"Derek Broughton" wrote in message
...
Gill Passman wrote:

kathy wrote:

©anadian Ponder wrote:

FRENCHMEN


LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
k :-)


They taste just like chicken.....

Frenchmen??

but with the disadvantage that there
just isn't as much meat on a frog leg

Oh...
--
derek
=============================
LOL! ;-)

--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

kathy wrote:
Where I lived in Canada Frenchmen were not native
west of the Rockies.

k :-)

Was that because someone mistook them for chicken and they couldn't run
the risk???? :-)

Gill Passman wrote:

Hmmmm....now snails with garlic butter and a bit of parsley are an
entire different ball game to frogs legs.....bit chewy and gritty if not
prepared correctly but very nice once you get over the thought that you
are eating a snail.....

I find it interesting how certain foods are acceptable to certain
cultures and how even those more adventurous still cannot pallet the
thought of eating certain creatures.....over here there is a move
towards marketing grey squirrels (may contain traces of nuts) but I
can't quite bring myself to try....kangaroo meat, crocodile and
allegator steaks have been available for years - but I can't quite get
my head around serving them up for tea.....

I love snails, and have had 'roo (which doesn't taste like chicken) and
alligator (which does), but I still can't bring myself to eat tripe - even
in France where they call it anduillette, so it's obviously much better.
otoh, I'm a picky eater - ruined by English school dinners. I can eat
practically anything that was never on the menu at school...

A friend of mine's Mother was nuts about her Koi.....they had Japanese
guests.....the culture is that they bring a gift to the host....in this
case they did a bit of research and discovered that she was very fond of
these fish....so they bought her 4, nicely gutted and wrapped in
newspaper ready to serve for dinner once suitably cooked.....

Well, they're just carp - not very appetizing as fish go, but not that bad.
--
derek

Gill wrote Was that because someone mistook them for chicken and
they couldn't run
the risk???? :-)

We confined them all to a nature reserve called Quebec
for their own safety...

k :-)

Reel McKoi wrote:

"kathy" wrote in message
...
Woe is me. Not enough wine in the world, I expect, to
try frog legs or snails! FrogZilla, out in the pond as I
type, is relieved to hear it.

k :-)
=====================
I had snails in a wine sauce in a French Restaurant in NYC years ago.
They were delicious.

My family actually go and pick them wild (snails) after rain.

We make them in a spicy tomato sauce and have to pick them out yourself.

It was a treat !!!

I had snails in a wine sauce in a French Restaurant in NYC years ago.
They were delicious.

I've resisted commenting on this thread, but the "restaurant" mention
hits too close to home, so here goes.

I grew up in Newport, Rhode Island and, as a teenager, worked as a
dishwasher at one of the fanciest restaurants in the wharf area. One
of the things they served was Escargot. I'm not sure how they prepared
the snail meat, but I do know that every night we'd run the large
snail shells through the dishwasher so they could be reused. (Hey, not
my idea; this was policy.) One night we were screwing around, as
underpaid dishwashers in fancy restaurants often do, and we broke some
of the shells open. They were loaded with little bugs. We broke more
open and they were all loaded with bugs. These shells were coming off
of customer's plates.

It's still one of the fanciest restaurants in Newport, so I recommend
avoiding the Escargot if you're in the area.

Dave

The older the culture, the more likely they will eat whatever is EDIBLE no matter how
bad it tastes. The older the culture the longer they have survived all kinds of
starvation events. OK OK .. so I am referring to the Chinese. We once went to a new
years celebration with Chinese friends and their family and one of the traditional
specialties was "sea cucumber". It was the nastiest, slimiest mess I have ever put
in my mouth and spit out immediately.

Sorry, but if it needs salsa or hot peppers or garlic up the ying yang in order to be
edible, or if it has to be hidden (zucchini) then it just isnt making it onto my
menu. Squirrel is good, but it is worse hell spitting out the shot than spitting
fish bones. Ingrid

On Fri, 30 May 2008 20:38:42 EDT, Gill Passman wrote:
I find it interesting how certain foods are acceptable to certain
cultures and how even those more adventurous still cannot pallet the
thought of eating certain creatures.....over here there is a move
towards marketing grey squirrels (may contain traces of nuts) but I
can't quite bring myself to try....kangaroo meat, crocodile and
allegator steaks have been available for years - but I can't quite get
my head around serving them up for tea.....

wrote:

The older the culture, the more likely they will eat whatever is EDIBLE no
matter how
bad it tastes. The older the culture the longer they have survived all
kinds of
starvation events. OK OK .. so I am referring to the Chinese. We once
went to a new years celebration with Chinese friends and their family and
one of the traditional
specialties was "sea cucumber". It was the nastiest, slimiest mess I have
ever put in my mouth and spit out immediately.

[that, unfortunately, leads me to wonder what was the nastiest slimiest mess
you put in your mouth and _didn't_ spit out immediately, but perhaps we
shouldn't go there]

My wife & I and another couple went to a Chinese New Year dinner, and my
friend still calls it our "Fear Factor" meal. I quite enjoyed it - after
all it's better than they cook in English schools - though I draw the line
at duck's feet. otoh, we didn't have sea cucumber. They collect them
off-shore here and send them to Asia - nobody here will eat them. otoh,
lots of locals won't eat lobster either - "poor folks food".

Sorry, but if it needs salsa or hot peppers or garlic up the ying yang in
order to be edible, or if it has to be hidden (zucchini) then it just isnt
making it onto my

LOL. I feel pretty much the same way about zucchini (and okra). I imagine
they're just milder forms of sea cucumber. I've had good zucchini exactly
once.
--
derek

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:06:48 EDT, Derek Broughton
wrote:

My wife & I and another couple went to a Chinese New Year dinner, and my
friend still calls it our "Fear Factor" meal. I quite enjoyed it - after
all it's better than they cook in English schools -

I just have to ask, what do they serve in English schools, at least when
you were a kid?

I use to love our American school food back in my day. Now I not only
couldn't eat it, but much of it would make me sick (wheat sensitive).
~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

"Pond Addict" wrote in message
...
I had snails in a wine sauce in a French Restaurant in NYC years ago.
They were delicious.

I've resisted commenting on this thread, but the "restaurant" mention
hits too close to home, so here goes.

I grew up in Newport, Rhode Island and, as a teenager, worked as a
dishwasher at one of the fanciest restaurants in the wharf area. One
of the things they served was Escargot. I'm not sure how they prepared
the snail meat, but I do know that every night we'd run the large
snail shells through the dishwasher so they could be reused. (Hey, not
my idea; this was policy.) One night we were screwing around, as
underpaid dishwashers in fancy restaurants often do, and we broke some
of the shells open. They were loaded with little bugs. We broke more
open and they were all loaded with bugs. These shells were coming off
of customer's plates.

It's still one of the fanciest restaurants in Newport, so I recommend
avoiding the Escargot if you're in the area.
================
The place we ate had the original snail still in the shell. We had to pick
them out ourselves. If there were bugs we would have seen them. What did
they reuse the shells for? What were they putting in the shell after the
original snail was removed?
--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

~ jan wrote:
On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:06:48 EDT, Derek Broughton
wrote:


My wife & I and another couple went to a Chinese New Year dinner, and my
friend still calls it our "Fear Factor" meal. I quite enjoyed it - after
all it's better than they cook in English schools -


I just have to ask, what do they serve in English schools, at least when
you were a kid?

Guessing I'm a similar generation to Derek I'm going to stick up for
English School dinners from the past (I can't excuse the current ones
that are brought in by car from some catering service)....the English
School dinner when cooked in the school's kitchen was an institution. I
guess there may have been some bad ones but generally the food was
"nutritional"....the mashed potato was sometimes suspect and the
cabbage/greens were certainly boiled for a good few hours before they
made the plate. It's funny in adult life to see other adults going for
mashed swede, thick gravy, over cooked greens and lumpy mashed potato
with a degree of nostalga only shared by those that had the same typical
English School dinner.....I can see the description making some say
"yuk" - I guess you had to be there....

Of course the best bit of an English School dinner in the 60s and 70s
was the pudding.....I still have a guilty fondness for sticky sponge
puddings with custard dating from my school days....add to that rice
pudding and the occassional jelly and ice-cream treat....the only bad
pudding was the tapioca which was served with a big blob of jam in the
middle - the only appeal that had for me was stirring it until it had
turned pink all the way through...chocolate semolina was border-line in
the edible or yuk stakes - used to depend on your mood.

To drink we had the choice of water or water (by the jug load) - used to
come in garish metalic coloured jugs (gold, silver, red, green and
purple IIRC) - we thought we'd hit a certain degree of sophistication
when the school bought in glass jugs...The glasses were standard pretty
much throughout the country I believe....

Overall, I think the standard of food served up in my school years was
far superior to the stuff fed to our kids today but JMO :-)

Gill


I use to love our American school food back in my day. Now I not only
couldn't eat it, but much of it would make me sick (wheat sensitive).
~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

Reel McKoi wrote:

================
The place we ate had the original snail still in the shell. We had to
pick them out ourselves. If there were bugs we would have seen them.
What did they reuse the shells for? What were they putting in the shell
after the original snail was removed?

Most, but not all places (in France, UK and Belgium), serve snails in
shells giving the impression that it is the snail's original shell. The
costs involved in providing the original shell with the snail would more
than likely be prohibitive.

Around 20 years or so ago, you used to see snails sold in the
Supermarkets (I guess there weren't too many sales as it is now only
specialist delis that sell them). The snails were canned/jarred and the
shells came wrapped in selophane and stuck to the top of the container.
The tins/jars of snails were also available for sales sans shells...

Gill

~ jan wrote:

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:06:48 EDT, Derek Broughton
wrote:

My wife & I and another couple went to a Chinese New Year dinner, and my
friend still calls it our "Fear Factor" meal. I quite enjoyed it - after
all it's better than they cook in English schools -

I just have to ask, what do they serve in English schools, at least when
you were a kid?

Surely you've heard how bad English cooking is. Well, they hire the worst
of them to cook in the school kitchens. The vegetables had to start
boiling about 10am for a noon meal. It was all overcooked mush. The only
things I really remember were cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and powdered
mashed potatoes. All of which were vile. Cabbage and sprouts still make
me vomit 40 years later.
--
derek

Reel McKoi wrote:

The place we ate had the original snail still in the shell. We had to pick
them out ourselves. If there were bugs we would have seen them.

I'd be surprised if they were "original". It's my understanding that it's
standard practice to reuse them. One wonders what's wrong with the shells
the snails originally come in, though.

What did
they reuse the shells for? What were they putting in the shell after the
original snail was removed?

More snails.
--
derek

I didn't run into school lunches until we moved to the States.
The vilest thing on the menu was something called Shepherd's Pie -
crunchy ground beef, lumpy, oily gravy, gray veggies and a white
whipped
topping I think was potato dust and water.

I worked in one elementary school this winter and every morning,
when you walked in, the odor of stewed beans met you. Terrible
way to start the morning.

k :-)