beets. Beets make me ill. Except borscht. I love borscht.

I have never been able to see the point of beets , except to give those pickled turnips ( the middle eastern jobbies , the ones they put in shawarma) a very purdy colour.




I come from an ethnicity which is rather adept at using parts, offal and humours and to this day , not even liver , none of it!

We used to eat the feet when I was a kid. I don't know if my parents actually liked it or if it was a no waste mentality. It is totally unappealing to me now. There is literally nothing on it to eat; no point to me. Besides it does sound kind of disgusting, even if it was scalded and scrubbed.

I once saw in a book of fancy French cuisine, a chicken foot floating in a bowl of soup. I was teasing my husband about whether he would eat it now that he found out it was gourmet food.

My mother used to can pickled beets. They are very tasty and one of my husband's favorite foods.

Hmm... oh I dunno. Mexicans in South Texas are fond of Menudo, (meh-NOO-doh) a hearty, orangey-colored soup featuring hominy, and floating fleshy rings of what appear to be calamari... They are actually rings-- cross sections-- of pork or sheep intestines. Also, pig's feet. This dish is set to slow-cook on a Saturday, and generally eaten Sunday morning, after mass, by the family as a hangover cure. And when it's bubbling, it gives off a pervasive odor like....uh.... civet paste, shall we say? NAZZ-deh! Highly prized and sought-after by its fans, though.



Mexicans also like tongue and headcheese and blood sausage, whose mere description leaves me cold... [All of this, of course, is about a civilization who prudently leave nothing to waste. Not sure why headcheese should bother me: pork head is the prime ingredient in Tamales, which nearly everyone worships.]



On the other hand, as a kid I disliked their vegetable sidedish, Nopalitos. Nopalitos are green strips of prickly-pear cactus. They are often indistinguishable in appearance from French-cut, slivered greenbeans, but the taste is much different... They are bitter and crunchy, and are swimming in kind of a natural mucoid gel, the way Okra does. As a kid I hated these... but now I adore them! They may be served steaming hot... or chilled, like a "salad". I think these are also very good for you, as well, IIRC. The nopal salad shown here also includes cubes of the sweet purple fruit of the cactus, which they call "tuna". *




* So what do they call the fish, then? "Átun" (AHH-toon).

I cannot fathom actually eating pigs trotters or chicken feet but they both do make great stock.

I think I'm open to eating anything besides any animals of which I'm too familiar (dogs, cats, mice, horse, guinea pig...never mind that it's an Ecuadorean delicacy). Oh, and jellied eels.

Good thread.

I've been exposed to many cultures. Some things I couldn't stomach:

• Menudo
• Pate
• Brains, kidney, or other organ meats/products
• Chicken feet (dim sum)
• Pig's knuckles
• Sea cucumber
• Pretty much any meat product that does not involve muscle

However, I can say that I love:

• Raw fish, including oysters (had both today)
• Carpuccio (including elk)

[quote name='rasputin' date='Sep 26 2008, 09:51 PM' post='407498']
Hmm... oh I dunno. Mexicans in South Texas are fond of Menudo, (meh-NOO-doh) a hearty, orangey-colored soup featuring hominy, and floating fleshy rings of what appear to be calamari... They are actually rings-- cross sections-- of pork or sheep intestines. Also, pig's feet. This dish is set to slow-cook on a Saturday, and generally eaten Sunday morning, after mass, by the family as a hangover cure. And when it's bubbling, it gives off a pervasive odor like....uh.... civet paste, shall we say? NAZZ-deh! Highly prized and sought-after by its fans, though.

[i]





Mexican menudo is made with tripe. Tripe is stomach of a ruminant, not intestines. Chitterlings/ chittlings/ chittlins are pork (small) intestines.

http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/recipe.htm

Dave and Colonia, you're both making me nostalgic for childhood meals!
However, I hated menudo (made with tripe) then and I detest it to this day. Same for tongue and pig's feet.
Nopalitos and tamales (yes, with pork head), however, are delish!

Regionally I'm now in a very Norwegian community and the one thing I can't stand (most can't, it seems) is lutefisk.
Some kind of nasty fish thing that I'm told is made with lye!

I must admit that I like lutefiske and it's Italian counterpart baccala. The lye gets washed off in thorough soaking. I'd willingly give my little finger for some of your world reknown salted whitefish.

Duly noted! But "Le Odeur" is the same.

I'm another who will happily try almost anything once. Having said that.....

I will not eat any part of the cow, pig, or chicken except the actual real live normal meat. No organ meat, parts, etc.

Haggis. Uh-uh. No way.

I love California rolls and the like but I refuse to eat uncooked fish. I don't like the idea of it enough to even try it.

A friend once described gefilte fish to me as "the hot dog of the Jewish world." Another uh-uh--I can't get past the smell of it or any other reconstituted fish.

This isn't necessarily a "gag" thing, it's more of a "hate" thing: I LOATHE spicy food. Hate it. It's a sensation that I find so unpleasant as to be altogether incompatible with eating. Bearing in mind that I love food and that I once weighed 340 pounds, I have always said--and it's true--that if the only food offered to me is spicy, even if I'm starving, I will go hungry rather than eat it.

Ignoring the spicy issue, no chicken livers? No pate? No foie gras?

More for me, then.

More coming your way my dear , I do not care what fancy shmancy French name they put on it , its all offal* to me.



*fully intended

Pepperpot has tripe in it? Bring me the smelling salts, I'm feeling faint! I had no idea -- and this is one of my favorite soups ever!

I will eat almost any organ meat except the ones that are bound up with excretory functions, i.e., kidneys, tripe, and chiltlins (are those last two the same thing?). But other than that, I eat with relish, including eel.

Eel with relish ?

now *I* am feeling faint ......thud !

I take it then, Deev, that you are not a fan of scrapple, which originates not far from you. IMO it's one of the great culinary achievements of mankind, but I realize the population is sharply divided.

Once my dad took me to Christmas Eve at a co-worker's house, when I was very young, around 10 -- this guy was first-generation Italian, and down in the basement, on the wooden work bench, they were chopping up an eel for the traditional Christmas Eve Seven Fishes (I think it's seven) that the southern Italians do.

Much to my horror, the chopping was done while the eel was still alive. I'll never forget it -- but I still eat eel. THough not with pickle relish.

I grew up eating quite a bit of Scottish food. Meat pies, sausage puddings and such. All of it was terrible. That is, except for the fish and chips. The fish and chips were and are divine, but as God is my witness I will never eat another meat pie.

-Noelle

Ya know , I liked the meat pies you get around here , pretty harmless though overly processed , until I saw Sweeny Todd , I have to say my meat pie days are over !

Oh, the aroma is, shall we say, "unique", but as with most things, l'odeur is in the nose of the beholder.

No, no, no, nononononono. Ew. No Scrapple. No blood pudding either--whoever thought that stuff up had a screw loose, IMO.

some sick misanthrope's idea of a joke and it all went haywire from there ....

^^ Don't think there's any misanthropy to it. Earlier generations found ways to eat blood and guts and tongues and brains and feet because they had no choice. If they lived in cities, it was what they could afford. If they raised the animal themselves, they couldn't afford to throw away good protein.

We're just spoiled....

I know , I know , esp knowing my heritage and the history of poverty , this is all very true , I just cannot bear the reality of it all and prefer my fantasy version of things.

When I was in Scotland I had haggis... It was really surprisingly good! You're supposed to eat it with a little scotch whiskey or Drambuie... maybe to dull your senses as to what you're eating.


As for sushi/sashimi... OMG! I can't get enough of it... I'd have it once a week if I could afford it! The full deal, of course, with the sake, seaweed, ginger root, wasabi, sesame seeds. [When I was earning decent $$$, I used to eat it every day. Which probably is why I glow green in the dark now.] I've never tried ceviche (Mexican-style cured raw fish) but would like to...



There are one or two numbers on the usual Sushi constellation I don't like (like urchin, which basically is like a little hawk of orange phlegm.)

^^ Of course, I'm not claiming to be a big buyer of "variety" meats either.

But there are two I'd buy if I could find them:
1) turkey necks/backs... my Mom used to make the *best* turkey soup by buying packages of turkey backs and necks for almost nothing
2) oxtails... similarly, she'd buy inexpensive packages of oxtails (I'm sure they were really cow tails) and make the most fabulous richly-flavored beef soup

I think these were both so good because they included a lot of bones, and bones provide incredible taste and texture. But I haven't seen packages of turkey necks/backs or packages of oxtails in years. Guess most people aren't into making their own soup anymore...

Now we're talking , the absolute best aspects of low income cooking were those parts and whipping up fabulous stock , as much as I diss the variety meats , I absolutely love the thrift and versatility of a good stock made from carcass ( of a roast) , and other oddities mentioned upthread , truly it is making something great from almost nothing. I am also saddened to see this sort of thing disappear from grocers.

This month, I'm buying a slow-cook crockpot... and I plan to get very much into soups! Done right, they really are so satisfying, and so good for ya.

You're right, of course. The sheep's head scene from Angela's Ashes -- remember that? And that was Christmas dinner!

We can often find these in our supermarkets. While less expensive that a lot of other meat choices, they are no longer "inexpensive". This past week I bought a package of smoked pork neckbones which I'll use to flavor beans and greens. They were $1.59/lb. It wasn't so long ago when similar items could be had for less than half that.

Geez, at that price, certainly not the bargain it once would have been. But at least you still see them on your shelves. Guess I could directly ask the butcher if oxtails are available upon request. I can get my turkey soup fix by using the carcass from a whole turkey, but oxtails are hard to substitute...

Here I live in the land of spicy Cajun food...and I can't stand or 'handle' that kind of food. Actually...I'm allergic to cayenne pepper and have a definite problem with most peppers.
I'm also not big into eating exotic meats -- particularly any meat which comes from a rodent.
Truthfully, I can never really taste the actual dishes because of all of the spice and seasoning...and I've wound up in the ER because of cayenne pepper being all over food in a local Chinese restaurant with a huge buffet.
Creole cuisine is a whole other creature, though, and I love the complex and well-seasoned sauces which don't rely on heat of the seasonings to flavor the food.

Reminds me of a Cantonese friend who always disparaged Szechuan cuisine, saying that all the spices were only to cover up bad cooking.