What strange or old-fashioned things have you eaten?

[Calthrop]

One takes it (and hopes) that the puffin is grated after death ...

 

[takno]

One takes it (and hopes) that the puffin is grated after death ...

It's just resting

 

[Sun Chariot]

One takes it (and hopes) that the puffin is grated after death ...

We will probably find it's actually a typo - and those crazy Icelandics have  gyrated puffin - yes, one's very own avian table dancer...

 

[dangie]

Probably a meat pie from Iceland (shop). Haven't a clue what was in that.

 

[takno]

Probably a meat pie from Iceland (shop). Haven't a clue what was in that.

The ingredients are listed on the website. Looks like the meat is mostly beef, but with some pork if it was a Hollands one.

 

[60019]

Kangaroo is tasty when well prepared, but is difficult to cook. It makes a good casserole, but most of what are sold as steaks are cut along the grain to get a decent size piece and so are tough unless prepared really well. (The most commonly-hunted kangaroos aren't particularly large apart from the dominant males, and they're tough.) I've heard venison is similarly difficult, but I've only eaten that once and didn't cook it myself.

Perch is probably the worst fish I've eaten - a rather wet white fish that always seems to taste bitter.

I liked cold beef tongue when I was young, but I haven't had it since my gran stopped using beef during the BSE era. I'll have to see if her recipe is around somewhere.

I've eaten Durian, once. I had a terrible cold and could barely smell anything the first time someone offered me some, and it does taste rather good. Unfortunately, I can smell it when I'm not sick.

Quail is very tasty but expensive and fiddly to eat.

The ingredients are listed on the website. Looks like the meat is mostly beef, but with some pork if it was a Hollands one.

I think he was joking: during the horsemeat scandal some Iceland meat pies were tested and found to contain no significant animal DNA at all.

 

[randyrippley]

When I sailed from Shetland to Iceland in 1986 on the Faeroese ship MV Norrona, Puffin was on the menu. I chose fish instead though, I couldn't eat one of those comic little birds.
.

There's a BBC film which shows these being caught (in what look like oversized fish landing nets), killed, then packed tightly into sealed underground pits, dug into the soil. They're stored whole, feathers, guts and all then left to ferment for quite a period.
After a considerable time they're removed from the pit as required, by which time they're fermented (aka rotted) and eaten uncooked.

Snake, China. Tasted great!

When my brother got married the first time the bride was Chinese. The reception was held in a major Chinese restaurant in London and the day before her bridesmaid and the head chef made a point of touring several pet shops before deciding on which snake to buy for the meal. They ended up with some kind of largish constrictor. Flaky like dried haddock, but chickeny taste.
I'll never forget the look on my fathers face when one of the other courses called for a large crispy duck, and the waiters delicately carved and served the crispy duck skin, leaving the flesh uneaten - I reckon that ended up as a staff perk. To someone used to wartime rationing that seemed to him the ultimate sin, wasting food.
We had some kind of fried jellyfish as well, but I never worked out where they were obtained

........We regularly had herring, and occasionally bloaters, which I think are herring that have had something done to them, not to my taste............

Bloaters are herring which are "cured" (i.e. pickled) whole (traditionally in wooden barrels) complete with head and guts. The food in the guts expand and blow during the storage process, hence the name "Bloater"

At the market in Leeds I found juicy pork rsoles ( and other parts!) for sale. Honestly, that was on the card! I didn't buy. They were, however, being bought by people of a different culture to me. The butcher must have been onto something!

Next time you buy a pack of pork scratchings in the pub, look at the ingredients.
Some of them are actually pork chitterlings -i.e. deep fried rsoles. Very common in the USA

 

[AndrewE]

Next time you buy a pack of pork scratchings in the pub, look at the ingredients.
Some of them are actually pork chitterlings -i.e. deep fried rsoles. Very common in the USA

Absolutely not rsoles. Chiterlings are fried intestines, as discussed upthread. I suspect they are not as unpleasant as andouillettte - sausage stuffed with chopped intestine.
And all the pork scratchings i have had have definitely been as thick as crackling, nothing like an intestine which is as thin as a sausage skin.

 

[jumble]

In china, dog. Was a bit ruff

Bah, you horrible person
Regards Callieigh and Summer the cocker spaniels

This follows an extraneous discussion on the supermarket thread.

Supermarkets discussion

A good horse steak is sublime. Is it illegal for supermarkets (or anyone) to sell it in Britain or just a cultural thing? For example, supermarkets don’t sell goat, but I can get it at Sheffield market. I thrived on the horsemeat that was provided at every meal in the Imperial Hotel, Moscow...

www.railforums.co.uk

What unusual things have you eaten abroad, or indeed in the UK? What were they like?

What things were commonly eaten when you were younger but aren’t now? Again, what were they like?

For me, in China I ate a lot of things like ducks’ tongues and chicken feet, toads, snails and other things. They all had a rubbery, chewy texture and tasted of whatever sauce that they were cooked in.

In Belgium, I have had rabbit’s brains - delicious!

When I was younger my mum cooked heart. I am not sure what animal it was, but it tasted good.

My younger sister and her husband travelled on the sleeper train in Brazil in the 1990s into the Brazilian interior
She was pleased to find it had a restaurant car but not so pleased to find the only thing on the menu was Horse with Rice
However she said that if you go on a 3 day journey with no alternative food then the concept of eating horse goes roughly as follows
Day one " How absolutely disgusting. I would never eat horse"
Day two " It cant be that bad The locals are eating it but no thanks"
Day three " I am starving might as well give it a try"

 

[Acey]

Day Four

Day Four A serious dose of the"trots"