Food and Food Culture

I've had frog. It also doesn't taste like chicken. It was really nice, however.

I don't like so much meat, it's easier to list the meat I do like.

I do like: lamb, chicken, marlin *, fish in general, seafood, snails, frog.

Due to food intolerances, the only meat I can eat are fish, small amounts of other seafood, small amounts of chicken, and very small amounts of pork.

* I'm usually quite scathing of the habit of comparing different meats to chicken, but in the case of my blue marlin experience, here's the story:

I was part of a group of 20-25 people who were given a mystery meat at an evening meal and told to guess what it was. Everyone guessed chicken, except for two people. One being me. It had the texture of undercooked chicken, but I could taste and smell a slight fishiness to it.

The issue is the other person. She didn't try it because, with a potentially fatal seafood allergy, she never ate any meat without detailed knowledge of it (including preparation in case of cross-contamination). The organisers knew about her allergy and knew it was an extreme, life-threatening one. So they got an absolute bollocking off us for effectively placing this girl's life in danger.

There was another issue, however. Blue Marlin was a protected species that was illegal to catch. Everyone around that table was a trainee ecologist or marine zoologist. The organisers were fully-qualified and our instructors. So, they got a bollocking from us for that, too. (They then claimed it was an accidental catch.)

Seriously. What were these people thinking? (Sadly, that wasn't the only health and safety issue we had with our lecturers during that trip.)

I've had chocolate-coated ants before. That tasted quite nice. Very crunchy. Come to think of it, that was a blind taste, too (a geographer, this time). What is it with me attracting blind taste testers?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 27th 2018 at 1:50:03 PM

Not tried marlin. Tried many other kinds of fish, such as whitebait and such. Unlike my dad, I've never managed to do the live seafood thing (and dad was very, very drunk when he did that for his work colleagues in Tokyo). However, the whole family loves many forms of sashimi.

I've eaten shark, skate and ray, but don't really recommend it: it's all too easily turned into the consistency of an off-road tyre. And, no: it doesn't taste like chicken. That lot is closer to eel, but without as many bones.

I've eaten turtle (and only found out afterwards). It's distressingly tasty. As in, really flipping gorgeously delish. And, I never want to eat any ever again, despite what my taste buds think about it.

About horse: the Swiss love horse and really know how to cook it — fondue chinoise with thinly-sliced entrecote is a classic, and might be older than people think (many Mongols settled in the Alps, and horses grow easily on grass). Most of France and Italy also know how to cook horse, as it's a speciality.

I love goat: one of my all-time favourite recipes uses either kid, goat, mutton or lamb, depending on what you have. Karoo Lamb Pie — it's the onion and the cloves that really make that one sing. For slabs of roast or grilled goat, you really need to use kid, rather than adult goats. Adult goat needs to be curried, bredied or stewed, and is best cooked with something like apricots, tomatoes, prunes or apples alongside spices to offset the astringent taste many people have problems with (I happen to love that goaty taste, but am well aware that its a rolled-tongue-thing: you either can or you can't). Jerked goat marinated in yoghurt? YUM! (But, not to everybody's taste: doubling down on the goat with the goatsmilk yoghurt can really turn people off.)

Edited by Euodiachloris on Aug 27th 2018 at 3:02:52 PM

... Fuck it, I'm moving to Switzerland at the first opportunity. Oh dang, it's landlocked, too!

Come to think of it, while it's not that rare or exotic kind of meat (but getting increasingly hard to get as the time passes by and the environment gets more fucked up), the tastiest meat dish I had was relatively simple potato-onion-and-carrots stew made from wild deer meat my uncle brought from hunt back in the late Nineties - early Noughties. I don't exactly remember its taste, just my impressions of it. Still, m-mm...

I've had horse (while in France). It was beautifully cooked, but I didn't like it. And I'm not just saying that because I'm British. I think it has more to do with the fact I don't like beef. I just don't like that kind of meat.

Sharks, skates and ray suffer from the same problem as octopus, squid, prawns, mussels and oysters.

They've got to be cooked very carefully because there's a very fine line between the meat being undercooked, properly cooked and overcooked. Most people overcook. You know it's overcooked when you think you're eating rubber (or a tyre).

When it's cooked properly, however, it's amazing. Unfortunately, most people don't cook it properly — and that includes restaurants.

That said, I don't recommend a lot of these species on the grounds of conservation of marine ecosystems.

A while ago, I discovered completely by accident that the Marine Conservation Society (a British charity) has helped developed an app to help guide consumers on which seafood on the mark has sustainability issues using a traffic light system (two green levels, yellow, orange, red). The aim is to focus on the green species, minimise the yellow/orange species (avoid if possible), and avoid red. The sustainability rating is based on a range of factors (typical fishing and/or farming methods, impact of those methods on habitats or other species, health of farmed or wild stocks, seasonality, and even whether or not good quality data exists on the species to be able to properly monitor it).

I've been having quite a bit of fun with it, but I suspect it's not much use to people who aren't living in Britain (and possibly parts of the Continent).

There is a big WTF aspect to it, however. It includes seafood recipes, which is a good idea, but the recipes include species that are in the amber and red zones. I'd have thought they'd try and keep the recipes to the green species to try and encourage people to buy green. So, yeah, not the best app, but definitely a very interesting one.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 27th 2018 at 4:56:27 PM

I’ve had dried crickets at a Halloween festival. Salt and Vinegar flavored. Quite delicious. Same with lollipops that have ants in them, which I also found rather good.

All the Brits in the thread will have had horse, it just comes down to if we intended to on not.

I enjoyed horse jerky that I got from a Swiss guy at boarding school, it was tasty, it was very mean of him to trick the horse loving girl into eating it.

I debated cracking a joke about that when I was writing my previous post, but guessed someone else would do the honours.

I wasn't affected by the horse meat scandal, and I've always used the butchers instead of supermarkets anyway.

Almost everyone I know who switched to a butcher during the scandal has stayed with the butchers since. Certainly all the local butchers' in my area have reported continued good trade ever since then.

Butcher ain’t gonna sell me a 4-pack of frozen steak and ale pies.

Yeah my diet is terrible, I mainly live off frozen food, snacks, sandwiches or staff food and the coasional proper meal that my girlfriend makes or we get when going out.

But man, I sure do love me some honey glazed ribs from the local Chinease.

Make sure you at least get a few servings of fruit and veg.

At your age you can probably eat like that with few issues, but when you get older it all catches up with you.

Edited by M84 on Aug 27th 2018 at 10:16:53 PM

Yeah, I don't eat steak-and-ale pies, so I really don't mind the fact butchers don't sell them.

When I do eat pies of any description, I make them from scratch. I like cooking, but the main reason is that I have so many food intolerances that I have to cook from scratch.

We have a farm shop in one of the local garden centres that sells fresh pies. My favourite is chicken and ham.

Changing the subject, does anyone have any food goals? Something I have always wanted to do is eat as many meals/food in the country/region/city they originally came from. I have eaten Peking Duck in Beijing, Dim Sum in Hong Kong, Moussaka in Greece and Cornish Pasties in Cornwall. I would love to have Haggis in Scotland, Neapolitan pizza in Naples and Chicken tikka masala in Glasgow.

Edited by SebastianGray on Aug 28th 2018 at 2:14:13 PM

Can attest. One of the few good things about having dietary limitations is that it improves your cooking skill and sparks culinary creativity. I'm thinking about writing a cookbook sometime when I reach retirement age.

I have a pretty vague one: expand my menu as further as my condition and fussiness allow.

Aha! We have the same goal!

Anyone here regularly eat Ethiopian cuisine? First time I tried it, I was initially put off by the appearance of the injera. But that spongy bread quickly grew on me.

I've never tried it but looking it up it seems quite interesting, particularly the Wat. I have to agree that injera doesn't look too appetising but it would probably be quite nice.

I haven't had the pleasure, but I'll try anything new. Injera looks like it would be quite nice. I nearly had the chance to try wat once, but things got in the way. It smelled absolutely amazing though. I wouldn't mind trying tibs either... but, while I'd try it, I suspect I'd react badly to kinche.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 28th 2018 at 5:44:19 PM

It absorbs the Wat very well. If you like eating stew with bread, it is something you have to try at least once.

Injera looks a lot like Russian bliny. They are cooked basically the same way - liquid pastry quickly grilled into a thin round bread, sorta like pancakes (in fact, блины are often translated as pancakes).

Sugar is often added as an ingredient, and bliny are served as a wrapping for smetana, curd, sweetened condensed milk, etc. When bliny are not sweet, grilled mincemeat is often used as a filling.

Injera is usually prepared from teff and allowed to ferment before being made into flatbread. Think sourdough but as a spongy flatbread.

That sounds pretty tasty. How does it compare to Naan?

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 28th 2018 at 1:52:48 PM

So. I am gonna travel soon to the Andes to visit my extended family in a local festivity. I —as usual— I am gonna try to eat as many different dishes as possible.

So, I update pics or not? I don't know if I am gonna have internet, so dunno if I could post here.

Injera is more sour due to the fermentation. And again it is spongy.

I don't think we're allowed to post pics here.

Edited by M84 on Aug 28th 2018 at 9:26:51 PM

So maybe you folks can help me out with something. I have an issue eating raw tomatoes, I can eat them processed as in stewed, cooked, ketchuped, etc just not raw. Same for Bell Pepper and Eggplant. What are some good substitutes for these veggies and fruit as they are common in a lot of dishes.

I can't speak for all situations, but for sandwiches and the like, might I suggest substituting fresh tomato for a tomato-based chutney or relish. The tomato is cooked as part of the preparation process but you retain its basic flavours (as well as adding more depending on the exact preparation).

Alternatively what about stuff like sun-dried.

I also know you can find similar things for capsicum (bell peppers to North American anglophones). It's more expensive but its fairly straight forward to find something like strips of roasted capsicum/peppers in olive or or something similar in the food isle. If it's anything like more local grocery stores, usually somewhere near the sauces.

Damned if I know for eggplant though.

I could use an answer to that question, too.

In my case, chutneys and sun-dried tomato aren't an option. I have no alternatives for the bell pepper either.

My recipe books recommend substituting courgette or butternut squash for aubergine. I can't eat butternut squash at all and I have to be careful with courgette, but that's what my recipe books suggest. What I do sometimes do is use avocado instead. Carefully, because it's fattening (but the good fats, so that's something).

Edited to add: Just in case translation is needed because, you know, Separated by a Common Language:

• Aubergine = eggplant
• Courgette = zucchini

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 30th 2018 at 12:52:31 PM