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What's the most adventurous food you've tried, and how did you like it?

What's the most adventurous food you've tried, and how did you like it?

Old Feb 7th, 2002, 02:28 PM
  #41  
r
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Hi carnivore; I went to a Mountain Man rendezvous some time back. (that's a whole other story) Anyway, they had gone hunting and brought in an Elk and a Buffalo. They barbequed it. They made Elk brochettes (!) and Buffalo steaks. Squeamish but hungry I ate the Elk. Wow, was that delicious. I was surprised at how tender it was. The buffalo had a gamey taste-- not as good.
Being a city girl this was quite adventurous for me and you should see the mountain men! I did a lot of staring. I ate something cooked in blood in Spain. Can't remember what it was called. The wine must have been very good!
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 02:30 PM
  #42  
Eric502
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Lamb fries, montain oysters. Figure that out.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 02:32 PM
  #43  
Eric502
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That was mountain oysters.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 02:38 PM
  #44  
Dina
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Isn't there such a thing as a vegetarian adventurous dish, for god's sake? Anyone ever try skunk cabbage or slime mold?
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 02:40 PM
  #45  
Dina
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Mountain oysters are bull testicles, are they not?
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 03:11 PM
  #46  
john
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Guinea pig

I've tried many a strange dish but the most interesting was Guinea Pig (known as Cuy) in Peru.

I was invited to a family's home and got to pick out the Guinea Pig I wanted to eat (they were running all around the kitchen). Doesn't taste bad but there is very little meat. It was interesting watching their 6 year old daughter eat the eyes, tongue, and crack the head to eat the brain.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 03:12 PM
  #47  
r
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Lamb fries? Qu'est ce que c'est? I love lamb--how have I missed this?
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 03:53 PM
  #48  
Michele
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Jellyfish at a Chinese restaurant. The way it was prepared made it taste surprisingly good, but I had the sense I was chewing on rubber bands after the flavor wore off.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 04:07 PM
  #49  
mimi taylor
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I'll try most farm raised animals when I travel, but I would not eat anthing
THAT I WOULD PLAY WITH. The other think that comes to mind are the song birds of France, called Orlatens(sp?) They are supposedly illegal now but a few years ago, there was a chefs fete in France that included, a few of our local Boston chefs and they ate the poor birds(like soft shell crabs, you eat the soft bones.)
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 04:09 PM
  #50  
Leslie
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Years ago I was in Cancun having dinner with my friends and had this delicious appetizer called black lasagna. Weeks later I was telling an Italian friend of mine about this dish, and she started laughing at me. She said if I had known what I was eating at the time I probably would have spit it out and vomited. She was right, because she told me that what I thought were black lasagna noodles made out of wheat were actually black eel, ink and all.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 04:43 PM
  #51  
Judy
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I think Al wins the prize for even mentioning the most adventurous food even if he didn't eat it. However, somewhere in Honorable Mention is the dish of an octupus cooked in its own black ink, surprisingly sweet, perhaps cloyingly so! Judy
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 04:46 PM
  #52  
John G
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Oh, Leslie, we eat that for breakfast here in Philly. No big deal.

I have had alligator. It is very tough. Like eating your wallet.

I don't even consider eating tripe, sushi or snails adventurous. They are so ubiquitous.

The most adventurous thing I have ever eaten was haggis in Scotland. I was OK, but, I wouldn't try it again.

PS Why is eating pigeon considered adventurous? How is it different from eating chicken or Cornish game hen?
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 06:38 PM
  #53  
cmt
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Most of the foods mentioned don't seem especially "adventurous" to me, I guess because I grew up eating a lot of things that most people consider "strange." As a child, I occasionally ate brains, tongue, tripe (always hated it), pork liver (delicious), rabbit, prepared dried salted cod (don't like ti), chocolate pudding made with blood (couldn't tell, but nothing special), eel, anchovies and all sorts of bitter greens and common garden weeds. On vacations, I've enjoyed snails, rabbit, goat, wild boar, kidney, pidgeon, and quail, and I have tasted ostrich and sushi, neither of which I like. At home I occasionally cook rabbit, very often eat various "weeds" from my yard, and often use a mixture of anchovies, capers and olives mashed together in place of salt. I've gone on educational edible wild plant walks at a nearby nature preserve and eaten the seed, leaves, roots and stalks of various wild plants. I tasted a "buffalo burger" at an American Indian craft show. None of these things seemed at all odd to me. When I go to an asian grocery, I often try to buy something unfamiliar to try. some of the things I've tried that I found rather odd: lotus (like wet balsa wood--maybe I just didn't know how to prepare it) and slated plums. A few foods that DO seem rather odd to me, that might be an "adventure" to try, but I haven't given them a chance yet, so who knows whether I might like them: chitterlings (very, very odd), insects, sea urchin, shark fin (will not knowingly buy it for ethical/environmental reasons). The only foods that seem truly repulsive to me are raw eggs of any animal (even the cooked ones are a little hard to take sometimes). As a child I had raw eggs hidden in my orange juice or my mik at breakfast to force me to eat eggs. it was years before I could stand to eat breakfast, and to this day I will not eat a naked "egg" and will not eat anything made with more than one egg at a sitting.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 06:41 PM
  #54  
blinkybill
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The worst was a drink: snake blood and bile in a shotglass. Also dog (spaniel), but that tasted OK. Both in China.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 07:11 PM
  #55  
Jeffrey D.
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Okay you bloodthirsty, carniverous adventurers: Who here has tasted human flesh? And if not, why not?
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 08:23 PM
  #56  
Pat
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I once tried a Japanese dessert - I have no idea what it was called - but it looked like tiny white shiny balls and tasted like starch coated with snot, and they stuck to the roof of your mouth. Ptui!
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 08:49 PM
  #57  
kalena
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ADVENTUROUS? Then it would have to be 'opihi at low tide off Naalehu, or pineapple guava off a cliff at Waimanu Valley. Both sublime and adventurous experiences.

If you mean culinarily daring, that's another issue altogether. Perhaps riz de veau. I stopped short of many a blood sausage...uuugh! And many here are far more adventurous than I. But...Kim-Chee, adventurous? It's a side at all Korean Barbeques in Hawaii. And let's talk RAW FISH!

However interesting and enlightening this commentary on foodstuffs (which I appreciate and thoroughly enjoy) I must take strong exception with Mr. Woodlieff's comments that some societies in Latin America "dine on roasted Tarantulas". Maybe Equatorial Brazil, and truly endangered tribal peoples, but it is certainly no Latin American mainstay.

This is a branch of cultural anthropology that's truly fascinating!

Ciao, K
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 08:51 PM
  #58  
kalena
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BlinkyBill: Is that for REAL?
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 09:10 PM
  #59  
kalena
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Sorry to post three consecutive times, but I love this thread! cmt: you are right to boycott shark fins. Federal law prohibits it, and marine turtle eating too. I guess that's the threshold, what we are willing to eat and why. Much interesting herbal knowledge out there. Never tried balsa wood (never heard of it) and maybe you meant salted, rather than slated plums? Umbemayashi are ubiquitous here. But it depends on the perspective, n'est-ce pas? Let's talk *caviar*, or tobiko.
Funny: I'll eat rabbit in France but can't do it at home. OK, I'll go back to reading the posts now. Great thread. Now, we *must* hear from Melissa.
 
Old Feb 7th, 2002, 09:20 PM
  #60  
garybear
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Korean kimchee actually refers to the marinade, not the cabbage. In a little town in Korea where no one spoke English and we spoke no Korean, we ordered kimchee and bulgogi (barbecued meat) because those were the only words we knew. Kimchee was served in about 20 different finger bowls of various vegetarian items, including salads, carrots, tree leaves, and some sort of tree bark. Not bad. That was 1976.
 

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