I was cruising a few blogs this morning and found a comment by Stacy that struck me as funny. Apparently at a party she ate some cactus thinking it was green beans. So that sent me off on a whole tangent of thoughts about odd things I've eaten, or things my kids refused to eat, etc.
What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?
I've eaten a variety of meats including moose, chinchilla, and cobra.
I remember once I roasted a beef heart. This was many moons ago when I was living in a migrant fruit pickers cabin in Parkdale, Oregon with my first husband. It was just a small two room cabin with a wood stove, table and a bed. Apple crates nailed to the wall for cupboards.... actually I have MANY tales from those days, but I digress.
On this particular occasion I had pulled the roast beef heart out of the wood stove and set it on the table to cool. Then I walked down to the community spigot to haul some water. When I got back, one of my neighbors who I knew very well had stopped in to see us - he'd found the door open and walked right in. He saw this lovely looking roast on the table and just couldn't help himself, so he had sliced off a piece and was savoring it. He was very sheepish to get caught snitching a piece of our dinner. But the hilarious part was the look on his face when I said - "So Michael, how's the beef heart?" He positively turned green.
I'm not sure why eating organs is considered taboo by some even thought they do eat animal flesh. I love liver and onions. My husband, on the other hand, says liver is only good for catfish bait.
But then...he won't eat olives or cucumbers either. Some people just don't know what they are missing.
When my kids were little we had a tradition at Christmas time that every year we would get them some type of food they had never tried before. That wasn't too hard the first 10 years of their lives...we went through anchovies and pomegranate, canned clams and matza balls. But by the time they got into their teens I was running out of things they hadn't tasted. The year Forest, my oldest, was sixteen I gave him pickled pigs feet. At that point he rebelled and said, "Mom, this tradition has got to STOP!" Apparently they were pretty disgusting. Who knew?
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Delicious heavenly cilantro, and tasty kiwi fruit, and seaweed soup at a good Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. Yum. I think of all the wonderful flavors I knew nothing of as a kid. For dinner we had hamburger patties, potato or rice, and peas or string beans. Salad was a piece of iceberg lettuce with some cottage cheese and a canned peach or pear on top of it. Chocolate pudding or jello for dessert. Mom got hip later but in my childhood days blandness reigned supreme.
I used to like liver too but now I've given it up - it's for people who need more cholesterol in their diets and there is no one left in America who does. Still tastes good though, if not too strong or mushy and it's cooked right.
This reminds me of a story my beloved tells.... he grew up in a farm family out in a little podunk town of southern Utah. Throughout his growing up years he ate pretty much whatever they raised or grew. Lots of beef and potatoes with corn or green beans on the side. Plain old bread and milk on occassion. So when he went to "the big city" as an adult to present his master's thesis at a professional conference he was baffled by the artichoke that came with his dinner at the banquet. He'd never even seen one before. He had to ask the waitress what the heck it was and how to eat it!
I ate chicken feet at a dim sum restaurant in Toronto a few years ago. The texture was basically like a chicken wing with much smaller bones.
Also, our local Chinese buffet recently had an Octopus dish out. That was a pretty rubbery affair, but not unpleasant, although I couldn't detect any particular flavor in the octopus meat itself. It just took on the flavor of the no-doubt gigantic amounts of soy sauce and MSG in the dish!
the weirdest thing i have ever eaten was chicken feet... my Aunt fried 'em up with the rest of the chicken dinner.
they didnt taste bad, but there is nothing to them when it comes to it being a food that you want to quell your hunger with.
though the little toes did make it feel like there was a hand in your mouth.
Back in my college days there was a quiet dude who worked with me on the night shift stocking shelves at the local grocery store. At lunch every night he would pull his great big jar of pickled pigs' feet and munch quietly in the corner. I was so revolted that I never watched him long enough to see how they were eaten. I assume they must have a leg bone you eat around. Or maybe if you pickle them long enough you can eat the bones, too? That was the problem during my one encounter with chicken feet at the local dim sum parlor. Nibble, or bite straight through? I just nibbled timidly. Which comes first -- the chicken foot or the chicken gourmet?
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