I just finished a bowl of fried chicken gizzards and I was wondering what other foods might be considered "strange" by city people. I grew up on pickled/fried tripe, chitterlings,blood pudding, pickled pig hocks and feet and consider all of it "comfort foods".

What things do you eat that others consider ickey but, you love?

-- Peg (Ashlinep@localnet.com), August 15, 2001

Answers

Recently we had a family reunion which my brother and his family from Papua New Guinea attended. Their boys, ages 8 and 10, showed the rest of the cousins how to catch, boil, and eat crayfish. This is a southern country specialty as well, along with fried frogs' legs. I have not tried either one, but some of the children enjoyed the crayfish (called crawdads in the south).

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), August 15, 2001.

raw beef

-- Rick#7 (rick7@postmark.net), August 15, 2001.

Things I eat that my wife (from Tuvalu) thinks are strange (and refuses to eat): frog legs, oysters, squirrels

Things that my wife thought were strange, but after finally trying them, now likes: flounder, crawdads

Things my wife eats that I think are strange (but eat anyway): raw fish, snails, octopus

About the only thing I refuse to eat is fish ovaries that she likes to leave in the fish when she cooks it (hence I usually clean my own fish)

-- Steve - TX (steve.beckman@compaq.com), August 15, 2001.

Souse meat/cheese and sardines /peanut butter sandwiches. I was introduced to that last one by a friend at work that craved them during a pregnancy.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair@yahoo.com), August 15, 2001.

I love fried fish eggs, fried dove with the heart left inside..Yum! Chicken livers that have been smoked with a chicken on the grill... Beef tongue and heart are excellent sliced and served cold on sandwich with horseradish and mayo. Man, I'm glad it's almost lunchtime!

-- Robin (robinatt@salpublib.org), August 15, 2001.

I put catsup on scrambled eggs,, only when Im out of hot sauce.

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), August 15, 2001.

While camping this weekend we had rabbit, bass, bluegil, catfish, ground hog and some deer meat. The strangest food of the weekend was when we stopped on the way home for lunch and had something called a Big Mac? Not sure what kind of meat it was and not sure I wanted to know.

Had some Sushi on tuesday. Very good.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), August 15, 2001.

Homemade cottage cheese with salsa on top. I've had this for breakfast, lunch and suppers.

-- Kate Henderson (kate@sheepyvalley.com), August 15, 2001.

Raw fresh picked sweet corn. Just love nibbling on an ear while picking and husking.

-- Nancy Bakke-McGonigle MN. Sunset (dmcgonig@smig.net), August 15, 2001.

Do prickly pear cactus pads count as "strange food"? Around here, not. Sliced up and sauteed with hot pepper, or breaded and fried, UMM UMM. I have even eaten them raw, during a wet year. Tasted like green apple. If you want to try them, cut only the younger pads, the ones that grew THIS year; older ones too fiborous. Cut off the spines while still on the plant, or seperate the pads from each other as you cut them off. If you just gather them together in a bag, the spines just transfer from pad to pad and take forever to "de-spine". Freeze very well, got about five packages in my freezer now.

Tripe or Tripas (three-paz):fried cow intestines. Served in corn tortilla tacos (flour tortillas are the invention of the devil, for traditionalists, but I make allowances.) YUMMM.

Menudo (me-new-doe): boiled cow stomach lining with hominy and spices. Winter time breakfast meal of champions.

There are others but even over the internet, gagging sounds abound so I'll stop here. Bon apetit.

-- j.r. guerra (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), August 15, 2001.

Living close to the border of Mexico, I am exposed to many wonderful dishes influenced by our neighbors to the south. Two I particularly like are "Migas" and the other is Migas with okra.

Just saute some chopped onion and jalepeno in a little bacon grease and add some scrambled eggs. When the bottom is nicely "set" add some corn tortilla chips ( can add grated cheese at this time also) stir up until done to your liking and serve.

My favorite version is to add sliced fresh okra during the saute process, and when you figure the okra is softly fried and done, proceed as above. I love okra in scrambled eggs!!

-- Carole in Tx (carle@earthlink.net), August 15, 2001.

The weirdest thing I ever ate was when I was pregnant with my first daughter. The scary part is, it was EXACTLY what I wanted - I was craving it severely! I took those crappy little chocolate donuts (you know the kind that come 6 to a package and taste like waxy covered cardboard?) and dipped them in pimento cheese. Couldn't get enough of it! Is that sick or what?!?!?!?

Now, on a serious note - fried rabbit liver is the BEST! My hubby hovers over the skillet while it's frying - he can't wait for it to be done!

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), August 15, 2001.

My husband thinks I'm weird for liking cold pork chops and toast with strawberry jam for breakfast! But then, he dosn't like cold pizza or lasagna for breakfast either! And, I love chicken gizzards too!

-- Ardie from WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), August 15, 2001.

My husband loved it when his mother cooked tripe(lining of sheeps stomach) sweetbreads (lambs brains), lamb testicles and roasted lambs tails skinned and enjoyed at tailing. However I do not cook these thing for him. We are not that desparate.!!!!!!

From New Zealand maybe that explains it.

-- Karen Holmes (gnkholmes@hotmail.com), August 15, 2001.

My mom loves grilled cheese dipped in lemonaid. Ugh. I don't eat anything weird, I don't think. I like nutritional yeat powder sprinkled on buttered toast and buttered popcorn. Venison is about as exotic as I get. Sometimes I crave those nasty cream horn things with the gross white cream filling and the powdered sugar. This IS a weird craving because I don't like to eat sweets in general, including ice cream.

-- marcee king (thathope@mwt.net), August 15, 2001.

Steve, do you think there's a reason your wife leaves the ovries in the fish???!! Kind of like the guy who told me he purposely put something red in a load of white clothes when his wife asked him to do the laundry!! She did not ask again.

Some of this stuff sounds good. My weird taste is applesauce with a bit of suger on top of a slice of bred. Cold pizza, lasagna, cookies pie(!!) are all great breakfast foods in my book.

-- TAB (burnash@gisco.net), August 15, 2001.

Hmmm, most of this doesn't sound all that odd to me. Perhaps it is from being raised country. Love chicken gizzards, tounge sandwiches (hate skinning it though) and the cottage cheese/salsa (even better with Doritos). One thing we had growing up that many people think is strange is milk mush. It is milk and flour cooked together to form, well, hot paste. Then you serve it with butter and cinnamon and sugar. Great with beer or what Grandma drank - near (non alcoholic) beer.

-- Trisha-MN (tank@linkup.net), August 15, 2001.

Lamb's brains taste great, but I've given them up - the cholesterol content of brains is about one hundred times as great as anything else (damn!). Otherwise, we can afford that in Australia (and New Zealand) - we don't have scrapie or BSE. Sweetbreads are fine too, but they're not brains - they're glands. Usually the pancreas, but sometimes the thymus as well.

Haggis would have to be THE quintessential homesteader meal - absolutely cuts waste to a minimum. Not a regular of mine - hard to find, and a hassle to prepare if you're not on a farm, but any time I CAN find it .... Do a google search on "haggis recipe" to view a few, but one is at http://www.housearcane.org/haggis.htm . I've tasted a quite nice variation which used thyme as well. I've had trouble tying down a definition of "rolton", but it's a sheep of some description - almost certainly lamb, although the recipe would work with mutton as well.

I'll enjoy just about anything which others would term offal or variety meats. However, again - cholesterol - I'm having to limit myself a little. There is no meat with a more concentrated taste than heart - whether you're talking beef taste or mutton taste or chicken taste or whatever. It's always fine-grained and tender too, provided you avoid the valves and ligaments. Liver is always good, and a good iron supplement (note, ladies) provided you don't overcook it - if you do then it toughens up and then you've GOT to grate it (see the haggis recipe). Fry bacon pieces, then fry onion with it in the bacon fat, then fry thinly sliced liver (say 1 cm - 4/10") until just cooked (still faintly pink in the centre), and serve with boiled potatoes. Ideal meal when killing a beast - you don't have to let the liver set like you do with muscle-meat, it's quick to prepare, you don't have to keep the liver then, and it's a great reward after the work of butchering the beast.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.

We had exchange students from Sweden and Norway and neither girl would touch corn as "it's animal food". When we ate sweet corn right off the cob they said we looked like a bunch of horses.

-- Dee in Iowa (countryanna54@hotmail.com), August 15, 2001.

Oh, you guys are making me feel queasy!! One of the strange things we eat is banana mayonnaise sandwiches. Equal parts banana and mayo is mashed together and spread on bread as an open faced sandwich. It took a bit of coaxing to get me to try it the first time.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), August 15, 2001.

No offense all, but GROSS! I like a wide variety of foods but not like any of those. I remember after I had my first baby, my MIL brought us chicken soup - I couldn't eat it because she had used the liver in the broth. I give her all the innards from my chickens now and she uses them all.

-- Jean (schiszik@tbcnet.com), August 15, 2001.

I've ate, let's see. Squirrel, chicken and dumplins, raccoon, rabbit,bear, and of course venison, rattlesnake, frog legs, crawdads, one time when I was little my family lived just off an Apache reservation in Arizona and we were invited to a powwow and they were eating horesemeat. I tried a small piece, it wasn't bad but I didn't eat anymore because I kept seeing my pony Peanut. Then I married a man who grew up in the backwoods whose family ate, get this people. ARMADILLO!!! I had heard all of the stories about getting diseases and all but as my father-in-law put it. If it was gonna kill us we wouldn't be here today. His parents and his granparents ate it and they didn't die. He had a point so I tried it. It's good! I've ate it for twenty years now and i'm not dead or sick. Maybe in the head a little. HAHA. I still haven't learned to cook it right yet. My oldest brother-in-law is the one who cooks it. We catch it and he cooks it

-- vicky (bullride99@msn.com), August 15, 2001.

Sorry, I wasn't thinking "experience foods". I've eaten snake a couple of times - tastes a little like chicken, with a texture more like fish. I'd be happy to put it on the diet regularly, if it didn't involve facing live snakes regularly - in Australia that almost always means deadly venomous. Also tasted witchety grubs. These are an Australian Aboriginal delicacy - thumb-sized (mostly more like children's thumbs) distinctly segmented white grubs, usually found in rotting trees. Roast in ashes, texture not unlike prawns or shrimps - taste sweet and nutty.

Heck, some people even react strangely if you eat "chicken paws" (chicken's feet (and legs to the knees), thrust in boiling water then skinned; dipped in batter and fried - common in Chinese Yum Cha). Surprising amount of meat on their palms and around their fingers. Otherwise you can just use them (after skinning outer layer) as soup base.

However, I must admit I've never had fried chicken gizzards - can't get past that rubbery inner lining. Always just minced and made soup, or chopped fine and stewed or casseroled. How do you prepare them fried?

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.

Don, dont you pull the inner lining out of the gizzards when you butcher? I cant imagine trying to eat that lining. I always stick those gizzards in with the old hen and let her stimmer in the crockpot for a day. Tender as all get out, and yummmmy!

Strange foods... well, rivel soup is an old favorite of my family. Take about a cup of flour and mix an egg into it, till it becomes a mass of lumps. Dribble into boiling salted milk, and let it cook briefly till done. That recipe must be hundreds of years old, from Germany.

Mashed potatoes on buttered bread. Fried eggs with hot sauce or ketchup.

Oh yes! Egg stretcher omelet with tomato gravy! Mix a cup of milk with 1/2 cup of flour, add another 1/2 cup of milk, and then whip in 4 eggs and a little salt and pepper. Fry in a skillet, stirring often til almost done, then cover and take off the burner. It will finish cooking in its own heat while you make the gravy. For the gravy: make a thick white sauce, add as much tomato juice as the amount of milk you used, and sweeten if desired. Place a peice of buttered toast on your plate, put a wedge of those eggs on top, and cover everything with the tomato gravy. mmmmmmmmmmm Now that's Amish cooking.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 15, 2001.

ICK!!! YUK!!!! and GROSS!!! I guess I would be considered a picky eater. The only thing on this post I've ever eated are the chicken & dumplin's and ketchup on my scrambled eggs. I also put ketchup on my macaroni and cheese. I don't eat ANY type of seafood at all and being born and raised (and still living) in Florida THAT is very odd I know. SOme odd combinations of "normal" foods I like are tomato soup with a cheese sandwich dipped in it, vegetable beef soup with a peanut butter and guava jelly sandwich (Mmmmmm....just ate that today). That's about all I can think of at the moment.

-- Greenthumbelina (sck8107@aol.com), August 15, 2001.

As I know gizzards, there's an inner layer/lining/bag which you just peel off and discard. Then there's a rubbery or gristle lining inside the muscular part, which you cannot readily separate from the rest - in fact which is part of the rest.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.

Potato or Mac salad with hot sauce, cottage cheese with hot sauce. Peanut butter sandwich with onion & mayo, baked bean sandwiches. French fries with vinegar, (I'm not Canadian).

-- hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), August 16, 2001.

Here is some things that I introduced to my wife after we got married, she's not a city girl, but her family never foraged for food like mine did. Crawdads cooked indian style(fried in bacon grease), Squirrel and dumplings, Fried wild rabbit with rabbit gravy, deer meat, wild onions with eggs scrambled in, wild poke greens, various wild mushrooms, fresh caught fish, dagoonies (indian bread dish made with brown beans), diganoolies (a corn tamaley made with hickory corn). The only thing she really liked was the crawdads and she has gotten use to eating deer meat.

Here is one thing she introduced to me and I still have nightmares about it even after ten years of marriage. Fried tuna with eggs scrambled in it. It looked and tasted like something regurgitated.

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), August 16, 2001.

Well, Don, I guess I stew gizzards to cook them soft enough. I never did fry them.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 16, 2001.

YUK, you guys will eat anything. Not me. I limit my unuasual to mountain oysters, cold tounge sandwiches and scrambled brains and eggs. Those are not strange foods. Just good eatin. My grandma and grandpa ate a lot of stuff that I wouldn't eat. BUT, I have never been "hungry" and I didn't live during the depression. The depression and THE war seemed to be the turning point in what was normal food to what we call strange.

Good question, enjoyed the response.

-- Belle (gardenbelle@terraworld.net), August 16, 2001.

I've never had the opportunity to try mountain oysters before. "I've had some fun times in my life before, but I've nevered had a ball".

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), August 16, 2001.

When traveling with my husband, I would tell him I could eat anything as long as I had enough catsup. When I asked for catsup for a steak once in a restaurant, the waiter walked off in a huff and never did get back with any catsup. I always put chutney on the table for dinner, we like it with everything. I make it from my own fruit trees, as well as most any other fruits. Am surprised at how many people have never eaten it. When traveling, I will eat anything, once. Most of them I will eat again, but in China I was served something I just could not eat...I think it was dog...when I cut into it, I thought I heard it whine.

-- Duffy (hazelm@tenforward.com), August 16, 2001.

LOL Russell

-- Belle (gardenbelle@terraworld.net), August 16, 2001.

one answer for the gizzard recipe is after you take out the inner lining ,not the rubber wrinkle part, as don says it is nigh impossible. wash , dip in egg and flour and fry in hot grease. you can also boil them, then fry. spices are at you discression.I like fried squash sandwitches, my grandson also made me a sandwitch with peanutbutter, mayo and ketchup, not bad. Being from the country we ate just about whatever didn't eat us first. Ha-Ha. happy memories Lexi

-- Lexi Green (whitestone11@hotmail.com), August 16, 2001.

My kids loved chicken gizzards when they were growing up - very cheap at the store (and the lining was already off!). I put them in a paper bag that had flour & seasonings in it, shook it up, then fried them in bacon grease or butter, and when brown, added water and simmered them until tender. Served it over mashed potatoes.

I've been having fried-egg/tomato/pesto/bread-n-butter pickle sandwiches on homemade whole-wheat bread for breakfast.........

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), August 16, 2001.

Roast pig brains. Very tasty. I was dared, and I was not sorry.

-- Kathy (catfish201@hotmail.com), August 16, 2001.

I have eaten something called "Beuschel" in Austria--a gulasch made I think from chopped lungs, and seasoned with lots of Hungarian paprika. It was wonderful. Other than that, cheese and marmalade sandwiches are yummy!

Something that I think is very strange is what they call "silver tea" in Austria--it is simply a cup of hot water with a bit of milk and sugar (sugar optional).

-- Elizabeth in E TX (kimprice@peoplescom.net), August 16, 2001.

Oh yes - New Zealand tea. Too bland for me, but I know people who do drink it. Take a cup of hot water. Add - nothing. Drink.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 16, 2001.

Peg, I still like to put salted peanuts in my coke! Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), August 16, 2001.

When I was a kid my mother used to make us sardine and ketchup sandwiches (on Wonder Bread, of course), which I loved! And I loved the peanutbutter and banana sandwiches she made also. And then there were the Eggs Napolean, which I still make --fried eggs with ketchup and seasoned breadcrumbs. Yum.

Also, my husband and I had a restaurant/deli for many years with a wide array of sandwiches for lunch. One of them was the Thanksgiving sandwich, which consisted of turkey, cubed bread stuffing and cranberry jelly on bread. One lady regularly got hers with nacho cheese sauce on it. Blecchh!!

And then once I was in a Souplantation restaurant, which has a salad bar, soup bar, pasta bar, etc. At the soup bar the lady in front of me ladled into her bowl some chicken noodle soup, and then I watched in horror as she added New England clam chowder on top of that!

Well, ok, I gotta add this one: my Iranian husband has a national dish called Calepache. He doesn't like it himself, but sometimes cooks it for groups of his friends who love it. It's a lamb soup with organ meats and baby lamb heads, and looks so gross as it simmers on the stove, with those little faces bobbing up and down in the broth. You couldn't pay me enough money to swallow one of those little eyeballs! And those little lamb lips.... don't get me started! Barf me right out of this world!!

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), August 17, 2001.

White toast with cream cheese and sliced green olives! And the weirdest thing is that I don't eat meat

-- Dianne (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), August 17, 2001.

I have to laugh at these responses. I grew up 'in town' eating only very traditional foods. Then I marred a hunter. Needless to say, I've now learned to eat AND ENJOY rabbit, quail, pheasant, deer, crappie, catfish, oysters, seafood and even gizzards. I've tried bear, raccoon, snake and froglegs as well and even cook a pretty excellent turtle myself now & then. My, how times have changed!! We're having our 22nd anniversary this week so I imagine there's still more learning to come! On a funny note - when our kids were small they always wanted some of the gizzards that Daddy was cooking on the grill. As the gizzards were usually very limited in supply (you know - 1 per bird!) we started cooking the livers for them and telling them they were gizzards. To this day - and my daughter is 20! - they still think they're eating grilled gizzards! LOL LOL!! We never had the nerve to tell them any different. Boy oh boy are we in trouble when the find out! :) Course I had her convinced until she was almost 8 that brown cows gave chocolate milk! Being a parent can be sooooo much fun!

-- Beth (bethymae60@hotmail.com), August 17, 2001.

OOOOPS! Forgot the hotmail addy was 'ker-put'! Typed the darn thing from habit! Correct one is the yahoo! Sorry about that!

-- Beth (bethymae60@yahoo.com), August 17, 2001.

Wow, what great answers everyone! I'm curious now, Ernest, how did you start putting salted peanuts in Coke?

-- Peg (Ashlinep@localnet.com), August 17, 2001.

beth, you cracked me up when you said being a parent can be so much fun! I try pulling things over on mine, but they know me oh so well! The two most different foods I tried and became hooked on are scrapple and soft shell crabs. Scrapple seems to be mainly from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia and in Pennsylvania. Anyone else have it locally? Softshell crabs are crabs taken just as they shed their hard shell and before the shell hardens again. Cleaned, floured and fried they are delicious. We also have clam and oyster fritters....excellent.

-- amy (amy_tarr@hotmail.com), August 18, 2001.

Ok, last night my hubby AGAIN sprinkled pepper on his canteloupe. Gross. Son, 15, insists that peanut butter, ham and cheese sandwiches are good with chocolate milk mixed with grape juice to wash it down.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 18, 2001.

have had many rodents, stir fried cat, barbecued dog and numerous bugs. have never had a bad rodent, kung pao fluffy was delicious and very tender (which is why the wife won't let me call free to good home adds) fido tastes okay but can be tough if not prepared right, not interested in repeating the experience anyway. i prefer soft bugs over crunchy ones, best grubs come from hardwood trees pine makes them taste nasty.

-- Pops (cindy556@devil-dog.com), August 18, 2001.

Ok, Pops wins this one. Yuck.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 18, 2001.

Pickled turkey gizzards are good, kind of like pickled eggs. Also, had some roasted racoon that was very tender and tasty!

-- cowgirlone (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), August 18, 2001.

Every spring (about Mother's Day)in central Maine we watch the river banks for the fiddleheads, which are a fern. We pick them just as they come up from the ground, and before they unfurl. We boil 'em and put butter and salt on them. (some people put vinegar on them)This is one of my favorite foods! Other things that I've received strange looks for eating are plain donuts or molasses cookies with peanut butter, biscuits and molasses, fig newtons and cheddar cheese, and Tomato soup with Ritz Crackers. I don't think these foods strange at all, but some of the things you guys have put down sound downright disgusting! I've also eaten an eel that I caught one night at camp. It was very mild in taste, but a bit tough.

-- Nancy in Maine (paintme61@yahoo.com), August 21, 2001.