What foods you don't ever want to see on your plate?

[simonbaker]

It's the texture! Utterly revolting! (The flavour isn't so bad).

You do better than I, cannot bear the flavor either.

 

[Kitchen Barbarian]

Bacon makes the world go around.

Life without bacon is not worth living.

Everything is better with bacon! Even vodka!

 

[KatyCooks]

You do better than I, cannot bear the flavor either.

Well, I am going on ancient memory! We had it as kids. I never had it as a grown person who could make her own choices!

 

[CarolPa]

Appetizers. Cut the Spam in sticks, wrap a slice of bacon around it and pop it under the broiler.

 

[taxlady]

Okay, I am now officially tired of reading about Spam. Can we have a Spam thread instead, please?

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

A bit out of date here but is it true that offal products are called "variety meats" in the US? Makes it sound so much more enticing than offal.

I love hearts, liver and kidneys but can't bear tripe and it's relation, elder, and we used to feed "lights" (= lungs) to the cat when I was little but you never see them in butchers now. I'm rather partial to haggis which as you may know is a sheep's stomach stuffed with offal-y bits, oatmeal and other things and much tastier than it sounds.

We used to see grey shrivelled up bits called chitterlings in pork butcher's shop windows in the north of England but I never tried them and I haven't seen them in years. I suppose the prep required to clean them and make them fit for human consumption made them uneconomical to sell

Sausages mainly have artificial casings now but high-end makers still use intestines.

Variety meats sounds about right to me, although usually these meats are just presented in the section (chicken, pork, beef) they belong and described as livers, hearts, etc. "Offal" may be grammatically correct but nobody would ever buy a product labeled "beef offal" etc.

I tried tripe a few times but it just never tasted good. I don't care where it comes from or what it is, but it has to taste good. (I've had beef liver and chicken liver since my previous post, both were good.) I initially tried tripe after a PBS program hosted by a local PBS host Hewel Howser (who I really like) covered the leading tripe cannery on a PBS show, was reputed to be the best canned tripe you can get--and it was yuck!!! WTH, at least I tried. It wasn't the idea of tripe that put me off, it just didn't taste good. At least liver tastes good (to me).

By the way I had been wondering why I was seeing beef liver and calf liver less and less on the meat section shelves, and finally asked. Evidently (my speculation) demand has dropped and processing has advanced, and now you find your choice of beef/calf liver in the frozen food section. I found calf liver (I prefer calf because I believe it's more tender) in 1# packages, neatly cryovac packed into four 4 oz. slices, for about maybe $4. I took a package home and defrosted 3 cryos (put them in a bowl of warm water for about 15 minutes) and I had a great calf liver and onion dinner. As far as I'm concerned I like the new way of having the liver industrially sliced into 4 oz. portions and individually cryovac frozen as vastly superior to the old livers in a "tub" container. Now I can buy a few cryovac liver packages and have my pick of serving size in 4 oz. increments, and don't have to worry about "spoil by" dates. (I may be mistaken but I would rather eat the freshest organ meats vs. meats that have been on the shelf a few days.)

As far as sausage casings, I have no problem eating sausages with intestine casings. We humans have been doing this for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. I don't see any reason why we modern day humans have to suddenly decree, "ew, intestine, I won't eat intestines!" IMO there are few parts of any animal that are de facto decreed "disgusting" although I prefer to not eat brains or lungs.

When I'm cooking whole chicken or whole turkey I consider it the chef's right and the chef's delight to snack on the liver and heart (while cooking) although with turkey I'm usually preempted by the need to finely chop all the "offal" parts of my turkey to contribute to the gravy, and IMO my gravy is "killer!" (I make it exactly the way my mom taught me.)

As far as sausage, I'd rather see what goes into sausage vs. what goes into politics. From what I've seen lately in US politics, sausage isn't even a contender in which is more disgusting.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

The foods I would never like to see on my plate would have to be liver, brussel sprouts or green peppers.

Sorry, I love all three! I have a problem with your "green peppers" since many peppers are green. I presume you mean bell peppers???

 

[Kitchen Barbarian]

... you find your choice of beef/calf liver in the frozen food section. I found calf liver (I prefer calf because I believe it's more tender) in 1# packages, neatly cryovac packed into four 4 oz. slices...

Dang! Beats the way it used to be packaged - in great bloody hunks with that membrane still attached and all the nasty little tubules still firmly embedded ... I think a big part of the reason I hate liver so much is due to time spent removing said membranes and tubules before having to slice it up, dredge, and fry it ... smells bad when it fries, too ...

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Liver..no doubt. It smells heavenly cooking and looks fantastic on a plate but put it into your mouth and you know misery!

I sense that somebody taught you to not like liver, or somebody forced you to eat it.

In my family it was present as no big deal and no comment and no discussion about what it was or where it came from.

The only discussion was "try it with some ketchup" and "throw some more grilled onions on it."

My parents did not force stuff on we children nor did they go out of their way to prejudice us. My mom just served it, and the only thing she insisted upon was that we eat our entire vegetable serving. Not being forced to eat something has a lot to do with what you hate as an adult.

Oddly, I hated vegetables as a kid. Now I love them, and I often serve multiple vegetable servings with every dinner. The only vegetable I just cannot condone is cauliflower. But I love broccoli. Take away the green and it's yuck. Add the green and it's delicious!

Oddly, both are Brassica and I uniformly love every Brassica except cauliflower. I particularly love broccoli and gai lan (gailan).

I love liver but only lightly cooked. Just so it isn't pink but before it gets to that horrid dry, hard to eat stage

Oh yes, particularly, liver needs very light cooking or it turns out dry and unpalatable.


All the straight hair discussion is boulder dash. That is a genetic trait (except when you have your hairdresser straighten it.)

Chocolate covered ants.t

Oh my favorite God!!! (OMFG) I have been inundated by ant attacks for the last few months. I finally gave up and hired Orkin at $90 every two months to make sure there are no more ant infestations.

In the last few weeks I have probably vacuumed up about a pound of swarming ants off my kitchen counter!

Spam came here as a result of "Lend Lease" in the second world war and it never left. I could really hate America for that....

Oddly, if you frequent Asian stores you will discover they are all well stocked with SPAM. I speculate that in WWII it became a fixation with them.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

There must be lots of people who love Spam because it sells, 35 M cans per year, but I can't find anyone who will admit to it! My mother used to buy Treet, by Armour. I think it is cheaper than Spam and that would be why she bought it. I haven't had it in years, but as I recall it tastes a lot better than Spam. Not as spicy. My mother used to slice it and fry it with breakfast.

Once I tried their recipe of pretending it was a ham and scoring it and inserting whole cloves and rubbing it with a sauce, and actually it was pretty good.

But SPAM has so much fat I won't eat it these days. What is it, one-third fat?

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Bacon makes the world go around.

It would be interesting to know how much fat content a ready to serve serving of SPAM compares to a ready to serve serving of bacon, although I suspect people eat far smaller servings of bacon than SPAM.

 

[GotGarlic]

It would be interesting to know how much fat content a ready to serve serving of SPAM compares to a ready to serve serving of bacon, although I suspect people eat far smaller servings of bacon than SPAM.

This seems to have reasonable information: http://skipthepie.org/sausages-and-...am-luncheon-meat-pork-with-ham-minced-canned/

 

[GotGarlic]

Once I tried their recipe of pretending it was a ham and scoring it and inserting whole cloves and rubbing it with a sauce, and actually it was pretty good.

But SPAM has so much fat I won't eat it these days. What is it, one-third fat?

There's a lower fat version available. And it's usually an ingredient, not a whole meal, so the other components of the dish must be taken into account when determining the nutritional value, just like with other high-fat foods like sausage and bacon.

 

[taxlady]

I once bought beef liver in those frozen machine cut slices. It was awful. The dog wouldn't eat it. I've been skeptical ever since.

 

[Addie]

This seems to have reasonable information: Nutritional Comparison: Bacon and beef sticks vs HORMEL SPAM, Luncheon Meat, pork with ham, minced, canned

Thanks. That info was for the regular Spam. I buy the Lite. Less salt (sodium) and I only slice off two very thin pieces at a time. Sometimes I forget it is in the fridge and end up tossing the rest of it. So I don't feel bad about the figures because I am actually eating a lot less than the figures are telling me.

 

[GotGarlic]

Thanks. That info was for the regular Spam. I buy the Lite. Less salt (sodium) and I only slice off two very thin pieces at a time. Sometimes I forget it is in the fridge and end up tossing the rest of it. So I don't feel bad about the figures because I am actually eating a lot less than the figures are telling me.

Yes. I was responding to Greg who wanted to know how Spam compared to bacon. I get the low-salt version as well.

 

[simonbaker]

Sorry, I love all three! I have a problem with your "green peppers" since many peppers are green. I presume you mean bell peppers???

I like fresh yellow & orange peppers. I think the green ones just have a strong bitter taste for me.

 

[Addie]

I like fresh yellow & orange peppers. I think the green ones just have a strong bitter taste for me.

The green bell peppers are bitter because they are not ripe. When they do ripen they turn red, yellow or orange. I would love to know how green ones became so popular. I will never understand how folks can willingly eat bitter foods. There are too many better tasting foods to indulge with.

 

[Kitchen Barbarian]

I like fresh yellow & orange peppers. I think the green ones just have a strong bitter taste for me.

I like the green and the red - the yellow and orange just taste kind of watery too me...

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Grandma used to cook with green peppers and then pick them out of her food. She liked the flavor imparted but not the texture.