Do you know what you like or do you like what you know?

[NickJones]

Ox tongue...has anyone tried this??? , bit odd when you get over the idea...it's quite nice tho...

[corbasse]

"paling in 't groen": literally "Eel in the green", fried eel cooked with a green herb sauce which has to contain sorrel.

I've got some nice traditional recipes for tongue as well.

I would be very interested in these!! Then I'd skip the kidneys. Every year we roast a whole pig (~100 lbs - 45 Kg) and the tongue is always quite good, and is good for a few "Ewwww"s from a couple people.

Here's one version, with a rather sweet sauce:

Ox tongue with a raisin sauce

1 ox tongue (cleaned)
soup vegetables: leek, carrot, celery, parsley.
salt
250 grams of raisins (9 ounces, or probably about a cup full)
1 l water (4 cups)
21/2 dl red wine (1 cup)
75 gr. butter (3 ounces)
50 gr. flour (2 ounces)
50 gr brown sugar (2 ounces)
2 tbsp. red currant jelly

Soak the tongue in salted cold water for a few hours. Refresh water several times. Thouroughly dry the tongue with kitchen paper/towel. Soak the raisins in the wine.
Put a thick layer of the roughly cut vegetables in a pan. Place the tongue on top of it, add some salt and the water. Boil for approximately 2 hours (some recipes say to keep the water just below boiling point for a better result)
Rinse the tongue under cold running water and peel the skin of. Keep it warm.
Pour the stock through a sieve.
Melt 2/3 of the butter, add the flour and let it go light brown. Add the wine the raisins have soaked in, stir until the lumps are gone. Slowly stir in 2 cups of the stock. Add the sugar and raisins and boil for 10 minutes. Add the jelly, season and whisk in the rest of the butter.
Cut the tongue in slices and serve with the sauce.

[Rick Denney]

Oh, I dunno. There are some things I'm prepared to pass on just because. I have enough good things in my life so that I don't think I'm depriving myself.

For example, just looking at the tripas tacos during Fiesta in San Antonio reminded me of something on a Klingon menu. And I managed to avoid being hoodwinked (by guys I worked with) into eating the "calf fries" at the Night in Old San Antonio portion of Fiesta.

But it's a measure of my hunger at this moment that nearly nothing in this thread has put a dent in it. Not even the mention of McDonalds.

By the way, I've eaten at the McDonalds in Tokyo. I was taken there by my host, not because he thought I would like it, but because it was his favorite. Give me a plain bento box any day. I was wary when he also took me to Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant in Tokyo. I've eaten at the real Joe's in Miami Beach, and I'm glad to report that the branch in Tokyo doesn't attempt to replicate the same menu. The fare was purely Japanese and excellent.

Rick "who will now have to go out for dinner instead of waiting because of this thread" Denney

[ai698]

I can't believe I've just seen the day when people are arguing over the quality of different countries McDonalds. I'm sure it would give me heartburn no matter which country I eat in. I dread when my kids want to go to McD's.

[sc_curtis]

Mexico's McDonalds have funky-tatsing beef.

Yes, I can enjoy it in the States, so if you don't like it there, don't try it down here!

[Joe Baker]

... "calf fries" ....

Some members of TubeNet probably aren't cultured enough to know what these are. For their benefit, let me offer that they're also known as "Prairie Oysters". These are, of course, from cattle. A similar cut from goats is known as "Mountain Oysters". Anyone who still doesn't know is directed to Google any of the above terms for an education.

But for me, it is an opportunity to share one of my very favorite 20th century poems: "Oysters", by cowboy poet Baxter Black.

• Oysters
  
  The sign upon the cafe wall said "OYSTERS: fifty cents."
  "How quaint," the blue-eyed sweetheart said, with some bewildermence.
  "I didn't know they served such fare out here upon the plain!"
  "Oh, sure," her cowboy date replied, "We're really quite urbane."
  
  "I would guess they're Chesapeake, or Blue Point, don't you think?"
  "No, ma'am, they're mostly Hereford cross...and usually they're pink.
  But I've been cold, so cold myself, what you say could be true,
  And if a man looked close enough, their points could sure be blue!"
  
  She said, "I gather them myself out on the bay alone.
  I pluck them from the murky depths and smash them with a stone!"
  The cowboy winced imagining a calf with her beneath.
  "Me, I use a pocket knife, and yank them with my teeth."
  
  "Oh, my!" she said, "You animal! How crude and unrefined!
  Your masculine assertiveness sends shivers up my spine.
  But I prefer a butcher knife too dull to really cut
  I wedge it in on either side and pry it like a nut!
  
  "I pry them out. If they resist, sometimes I use the pliers,
  Or even Grandpa's pruning shears if that's what it requires!"
  The hair stood on the cowboy's neck. His stomach did a whirl.
  He'd never heard such grisly talk, especially from a girl!
  
  "I like them fresh," the sweetheart said and laid her menu down
  Then ordered oysters for them both when the waiter came around.
  The cowboy smiled gamely, though her words stuck in his craw;
  But he finally fainted dead away when she said, "I'll have mine raw!"

_______________________________
Joe Baker, who likes the seafood kind just fine, but the others....

[Rick Denney]

I certainly hope that you still had a Maria's Tortilla, an anticucho and a longneck or three of Lone Star!

Of course. But my favorite were the gorditas. The real ones, not that horror sold by Taco Smell.

True story:

A new employee of the City of SA came dressed in $1200 hand-tailored suits, cosmopolitan manners, and a Middle Eastern heritage. He'd been in town only a couple of weeks, but had already attempted several raids on the hard-won resources in other departments, and already had half of his peers in the city organization ready to ease him into the River at the earliest convenience. But the bosses were smitten with his crafty sales tactics, and the rest of us were having trouble defending ourselves. I nearly lost the new computers in my section (this was in the 80's when getting PC's was nearly impossible) that I'd been working to buy for three years.

There was a fellow of long experience in my section, who was a local and whose parents were locals (if you consider Poteet local) and who could charm the bark off a tree. Let's call him Eligio. He was taking our new colleague around Fiesta to "be nice".

I and two others were walking through El Mercado at lunchtime during Fiesta, and we came upon our new fancy-man colleague and Eligio. We saw that the new guy was eating tripas tacos, and, trying not to sound like he was new in town, he praised them as being delicious.

The rest of us turned so he wouldn't see us laughing. He was immediately on guard, and only then did his brain change "tripas" to "tripe". He turned green and we thought he was going to be sick, and then gave a look of pure death to Eligio. Eligio didn't stop laughing for a week. I would have given him a promotion if he hadn't blown it two nights later trying to get me to eat calf fries at NIOSA. But I don't wear hand-tailored suits and I saw him coming.

Rick "who is happy to go to his grave having never eaten calf fries" Denney

[tubatooter1940]

This thread has focused on chow that we know about but what about music?
For years I played in bar bands that did many requests and I could predict what tunes people would request from their age. I formulated a theory that most people's musical growth stopped their senior year in high school and most all their favorite tunes were from that era. Bar bands and oldies radio stations play the high school favorites of their target demographic and so far it has been profitable.
Northerners come down here and order "safe" meals of steak, burgers and chicken-avoiding gumbo, boiled crawfish, etoufee and more of our finest creations. We find a New England boiled dinner bland as kissing your sister.
I took a guitar and tune book to New York State and was entertaining at a party. A lady walked up and asked me what kind of music I played. I handed her a plastic bound table of contents (tune list). She read every one and stated, " I don't know any of these songs" and she hit the door never to return.
I believe we all have a tendency to pad the odds on food and fun to try to
guarantee satisfaction in advance. I further believe that those who dare to try new recipes and music forms are sometimes rewarded beyond their wildest expectations.

[LoyalTubist]

Right! Put some bacon in that matzoh ball soup!

[Chuck(G)]

No Yankee, I, but there are exceptions to the bland reputation of New England cooking. Take Philly Pepper Pot soup:

http://homecooking.about.com/library/ar ... lss112.htm

First ingredient? Tripe.

For me the more boring food is to be found in the country's midsection, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, etc.

[Lew]

Jellied Eels...MMMMmmmm eel is a nice food.
anyone tried Ostrich or Kangaroo , there is an ostrich farm in north wales , Ostrich hide is as good as leather , trousers have sold for up to £1000 , a ostrich steak is about £8 per pound ( about the same as a fillet steak) , and an ostrich egg costs about £200 , well worth an investement as they will live in most conditions..

Ostrich is good, but because it has so little fat you need to be careful not to over cook it or it gets very tough. I think Ostrich goes well with Hoisin sauce.

[LoyalTubist]

Here in Southern California, since the predominant culture is Mexican, the surefire cure for a hangover is menudo, which is tripe soup. I am not much of a drinker ("and you call yourself LoyalTubist?"), but I have eaten lots of it. The stuff is a little spicy but very tasty.


Give it a try, even if you haven't been drinking!

[Dylan King]

I eat basically kosher. It isn't good for the body to eat meats that are unclean.

Learn more here...

http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/cgi-bin/t ... 1104248743

[Chuck(G)]

I eat basically kosher. It isn't good for the body to eat meats that are unclean.

Learn more here...

http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/cgi-bin/t ... 1104248743

I eat basically vegetarian. It isn't good for the body to eat meat.

Learn more here:

http://www.vrg.org/

We had a great spinach-rice-cheese cassarole tonight

[tubatooter1940]

Everybody should eat what I eat and that's all I have to say .

[MaryAnn]

I eat basically kosher. It isn't good for the body to eat meats that are unclean.

Learn more here...

http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/cgi-bin/t ... 1104248743

While I have no basic argument with most of the concepts in the article, I can't resist one point of commentary, based on the following quote:

"While some well-meaning people consider male circumcision barbaric, medical science shows that .... circumcised men have lower rates of cancer of the penis and women married to circumcised men have much lower rates of cervical cancer! "

I'd just like to point out that cervical cancer is a viral infection acquired from the male, who acquires it through sexual contact. The religious prohibitions against extra-marital sex are in existence for this reason: somewhere along the line, someone noticed that couples who had lifelong sexual contact only with each other, did not come down with sexually transmitted diseases. Without sexually transmitted diseases, circumcision would be moot.

MA

[LoyalTubist]

All I hear is a collective "YUCK!"

You didn't hear "YUCK!" from me, unless I tasted it.

[Carroll]

Just had some wondeful Anticuchos (Peruvian barbeque cow heart) with some corn on the cob and fried whole potato... YUM!

[Kevin Hendrick]

Everybody should eat what I eat and that's all I have to say .

But if we ate all your food, you'd starve!

[LoyalTubist]

Just had some wondeful Anticuchos (Peruvian barbeque cow heart) with some corn on the cob and fried whole potato... YUM!

OK... you will hear it...
YUCK!

(I have tried it.)