BRAINS!

[Ben]

They're not just for zombies.

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/03/01/eat-brains-offal-things/?test=faces

[mtnbkr]

You know, after watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, that article wasn't very shocking or new to me. :)

BTW, Zimmern is real hip on getting closer to your food, knowing where it came from, and even killing it yourself.  I've seen him hunt for a meal more than once on his show (then butcher it, then eat the testicles...).

Chris

[TommyGunn]

ICK!!

[RevDisk]

Wasn't that bad.

[TommyGunn]

Gee thanks.  Now I'll have THAT image in my mind the rest of the day.   



I think I'll take the processed chicken in the pastic wrap ......

[RevDisk]

Gee thanks.  Now I'll have THAT image in my mind the rest of the day.   

I think I'll take the processed chicken in the pastic wrap ......

With enough Zagorka, it's kinda tasty, dude.  Seriously.  Why do you have to hate?   

Bulgaria's an interesting place.  The parts I can remember, anyways

[Boomhauer]

A story to turn your stomach...one day way back when she was younger, back in high school, mom went into the kitchen and found a bunch of scrambled eggs and bacon on a plate, fresh off the stove that her father had just cooked (he had left the kitchen to get something). So she fixed a plate and ate it...

Only it wasn't scrambled eggs. It was, however, scrambled rabbit brains.


You want brains, testicles, intestines? You can have all you want. I'll stick with the non-weird stuff.

[Ben]

I had goat brains once when I was a kid when some Greek friends of my folks got a goat for us to slaughter and grill up. I can't even remember the taste anymore, but I don't remember it being unpalatable. My dad's Greek friend also made me eat a testicle with a shot of ouzo to "make me a man".

My parents always talk about eating brains on occasion, usually in some kind of coarse spread as I recall, when they were growing up in Europe.

[sanglant]

Pâté?

[TommyGunn]

With enough Zagorka, it's kinda tasty, dude.  Seriously.  Why do you have to hate?   

......

I'm too busy being disgusted to hate!!!


And no thanks I don't want any Pâté.....

[230RN]

Reminds me of the time I tried ketchup on cottage cheese. 

[sanglant]

Reminds me of the time I tried ketchup on cottage cheese. 

[White Horseradish]

What is so icky about brains? My grandmother used to make brain patties, I ate them, they were tasty. I like tongue and I like liver.  I don't get this - all this stuff comes from the animal, what makes them any more weird than muscle?

[Fly320s]

You can have all you want. I'll stick with the non-weird stuff.

It is only weird because you didn't grow up with it.

[cambeul41]

Brains, liver, "chitlins," tripe, heart, fish heads, snails, ramps, chicken feet, and the like are all good. Just don't make a yucky face when trying them.

One rule that my kids had growing up was that they had to take one bite of anything that was served at a meal -- and they had to keep a pleasant expression while doing so. We never had food problems. I do not recall their ever refusing to eat more than that obligatory one bite.

[vaskidmark]

Till the cholesterol count got to be very important, the icky parts were what I lived on and loved.  Most often is was far less expensive and a lot fresher than the stuff you buy under plastic wrap in the grocery store.  It also meant I got to shop in a real butcher shop where even if I did not personally know both the animal I was getting parts of and the guy who raised it the odds were excellent that the butcher did.

About the only thing I could never get near was southern chitterlings.  I am not sure what they do to pig guts, but the smell alone will knock a buzzard off a gut wagon.  Now, I've had intestinal tracts of pigs - and other animals - prepared by other recipies and loved them.  But chitterlings I just somehow could never get close to.

This gets to something that Andrew Zimmern only barely touches on in his show - that once you get past the cultural thing most food smells and tastes good.  If it didn't, folks would stop eating it in favor of what does smell and taste good.  Sure, there are some things (that fruit that smells like rotten meat) that even Zimmern can not/will not try to choke down again, but at least he gives it the old college try.  He's also chewed and swallowed stuff that he was not supposed to, only because someone forgot to tell him it was merely a garnish.

Nowdays all the trendeigh folks are discovering the dishes that used to be considered peasant food, and are flocking to restaurants where you pay a small fortune to eat stuff that is not muscle tissue and comes from inside the rib cage.

stay safe.

[Harold Tuttle]

<--- afeared of prions

[Boomhauer]

Nowdays all the trendeigh folks are discovering the dishes that used to be considered peasant food, and are flocking to restaurants where you pay a small fortune to eat stuff that is not muscle tissue and comes from inside the rib cage.

For a while there was a Hollywierd diet trend of paying ginourmous sums of money to restaurunts to be served raw meat infested with tapeworms for the express purpose of getting a tapeworm infection and losing weight. No f***ing way am I doing that.

[mellestad]

As others have pointed out, food preferences are just cultural.

However, I'm not sure *exactly* how the chef Richard Knight decided on this gem, "the sexy creaminess of brain in the center. Lovely."


Sexy?  Really?  I can understand something like whipped cream being used in that way because it is associated with certain, well, rituals, but I'm *fairly* certain brains are not used in the same way.  Whoo...bad mental image.

[Ben]

Nowdays all the trendeigh folks are discovering the dishes that used to be considered peasant food, and are flocking to restaurants where you pay a small fortune to eat stuff that is not muscle tissue and comes from inside the rib cage.

Funny, apparently lard is making a comeback with urban foodies. I read a blurb about it somewhere then did a search out of curiosity. All kinds of sites about gourmet lard and how to make lard. I laughed at the last part -- how does anyone not know how to make lard? Of course reading some of the articles, it was interesting to see how you had to get exactly the right part of certain meats in the right condition from the right butcher to get "good" lard. Me, I just make bacon. :D

[never_retreat]

Brains, liver, "chitlins," tripe, heart, fish heads, snails, ramps, chicken feet, and the like are all good. Just don't make a yucky face when trying them.

The only thing on that list that I have tried is tripe, A friend of mine (Italian) owned a normal deli. I remember you have to cook the crap out of the stuff, and in Italian fashion put red sauce on it. It wasn't bad but it was like chewing on a rubber band.

[vaskidmark]

Yes, being afeared of prions is a good thing.  But they are not in calves younger than 6 months, which is where brains are coming from since it's illegal to sell brains or anything with the spinal cord still intact from a beef over six months.  So either you are afeared of illegal brains or have nothing but fear to be afeared of.

As for the Italian guy who boiled the heck out of the tripe - it's probably because both he and his mother never knew how to cook it properly.  Braising is not boiling the heck out of something.  Tripe is like calimari - either is's cooked right and has good taste and texture or it's overcooked and tastes just like a rubber band.  And tripe should not have red sauce on it - a nice white sauce full of garlic and oil and rosemary, with the fruit of the wine coming on at the end, is what you want.

As for those hollywierd diets - how about just not putting excess food in your mouth?  Or if you really want to lose weight quickly, a nice trip to any 3rd world country and picking up any of several tropical diseases ought to do the trick for them. It also might reduce the number of hollywierdites, which makes the deal a two-fer.

stay safe.

[never_retreat]

[Triphammer]

Reminds me of a favorite Laurel & Hardy scketch;
Stan " You want a tongue sandwich?"
Ollie " I don't eat anything that comes from an animals mouth!"
Stan " Then how about some eggs?"

I laugh everytime I think about it.

[Harold Tuttle]