Stuck for something 'different' to make for dinner?

I had some tasty black puddings in the UK & Ireland. It tasted like marrow to me, for which I developed a taste when I was young. But when it was over-cooked and dry, bleh!

So why is it that so many favorite cultural foods are somewhat disgusting, or made from the worst bits of the animal? Are they a test of cultural authenticity or a double-dare type food? I am now thinking of lutefisk and that spongy stuff in jars that shows up around Passover. And the legendary fruitcake...

[size=18:8d540b9336]Waukesha man rediscovers gift fruitcake more than 40 years later[/size:8d540b9336]

Associated Press
Published April 18, 2006, 2:27 PM CDT

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- Lance Nesta did what many people do when receiving a fruitcake -- he set it aside, only to rediscover it more than 40 years later in his mother's attic.

Nesta couldn't resist taking a peek at the cake, still in its original tin and wrapped in paper.

"I was amazed that it hadn't changed at all," he said.

Nesta's two aunts sent him the fruitcake in November 1962 while he was stationed in Alaska with the Army.

"I opened it up and didn't know what to do with it," Nesta said. "I sure wasn't going to eat it, and I liked my fellow soldiers too much to share it with them."

As best he can remember, he packed the cake with the rest of his belongings and shipped it home to Waukesha when he left the military a few years later. He recently rediscovered the boxed fruitcake in the attic of his mother's home in Waukesha.

His mom had given him advance warning of the fruitcake back in 1962.

"She knew I hated the damn things, but she said she didn't have the heart to tell my aunts, who had already mailed it," he said.

The cake arrived wrapped in brown paper with a red "fragile, handle with care" sticker on it. The cake itself was contained in a round blue tin printed with the words "Old Fashioned Fruitcake."

"Now it's just old," Nesta said.

While looking at the cake's container this week, he noticed the listed ingredients included rum and brandy.

"If I had known back then that it had rum and brandy in it, I would have eaten it," he said.

[quote:d415e30fc8="Dawn Marron"] Haggis - I'm Scottish and even I wouldn't eat a sheeps stomach emptied of it's bile and undigested contents and stuffed with fresh undigestable contents [smilie=sick.gif]
[/quote:d415e30fc8]
Me neither, but then no one eats the stomach itself, it is purely used as a casing to hold things together, and the majority sold in supermarkets these days use a plastic casing. As for the filling, minced mutton, oat meal and seasonings, I can't seen anything wrong with that
[quote:d415e30fc8]
And as for sweetbreads - what the hell do you want to eat knackers for? Come to think of it - eat a blokes knackers and get your hankering for sweetbreads and brains over in one swallow :044:[/quote:d415e30fc8]
I can't say I would fins testicles something particularly appealing to try, though from a freshly castrated calf, I hear they are meant to be delicious. Sweetbreads aren't testicles.

OK, you got me there, I thought sweetbreads were testicles and I was alluring to the age old saying about mens brains being between their legs, sorry if I caused any offence :icon_biggrin:

My mum still has to have food parcels sent down from Scotland otherwise she gets withdrawal symptoms for Mothers Pride crustless bread, haggis, tablet, coconut macaroons, scotch pies, Edinburgh rock, McEwens toffee etc

Live and let live I say, if people want to eat weird and wonderful things then that's fine (as long as it's not each other which is not fine). I guess weird and wonderful things would have been part and parcel of this caveman diet I mentioned earlier.

Hey, no offence taken,

I do find it surprising though, people who dismiss foods as being yeuch when they only know the urban myth as to what goes into them

Haggis, depends on the recipe; I have made it myself, with minced lamb, fat, oatmeal, occassionally a little liver and some fat. Although my personal favourite is to add some sunflower and poppy seeds to the mix - completely untraditional, but I like it. - Oh and I have never had a sheeps stomach to make it in yet, either a muslin bag or a plastic bag in the microwave (OK the purists will claim it cant be haggis without the sheeps stomach)

Sweetbreads, well, you may prefer testicles to them they are the thymus and pancreas of a young animal.

I often serve up meals without saying what it is, they assuming people like it then explain what it is. Often people will say they had always hated it till then. What is more true is that people had hated the idea till then.

[color=darkred:fcf75719eb][b:fcf75719eb]It's all a matter of taste [/b:fcf75719eb][/color:fcf75719eb]
24 April 2006
BY DANIEL NIELSEN

Smoked salmon and chocolate. Delicious on their own but combined? Nelson Smoked Cuisine co-owner Craig Jones reckons his chocolate fish with real fish inside are pretty good. "Most people say 'Eeeeww yuk', but when they actually try it they go 'that's not bad'."

Mr Jones came up with the idea of covering smoked salmon in dipping chocolate for the Havelock mussel festival in March. Everyone with a stall had been asked to turn up with "something a bit different", Mr Jones said.

Former All Black and Dancing with the Stars winner Norm Hewitt judged the something different category and awarded Mr Jones' chocolate fish top prize. Mr Jones said the slightly sour taste of salmon and the sweetness of chocolate complemented each other surprisingly well. He admitted though that TV food celebrity Peta Mathias, who would normally try anything, had refused to taste the chocolate fish.

"She wasn't impressed," he said.

Mr Jones said he would be testing the product on customers at his stall at the Saturday market. "We got a fair response at the mussel festival, but I'm not sure if it will ever be a commercial product."

Nelson Smoked Cuisine employee Amelia Cohn said she liked the chocolate fish, saying she first thought they would have been gross but after trying them had found them "moorish".

Before trying it Sandra Meredith-Young, a hospice nurse, said the idea of chocolate fish was "revolting". But after a taste she admitted the salmon was lovely. "Surprisingly, I don't mind it. Maybe it's because I like salmon and I like chocolate."

[img:fcf75719eb]http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/common/imageViewer/0,1445,233093,00.jpg[/img:fcf75719eb]

[img:ba9dc52e9a]http://us4all.50webs.com/smilies/april/koken1.gif[/img:ba9dc52e9a]

Anyone remember faggots ? I've had some good and some bad in my time.

And what about laver bread with bacon?

[img:ba9dc52e9a]http://us4all.50webs.com/smilies/eten/eten05.gif[/img:ba9dc52e9a]

The salmon with choco looks ok to me, i would love to try it....

[quote:b7babe9779="Mother Bear"][img:b7babe9779]http://us4all.50webs.com/smilies/april/koken1.gif[/img:b7babe9779]

Anyone remember faggots ? I've had some good and some bad in my time.

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For some reason they call them savoury ducks in Yorkshire

My brother used to make grilled baloney, cheese and jam sandwiches - wierd but not quite as odd as chocolate-covered salmon.