In message , Tim Watts
writes
On 05/06/10 23:34, Bruce wrote:
On 5 Jun 2010 20:38:44 wrote:
In uk.rec.gardening wrote:
I must admit I had a girlfriend who made wonderful cauliflower cheese.
She used lots of strong cheese and also had the most beautiful eyes,
Ok, for a moment then I thought we were getting the most odd (and not
vegetarian) cauliflower cheese recipe ever!

I'm sorry to disappoint you.
(I have said that to *so many* women!)

I think I can honestly say that I'm more relieved than disappointed!


I did eat sheep's eyes once, in Jordan. They are supposed to be a
delicacy, but I was very sick afterwards.

I wouldn't have waited...

A also tried sheep's brain, first boiled and then deep fried. The
boiled was hideous, but deep fried wasn't bad at all.

If in doubt, fry it - or BBQ it to charcoal. Seems to sort most
objectionable things out...

All this was thanks to a Jordanian friend who took me to a restaurant
in Amman that serves traditional Arab cuisine. Never again! ;-)

Not that adventurous ie would never eat without a reliable guide in
southern china - though I might manage snake which they eat. But flour
rolled fly maggots is just off, even if they are deep fried - which is
an actual dish, claims the northern chinese person (so might be a myth).

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either


--
geoff

On Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:49:20 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

On 05/06/10 23:34, Bruce wrote:
On 5 Jun 2010 20:38:44 wrote:
In uk.rec.gardening wrote:
I must admit I had a girlfriend who made wonderful cauliflower cheese.
She used lots of strong cheese and also had the most beautiful eyes,
Ok, for a moment then I thought we were getting the most odd (and not
vegetarian) cauliflower cheese recipe ever!

I'm sorry to disappoint you.
(I have said that to *so many* women!)

I think I can honestly say that I'm more relieved than disappointed!


I did eat sheep's eyes once, in Jordan. They are supposed to be a
delicacy, but I was very sick afterwards.

I wouldn't have waited...


I didn't wait long. Only as long as it took me to sprint to the loo.

A also tried sheep's brain, first boiled and then deep fried. The
boiled was hideous, but deep fried wasn't bad at all.

If in doubt, fry it - or BBQ it to charcoal. Seems to sort most
objectionable things out...


That's true. The deep fried was a bit like that. I got extra brownie
points having previously brought up the sheep's eyes.


All this was thanks to a Jordanian friend who took me to a restaurant
in Amman that serves traditional Arab cuisine. Never again! ;-)

Not that adventurous ie would never eat without a reliable guide


he definitely wasn't a reliable guide. We drove through Amman in my
VW camper with him shooting into the air through the passenger window.
The only reason that we didn't get arrested was that he was a police
officer.


in southern china - though I might manage snake which they eat. But flour
rolled fly maggots is just off, even if they are deep fried - which is
an actual dish, claims the northern chinese person (so might be a myth).


Plausible. I watched a show where Gordon Ramsay was touring India,
making a complete arse of himself as usual, and he went to a remote
village where they made an especially hot relish. He found it was
made from red ants.


I did get a + point in the north for diving in to boiled blood-tofu. Had
the missus explain I like black pudding, so it wasn't really an alien
concept.


I like black pudding too, but my real favourite is Irish white
pudding. Much the same, just lighter - in more ways than just the
colour! I haven't had it for ages, but I think Morrisons used to
stock it. Perhaps they still do, but they used to stock a Polish
Kabanos which was a particular favourite of mine, and since the Poles
invaded they don't seem to stock it any more. Pity.


I suppose it's what you are brought up on. I like cockles and whelks -
but if you really look at them, they are hideously ugly little buggers.


Eww. Can't stand them. I do like oysters, though. I particularly
like lobster but it doesn't seem to like me - my mouth and throat
swell alarmingly. So I mostly stick to crab in brown bread and
butter.

On 06/06/10 08:46, Huge wrote:
On 2010-06-05, wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...



The fact that you don't find prawns swimming in the bog, then jumping
out and going for a walk on yer sandwiches probably helps their image ;-

Rule #89: When in the slightly more tropical parts of China, don't book
a ground floor hotel room. That roughly halves the amount of wildlife
you'll see...

Rule #10: Don't open any windows at night with the room lights on!

--
Tim Watts

Hung parliament? Rather have a hanged parliament.

In message , Huge
writes
On 2010-06-05, geoff wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...


Well, yes

but I don't SEE them crawling out of drains and I usually eat them with
the crunchy bits removed

--
geoff

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
On 5 Jun 2010 20:38:44 GMT,
wrote:
In uk.rec.gardening Bruce wrote:
I must admit I had a girlfriend who made wonderful
cauliflower cheese.
She used lots of strong cheese and also had the most
beautiful eyes,
Ok, for a moment then I thought we were getting the most odd
(and not
vegetarian) cauliflower cheese recipe ever!

I'm sorry to disappoint you.
(I have said that to *so many* women!)

I think I can honestly say that I'm more relieved than
disappointed!


I did eat sheep's eyes once, in Jordan. They are supposed to
be a
delicacy, but I was very sick afterwards.

STWNFI and I intended trying the local guinea pig delicacy in
Cusco, Peru. But once sat in the restaurant and seeing it being
served we chickened out as it looked more like road kill!

Mike

On 06/06/10 09:58, Zhang Dawei wrote:

The diet of Chinese people gets its inspiration and roots from the
times of famine, when anything that moved and was vaguely edible
could be eaten, and often was.

Snake isn't all that bad, but too many bones in the ones I have
eaten.

Likewise, I found smoked jellied eel (the old London favourite) to be a
bit on the crunchy side but at least the bones are chewable.

Deep fried gutted frogs are loved by Chinese children because
the meat tastes a bit sweet. I can't eat them. The boiled blood tofu
was interesting, and also given to me because I said I liked black
pudding, but it seemed a bit tasteless to me, which is unusual
because where my wife comes from (Hunan), they like very spicy food.
I haven't had the fly maggots, but the bee larva I ate once were
pleasant enough.

The bee babies sound quite appealing. I suppose it's the mental image
that bees are fluffy and cute but flies are smelly sods that like turds
and rotten dead things.

I can't eat much seafood after have one-trial
aversion learning when I got severe food poisoning (needing
hospitalisation) after eating cockles bought in a pub in Selly Oak
many years ago. Donkey meat was all right, but I wouldn't choose to
eat it again, and the same goes for dog. The one food my Chinese
relatives were most surprised about because I liked it very very much
was "smelly tofu" or "stinky tofu":a very strong flavour. What I
can't understand is why they like this, yet can't abide the thought
of eating cheese, and, in particular, very strong blue cheeses (the
ones corresponding most closely to the stinky tofu.

I've heard of that - not had it though.

Tofu is made in
an extremely similar way to cheese (we've made both) except that the
starter is not cows, sheep, goats or other animal milk but, in rough
terms, a kind of soya milk.

They also can't understand why pigs' ears are usually only fed to
dogs in the UK: they are a delicacy and very expensive in China, and
they also like to cook and eat chicken feet (apart from the claws
which they spit out), bones and gristle and all.

I've had those. Not something I'd go out and buy, but if given, they
were quite passable.


As I said, one can understand their diet if one views it as being at
some point rooted in the history and cultural memories of famine
times.


I'm sure in olden times here a few slugs ended up in the stew!


--
Tim Watts

Hung parliament? Rather have a hanged parliament.

In article , scribeth
thus
On 6 Jun,
geoff wrote:


ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either


In my home town, one of my local pubs used to do snails on a Friday evening,
a tradition dating from when French glassmakers were originally made at home
in the village.


Had them by mistake one evening at a French wedding reception .. had
those and then asked for more, then found out what they were;!..

Tasted rather like mushrooms and really very nice too. Dunno if thats
the way they were done or what ..


--
Tony Sayer

On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 11:06:21 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

In article , scribeth
thus
On 6 Jun,
geoff wrote:


ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either


In my home town, one of my local pubs used to do snails on a Friday evening,
a tradition dating from when French glassmakers were originally made at home
in the village.


Had them by mistake one evening at a French wedding reception .. had
those and then asked for more, then found out what they were;!..

Tasted rather like mushrooms and really very nice too. Dunno if thats
the way they were done or what ..

They're definitely just about edible if well soused in garlic ( so
that all you can taste is garlic, of course)


My Mam used to collect garden snails in Bristol during the last great
unpleasantness and cook them up.. She did not have to share the meal
with anybody, as I can recall.



--
(¯`·. ®óñ© © ²°¹° .·´¯)

Zhang Dawei wrote:
In article ,
says...
[...]
Not that adventurous ie would never eat without a reliable guide in
southern china - though I might manage snake which they eat. But
flour rolled fly maggots is just off, even if they are deep fried -
which is an actual dish, claims the northern chinese person (so
might be a myth).

I did get a + point in the north for diving in to boiled blood-tofu.
Had the missus explain I like black pudding, so it wasn't really an
alien concept.

The diet of Chinese people gets its inspiration and roots from the
times of famine, when anything that moved and was vaguely edible
could be eaten, and often was.



Thats classic! No problem in China with snake, deep fried gutted frogs,
boiled blood tofu, bee larva, donkey meat, dog, "stinky tofu", pigs' ears &
chicken feet - and you get hospitalised by a plate of cockles from Selly
Oak!

Wonderful!


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 10:54:00 +0100, "Muddymike"
wrote:
"Bruce" wrote

I did eat sheep's eyes once, in Jordan. They are supposed to
be a delicacy, but I was very sick afterwards.

STWNFI and I intended trying the local guinea pig delicacy in
Cusco, Peru. But once sat in the restaurant and seeing it being
served we chickened out as it looked more like road kill!


Eww.

I don't like eating any dish that looks like the animal it was made
from. So forget things like lobster claws and quails. I don't
particularly like chicken legs and wings for the same reason. I can
just about manage lamb or pork chops.

In message , geoff
writes
In message , Huge
writes
On 2010-06-05, geoff wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...


Well, yes

but I don't SEE them crawling out of drains and I usually eat them with
the crunchy bits removed


AND ...

I've never had a prawn fall from a rafter into my open mouth while I was
sleeping


--
geoff

geoff wrote:
In message , geoff writes
In message , Huge
writes
On 2010-06-05, geoff wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...


Well, yes

but I don't SEE them crawling out of drains and I usually eat them
with the crunchy bits removed


AND ...

I've never had a prawn fall from a rafter into my open mouth while I was
sleeping


Then you haven't lived in Africa.

WE called em prawns, but they were in fact very large grasshoppers.

Taste the same allegedly.

On 06/06/10 12:35, Huge wrote:
On 2010-06-06, Tim wrote:
On 06/06/10 08:46, Huge wrote:
On 2010-06-05, wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...



The fact that you don't find prawns swimming in the bog, then jumping
out and going for a walk on yer sandwiches probably helps their image ;-

Troo. But then, you don't see what prawns eat in the sea.

Rule #89: When in the slightly more tropical parts of China, don't book
a ground floor hotel room. That roughly halves the amount of wildlife
you'll see...

I wish I could remember the name of the hotel we were booked into in Xian.
The carpets were literally soaked in raw sewage leaking from the toilet. We
left squishy footprints which filled with, er, liquid. Fortunately, someone
else on the tour had been given a suite with multiple bedrooms, so with a
bit of room shuffling, we didn't have to sleep in the sewage room.

Bleeaarrr!


Rule #10: Don't open any windows at night with the room lights on!

That's true anywhere in the tropics.



And I reserved rules #1-9 as I'm sure there are worse things... I only
went as far south as Henan (2 provinces down from Mongolia) and the
switch in climate from Shanxi was quite marked. I like Datong - fairly
"English" summers, though just a tad hotter, but dryish. Relative lack
of crappy crawlies too :#)


--
Tim Watts

Hung parliament? Rather have a hanged parliament.

On 06/06/10 18:38, geoff wrote:
In message , geoff writes
In message , Huge
writes
On 2010-06-05, geoff wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...


Well, yes

but I don't SEE them crawling out of drains and I usually eat them
with the crunchy bits removed


AND ...

I've never had a prawn fall from a rafter into my open mouth while I was
sleeping




notes down if in Thaliand, take face masks...

--
Tim Watts

Hung parliament? Rather have a hanged parliament.

In message , Tim Watts
writes
On 06/06/10 18:38, geoff wrote:
In message , geoff writes
In message , Huge
writes
On 2010-06-05, geoff wrote:

ISTR you could get fried cockroaches at the Sunday market in bangkok -
not exactly my idea of gourmet food either

And yet I expect you eat prawns ...


Well, yes

but I don't SEE them crawling out of drains and I usually eat them
with the crunchy bits removed


AND ...

I've never had a prawn fall from a rafter into my open mouth while I was
sleeping




notes down if in Thaliand, take face masks...

Ah - Thailand - woke up to find a malayan pit viper sleeping in the
rafters above my head there


--
geoff