"Disgusting" food

goz83

Mrs Fox wrote: »

I've had chuck anus satay. Tasted amazing.

So you had anus, with nut sauce? :pac:

Faith

You've definitely eaten some disgusting things if you've eaten poor quality sausages! Arseholes and eyeballs was what I was always told.

I eat things when I don't know what's in them/what they are. Certain things trigger a real mental block though, and I literally can't swallow them (things like stomach, kidneys, etc).

username123

Generally speaking I dont like "organs" (kidney, liver etc...) - its not really anything to do with the taste, its certainly nothing to do with the part of the animal, its just the texture I think - and possibly because we used to be subjected to horrible processed steak/kidney pie in a tin as kids!

Ive eaten insects in africa, and I wouldnt be squeamish about any parts of an animal to try. Im not really a huge meat lover though, I eat chicken, turkey and the very odd bit of beef. I just find most meat a bit heavy on the stomach - nothing to do with squeamishness.

Dizzyblonde

I can't abide the texture of liver or kidney, it makes me gag.

pampootie

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

I can't abide the texture of liver or kidney, it makes me gag.

Me either, the texture of kidney particularly. I love pate and my OH has made it a mission to get me to like liver. I quite like the flavour but can't get past that texture

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

Mr Magnolia

If it didn't look or smell absolutely revolting I'd try it, after that it's about texture and taste alone for me. I've yet to be presented with something I couldn't appreciate in one way or another though I've yet to encounter some of the more far fetched dishes such as balut or even Hákarl.

The thought of eating anus holds absolutely zero appeal it's only on the beast for one reason as far as I'm concerned.

Animord

There is, or was, a restaurant on Radnor Walk in London called Ziani (?) and they do liver that I promise you, would change how you feel about it forever. It was, I think, fried for a mini-second in butter and served with polenta and was the best liver I have ever eaten. Melt in the mouth, oh, just delicious. I don't know how to describe it.

And I am not even going to try. I shall pour another glass of wine and dream about it.

:P

Happy New Year Cooking Boardsies. xxx

username123

I had haggis in a little rural pub off the beaten track in the Scottish highlands and I still dream about it. Yummy.

Cedrus

I used to think I'd eat anything, before I moved to china, but it was mostly a smell thing (they tend to like strong 'fermented' smells) as well as a totally different attitude to food hygiene (if it's not freshly slaughtered they won't touch it compared to our supermarket supply chains so we HAVE to cook it differently).

Fish eyeballs are quite nice and nutty but so small you have to concentrate to taste them, never had a larger animals one. I've tried most offal and while liver is my favourite, the taste of sweetbreads is divine (but the texture is vile), I've never enjoyed kidneys since a workmate noted that they smelt like piss when frying them. We were brought up on tripe at least once a fortnight, I never liked the texture but devoured the gravy it made. Smell and texture are definitely offals biggest enemies, also most of them are major gout triggers for me now.

Frank Hedermans eels are lovely (a bit bony) but the japanese Unagi is the golden prize to go for.

A buddy working with one of the co-ops regularly ships pigs anus' out to china, by up to 6 tonne per fortnight. Hard working muscle is always the tastiest and apart from the jaws no muscle works harder . Never knowingly tried it myself.

Minder

Most western offal holds no fear for me. Love kidney, good quality liver, black pudding, tripe, sweetbreads. Have yet to try brains. I don't appreciate The Chinese penchant for cooking specific parts of the pig that would usually go to the dog food factory. But if presented with a plate of stir fried fallopian tubes, I would still have to try it. Several posters have already made the point about mass produced long life foods. I'd sooner eat a strange plate of animal tubes if it was carefully prepared and made with fresh ingredients, rather then eat a tin of Campbell's meat balls.

Animord

I once gave my dog a tin of some kind of beef stew. This was a dog that had been abandoned and come close to starving to death and so would eat pretty much anything.

I don't know, obviously, what she though it was, but she didn't consider it food and wouldn't touch it. She wouldn't touch bisto either.

I assume it just didn't smell like meat to her...

goz83

My dogs would have had that stew gone in seconds. They eat EVERYTHING. They even eat the leaves off of tomatoes!!! They too were rescued, so I know what you mean.

As for the campbells meatballs mentioned above....I used to love those things. Delish!!! But I wouldn't bother with them anymore. At times, we all eat ****e (literally) without knowing about it, no matter how careful we try to be. Every single fart releases poo particles into the air we breathe and lands on the food we eat. If we thought about this too much, we would just starve to death.

irishproduce

Garlic chips and cheese!

rubadub

Animord wrote: »

Why are people so horrified by certain bits of the animal?

I think one big factor is being able to visualise the parts on a human and so are comparing them. So eyes, tounge, brain, kidneys. While if you hear "sirloin steak" most people would not think of an equivalent area on a human, if there is one.

There is texture too, I would not fancy biting into an eyeball which I suspect might burst open, if it was liquidised in sausages I would try it.

There is also the function of the parts, so people might be put off by kidneys & liver, like some are put off some fish or other animals that they consider to eat nasty things.

There is a good wiki page on taboo food
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo_food

Pang

I can't deal with the texture of kidneys or oysters. I can't eat them at all. It's as if I have a gag reflex.

Even the thoughts of oysters right now is making me want to gag.

Someone gave me one of those chocolate crickets or some sort of insect one day and I couldn't eat it. I think once I heard the almighty crunch coming from the other person's mouth that totally turned me off.

Animord

That page is almost entirely religious based and not to do with the revulsion like Pang talks about above, which is what interests me.

Oysters were once a very common food - I presume if you are introduced to them whilst very young you might not suffer from such an extreme reaction.

They are also delicious, I CRAVE them sometimes. All that iodine-y sea ish yumminess. :pac: (sorry Pang)

I do like this bit though

Some Catholics urged Pope Clement VII (1478 – 1534) to ban coffee, calling it "devil's beverage". After tasting the beverage, the Pope is said to have remarked that the drink was "... so delicious that it would be a sin to let only misbelievers drink it." [86]

Dizzyblonde

Animord wrote: »

Oysters were once a very common food - I presume if you are introduced to them whilst very young you might not suffer from such an extreme reaction.

I think you're right. And apparently texture is even more important than taste when you're introducing young children to food. They need lots of different textures and tastes.

Animord

Yes, a better question might actually be - when it comes to the things you find the idea of revolting, did you ever get them as a child.

We need a poll! :pac:

Faith

I can answer that with one specific food - eggs. My mum went through a period of deciding I wasn't eating properly, so I'd come home from (primary) school and I'd be forced to drink a glass of milk and eat a boiled egg. I hated it, and it was a LONG long time before I started eating eggs voluntarily. Even now, I cannot eat egg whites, not even the smallest bits of it. I also hate milk.

So forcing children to eat foods does as much damage as never introducing them to them, in my experience!

Actually, the same goes for cauliflower and beans (of the non-baked variety). Black eyed beans still induce rage in me, with memories of being forced to eat them as a kid.

Pang

I remember having kidneys as a child in steak and kidney pie and I had no problem wolfing them down. Then I went a number of years without eating them and when I went to again, I just couldn't chew/eat them let alone swallow them. I have no idea why there was this change.

Regarding oysters, I never had them as a child but have eaten mussels and other shellfish without any problem.

I can't think of any other foods I despise except for mushrooms especially portobello mushrooms. It's never the taste with me, always the texture.

Dizzyblonde

Forcing a child to eat something definitely doesn't work. I can still remember sitting in front of a bowl of rice pudding with a dollop of jam in it for hours as a young child and gagging at the thought of eating even a tiny spoonful. My mother had decided I was too thin and needed 'bulking up'

Animord

I was brought up with a very wide variety of food which included things like liver, kidneys and stuffed hearts fairly regularly as well as 'foreign' stuff. but I was never made eat anything I didn't like.

I eat everything. Except jelly. Dear God that stuff is horrendous - makes me gag!:D

Pang

I love jelly! It's squishy texture, I am ok with.

Cedrus

username123 wrote: »

I had haggis in a little rural pub off the beaten track in the Scottish highlands and I still dream about it. Yummy.

Good Haggis is hard to beat if you like pudding, sausage, or burgers, all have more or less the same stuff but only the Cheiftain is proud of it. Sadly there is a lot of cheap greasy rubbish about, poor pretenders to the throne.

Animord

Pang wrote: »

I love jelly! It's squishy texture, I am ok with.

Why isn't there a dislike button? There is clearly something wrong with you.

Pang

Animord wrote: »

Why isn't there a dislike button? There is clearly something wrong with you.

I have issues! :P:D

I adore jelly and icecream. I think it's because it reminds me of feeling better after getting my tonsils out as a child.

Cedrus

Animord wrote: »

Why isn't there a dislike button? There is clearly something wrong with you.

It seems that if there was a dislike button for everything, the voting panel would take several pages of the thread. :rolleyes:

Although I like things that I can understand other are disgusted by (eg Offal, bits that look like pigs), I am regularly shocked/surprised/bemused by some peoples 'horrors'. eg Mushrooms - cooked or uncooked in more or less equal proportions, eggs - fertilised? or unfertilised?, handling raw meat, soup from bones. ??

Pang

I was reading about the dislike for eggs and it reminded me of a girl I went to college who had a phobia of fresh eggs. She wouldn't touch them and if you put one in front of her, she used to go crazy, getting shivers and goosebumps. It was really odd.

She was ok with them when they were cracked, I think it was more to do with the shell.

Faith

Cedrus wrote: »

It seems that if there was a dislike button for everything, the voting panel would take several pages of the thread. :rolleyes:

Although I like things that I can understand other are disgusted by (eg Offal, bits that look like pigs), I am regularly shocked/surprised/bemused by some peoples 'horrors'. eg Mushrooms - cooked or uncooked in more or less equal proportions, eggs - fertilised? or unfertilised?, handling raw meat, soup from bones. ??

It's mostly a textural thing in many cases. I hate slimy things, hence my hatred of egg whites. I'm just about okay with mushrooms in small bites.

Jelly is delicious because it's sweet!