Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
While you might be issued with a survival rifle in your survival pack, you might not want to eat everything you shoot on an alien planet.
Exotic Cuisine
- Thread starter Timerover51
- Start date
That's what a fusion still is for, glop for everyone?
You can get crocodile in various parts of the world, including Australia, and a mini-alligator called a jacinta (or something like that) is quite common in bits of South America. I've had barbecued croc.
I guess it depends where - quite readily obtained in most of Europe and Australasia - particularly New Zealand where deer are farmed and feral deer are considered a noxious pest. I've also had barbecued Kangaroo.[/QUOTE]
I did try this at the behest of a Vietnamese cow-orker, but I really can't see the appeal, I'm afraid.
Have also tried this, but I can't really say it did a lot for me (apart from give me bad breath and reflux). For those who haven't tried Durian, try to envisage a watermelon-sized fruit with flesh the texture of custard and tasting a bit like raw onion. It's banned on trains in most of Asia for a good reason.
I don't mind raw oyster if appropriately seasoned (salt and vinegar works well), and there is a species of Abalone native to New Zealand called a Paua. It's overfished now, but it tastes quite nice if you can mince it up or somehow soften it from its natural rubbery texture. I've had various cooked octopus dishes.
Pizza is quite hit-and-miss in the UK, I'm afraid. There are good places, but 'next a major train station' is not usually a good place to look for anything interesting in food here.
Curry is a major staple of the restaurant sector here in the UK. Some time ago it pipped Fish and Chips as the most popular takeaway food. In fact, there are some regions of the UK (Bradford, for example) that are internationally recognized as being centres of excellence for curry. So delicious. So much fat ...
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Menudo! Though I don't like that red spicy variety that's popular in the Southwest.
Platanos fritos - fried bananas. Not the yellow kind people like to munch. These start out green and starchy, fry up sweet and tasty, good with your morning eggs.
I have a passion for oxtail stew, fond childhood memories.
Tried poi once - a paste made from taro root. Uck, though I can't rule out the possibility it was just poorly made, since it was at a luau hosted by my elementary school. That was also where I learned the best way to cook a pig was to bury it in the ground on a bed of hot coals.
Platanos fritos - fried bananas. Not the yellow kind people like to munch. These start out green and starchy, fry up sweet and tasty, good with your morning eggs.
I have a passion for oxtail stew, fond childhood memories.
Tried poi once - a paste made from taro root. Uck, though I can't rule out the possibility it was just poorly made, since it was at a luau hosted by my elementary school. That was also where I learned the best way to cook a pig was to bury it in the ground on a bed of hot coals.
You haven't missed much if you haven't done Mcdonalds, although I rather like Kimchi. Spicy pickled cabbage (actually fermented with anaerobic lactic acid bugs) - it's rather nice. I've had black pudding and haggis, although I don't think I've ever tried faggots.
A few other odds and sods I've tried:
- Horse in northern Italy - pretty generic red meat taste.
- Piping hot Polenta with cheese - also in Northern Italy. The locals eat Polenta by the truck load. I wouldn't rave about Polenta per se, but the cheesy polenta (imagine cornmeal porridge with cheese) was actually rather nice.
- Deep fried Pigeon in Indonesia. Like eating used tires with a chicken-ish taste.
- Rendang - Indonesian beef curry. More delicious than a really delicious thing but it takes about 6-8 hours to make and needs constant supervision to prevent it from burning.
- Bika Ambon - cake made with tapioca flour and lots of eggs that has a unique texture. Normally flavoured with Pandan, which tastes a bit like Vanilla but is green in colour.
- Bhut Jolokia - uber-chilli. I've tried a small piece and that was quite enough. Never been crazy enough to try and eat a whole one. I did once agree to act as a guinea-pig and try a teaspoon of Young's Mega Death (a sauce made from Bhut Jolokias) in a plate of baked beans and toast. Now I understand the inspiration behind Cash's Ring of Fire.
- Pecel Lele - Indonesian deep-fried catfish. Common street food and tastes OK.
- Gado-Gado - Indonesian salad with spicy peanut dressing. Really nice; one of the best salads I've ever tasted.
- Mutton Bird - Seabird native to New Zealand. Boiled for 3 or 4 hours with several changes of water and still unbearably salty.
- Cheese, Cheese, Cheese - One nice thing about any country in Europe is that the supermarkets all have dozens of varieties of cheese. Compared with NZ's 3 grades of cheddar, faux Edam and the odd Camembert, it's cheese heaven. The supermarkets tend to stop short of really sharp cheeses, though.
- Mushy Peas - Not true peas, but a pulse similar to chick peas. The Lebanese did it much better with Hommous.
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Moose doesn't taste like deer/venison. It's much closer to beef. And they can often take Several shots from a .223 Rem rifle (AKA 5.56 NATO)... Guys hunting them with checked out M-16's often have to dump a clip into them to drop them.
Hell, I watched a moose (doing about 30 mph) get himself up after hitting a Ford F-350 work truck (doing 65 mph), and wander off. Totaled the truck, badly injured the driver. Moose got up and walked away. Mind you, same moose had hit me earlier that same day.
Big, ugly, stupid, mean, and not that tasty.
Oh, and sometimes, you shoot them, they charge you.
But you want un-tasty meat?
Walrus. Tastes like rancid beef in rancid seal oil. Oh, how I hate the stuff. The oosik is often used as a fishbat.
I've not (knowingly) had seal meat, but I've had salmon soaked in seal oil, and it's an acquired taste. Chase it with STRONG coffee.
Muktuk (wright whale blubber) - consistency of old octopus, expands when you chew it (to about 5x original volume), tastes vaguely like coconut in seal oil.
Seal Oil - kind of like fish oil, with a hint of goat fat.
Neighborhood dog - just like bear, only not nearly as tough. At least, in the stirfry that was served.
Grizzly Bear - in fish-eating season - gamey red meat with a seal-oil aftertaste.
- before the fish run - slightly gamey red meat with a hint of vanilla.
Just before hibernation - extremely gamey, extremely greasy.
Rattlesnake - tasted kind of like chicken, but with the consistency of fish. Was sent frozen, but had been killed 2 days before being eaten. (A friend's brother killed on on the farm in TX, fedexed it to Alaska.)
Hell, I watched a moose (doing about 30 mph) get himself up after hitting a Ford F-350 work truck (doing 65 mph), and wander off. Totaled the truck, badly injured the driver. Moose got up and walked away. Mind you, same moose had hit me earlier that same day.
Big, ugly, stupid, mean, and not that tasty.
Oh, and sometimes, you shoot them, they charge you.
But you want un-tasty meat?
Walrus. Tastes like rancid beef in rancid seal oil. Oh, how I hate the stuff. The oosik is often used as a fishbat.
I've not (knowingly) had seal meat, but I've had salmon soaked in seal oil, and it's an acquired taste. Chase it with STRONG coffee.
Muktuk (wright whale blubber) - consistency of old octopus, expands when you chew it (to about 5x original volume), tastes vaguely like coconut in seal oil.
Seal Oil - kind of like fish oil, with a hint of goat fat.
Neighborhood dog - just like bear, only not nearly as tough. At least, in the stirfry that was served.
Grizzly Bear - in fish-eating season - gamey red meat with a seal-oil aftertaste.
- before the fish run - slightly gamey red meat with a hint of vanilla.
Just before hibernation - extremely gamey, extremely greasy.
Rattlesnake - tasted kind of like chicken, but with the consistency of fish. Was sent frozen, but had been killed 2 days before being eaten. (A friend's brother killed on on the farm in TX, fedexed it to Alaska.)
SnichtheWalrus
SOC-6
Gujarati Food
I married a girl from Gujarat (state in Western India) who loves to cook (she learned it from her family). Gujarati's are well known vegetarians who love their snacks and sweets. When I travelled twice to her hometown and the nearest city there were snack shops and food stalls everywhere.
Wikipedia:
Staples include homemade khichdi (rice and lentil or rice and mung bean), and chaas (buttermilk) and pickles as side. Main dishes are based on steamed cooked vegetables with different spices and dals that are added to a vaghar, which is a mixture of spices heated in oil that varies depending on the main ingredients. Salt, sugar, lemon, lime, and tomatoes are used frequently to prevent dehydration in an area where temperatures reach 50 °C (122 °F) in the shade. It is common to add a little sugar or jaggery to some of the 'Vegetable dishes and dal. The sweet flavour of these dishes is believed to neutralize the slightly bland taste of the vegetables.
I married a girl from Gujarat (state in Western India) who loves to cook (she learned it from her family). Gujarati's are well known vegetarians who love their snacks and sweets. When I travelled twice to her hometown and the nearest city there were snack shops and food stalls everywhere.
Wikipedia:
Staples include homemade khichdi (rice and lentil or rice and mung bean), and chaas (buttermilk) and pickles as side. Main dishes are based on steamed cooked vegetables with different spices and dals that are added to a vaghar, which is a mixture of spices heated in oil that varies depending on the main ingredients. Salt, sugar, lemon, lime, and tomatoes are used frequently to prevent dehydration in an area where temperatures reach 50 °C (122 °F) in the shade. It is common to add a little sugar or jaggery to some of the 'Vegetable dishes and dal. The sweet flavour of these dishes is believed to neutralize the slightly bland taste of the vegetables.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I cannot claim to have eaten this, but I must admit, it does sound interesting. However, hippopotamus are a bit difficult to find in the Midwest, and I am not up to visiting Africa to try and collect one. Shooting a hippopotamus calf might be frowned on as well. From WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS REMINISCENCES OF EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA AND AMERICA BY Sir SAMUEL W. BAKER F.R.S., F.R.G.S., ETC. ETC., MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1891
FreeTrav
SOC-14 1K
If you've still got 'em this long after I posted the announcement, you can send 'em along in DOC.
I consider Bear chili one of the best foods I've ever had! Love that stuff!
Not many chances for Haggis here in the Midwest.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I will have to do some copy and pasting. The files are sort of large
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I must be getting older. I have changed my views on Escargot, and I now am eating them when on a cruise ship. Strange.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
They're easier to catch.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Calimari can be good if properly prepared - there was a restaurant in Tustin California that served squid steaks - slices of a 5-6" diameter tentacle.
It can be rubbery if improperly cooked, or nicely firm but easily chewable if done properly. Taste is hard to describe, but nice.
The same place had shark steaks - yummy!
Alligator is also available in the Houston Texas area in most seafood places.
Bison is very nice - here in northern Utah it is available in small amounts in many grocery stores, and a local burger place (Burger Bar) has bison, elk, and venison (mule deer) burgers on their normal menu (there are privately-owned meat herds of all 3 in the area).
Burger Bar also has a featured "exotic meat of the month" - I've had yak, camel, alligator, kangaroo, nilgai (northern India antelope), water buffalo, ostrich, pheasant, and a number of less-exotic-but-rarely-fast-food meats over the years.
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Kakistocrat
SOC-12
Pigs’ feet (AKA “trotters”, crúibíní ) are quite tasty. A quick online search revealed recipes for cow trotters, deer trotters, calf/lamb trotters, and goat trotters, but I haven’t tried any of those to date.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I have had pigs feet, and I would agree with the quite tasty. Against that, if it is pork, I will eat it. I like lamb shanks, which are close to lamb trotters.
So, you're McRib fan?
