the food rant thread

[Cudzoziemiec]

The Chinese love cartilage. Western palettes struggle with it (big fat lie, Brits do, those dubious Europeans love scooping the gloop out of pig joints). Hence the chicken feet which tastes to me like sucking slime only to find you're stuck with a mouthful of grit-like bones. That and fat. I once caused great amusement to my Chinese hosts by dismantling a mountain of pork belly in an effort to find something that wasn't 100% lard.

I'm not, I confess, good with peculiar food. I grew up in the East Midlands, the epitome of exotic for me was crispy pancakes and potato waffles.

When my daughter was in a boarding school abroad, she complained that they kept getting fed lumps of fat for dinner. When reading a Dervla Murphy book about the region I discovered that smoked pig fat was considered a luxury food in the region. The catering staff were probably right hacked off with the stuck-up western students wasting the expensive food.

I don't know about a delicacy, more a staple really, but lard thickly spread on bread with a few slices of onion is popular in Poland. Everywhere between the Odra and Mongolia, really.

[ian]

My grandparents used to eat beef dripping sandwiches. I remember the big pot my gran would bring home from the butchers. You tried to feed beef dripping sandwiches to a British child these days and they'd probably call some kind of social services hot line. I could never eat one.

My colleague, born of the GDR, was in seventh heaven on a trip to Serbia, when the locals started to scoop out the gloopy innards of a pigs' knees. I get squicked by the jelly in pork pies.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

My mum loves bread and dripping.

[Mr Larrington]

I think the old saying is that Chinese will every bit of the pig other than for the oink.

The Yorkshire saying is "Every bit is useful apart from it's squeak". There was (until floods and stuff) a stall on Leeds market selling the squidgy rubbery tripe bits. I'm unconvinced anyone in Yorkshire actually cooked pigs eyeballs.

It's also said that Hong Kong throws away nothing that can be:

• sold, or
• eaten

which is why there are no seagulls in the harbour.

[rafletcher]

I'm unconvinced anyone in Yorkshire actually cooked pigs eyeballs.

Not individually perhaps, but boiling a pig's head for brawn, as my mother used to, would naturally have included the eyes. And she was a nesh Southerner.

[rafletcher]

My mum loves bread and dripping.

This used to be a staple in my childhood. And the jelly bit at the bottom was a real treat. Bovine "top of the milk".

[Mr Larrington]

Mrs Larrington (decd.) once thawed out what she thought was some kind of piggy joint only to find half a piggy face staring balefully out of the fridge.  She turned it into brawn but only Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) - unreconstructed Tyke that he be - would eat it.

[CrinklyLion]

I once made pig's head soup.  To do this one takes a pig's head and puts it in a very large pan with a few bits and bobs (maybe an onion or 6, a few spuds, that kind of thing) and quite a lot of water... After fairly significant amounts of simmering-away-quietly time the meat got mostly stripped off the head and turned into pig's head pate and the soup got etten by people.

It was the ickle snout peeking out of the lid (pan wasn't quite big enough) and bubbling a bit that I found a bit disconcerting.

(I also made ordinary pate, sossidges and black pudding and started the process of making ham from other bits of the same piggy-wiggy.  But didn't eat any of it, because at the time I was already about a dozen years into being a vegetarian.)

[madcow]

I think the old saying is that Chinese will every bit of the pig other than for the oink.

The Yorkshire saying is "Every bit is useful apart from it's squeak". There was (until floods and stuff) a stall on Leeds market selling the squidgy rubbery tripe bits. I'm unconvinced anyone in Yorkshire actually cooked pigs eyeballs.

I always understood it was the Danes that started the line about using everything but the oink.

Tripe is cow's stomach which is different to other animals because it's designed to digest fibre .

[Cudzoziemiec]

I thought that phrase came from the Chicago meatpackers. Having so many "sources" would indicate it's been around a long time and become quite generic.

[geraldc]

The Chinese claim to have invented/domesticated the pig so we have first dibs to claiming to eat all of it. The Chinese word for family 家, is an old character for pig under a house roof, so the whole culture is very pig centric.

[ian]

I'm going with the Chinese. Seriously. They're the nuclear option for porcine consumption. Sure we might hide pig bits in sausage or boil them into brawn. The Chinese? Pig face on a plate? Coming right up, sir.

[mrcharly-YHT]

You say 'pig face on a plate', I say "take the whole pig, shove a poker up it's arse and put it over a fire. A huge crowd will gather and demand slices on a crappy breadbun".

People are weird.

Last night I, for the first time, I ate snails.

As my step-daughter observed, this seemed utterly pointless. It was like eating garlic butter with a chewy bit. Some garlic bread would have tasted the same and had a nicer consistency.

[djmc]

I think that a lot of cultures appreciate the pig. The French have an expression "dans le cochon tout est bon". Everything is good in the pig.

[Ruthie]

<considers David Cameron>
<regrets it>

[mrcharly-YHT]

<considers David Cameron>
<regrets it>

There are exceptions to all rules.

[mrcharly-YHT]

MrsC and I went for a meal out. I actually felt hungry, for the first time in a week, so we had starters and mains.

Hmm, 'potted crab' is usually, well, potted. Not a pate-like-mouse. Never mind. Bubble and squeak should be fried brown, not gently warmed. still, at least the poached egg was poached.

MrsC had orders a starter as main, scallops. They arrived looking slightly brown. She sliced one, looked confused. It looked uncooked in the middle. It was utter uncooked looking on the bottom. Cold in the middle. Not cool, cold. Embarrassed, in that English way, we called the waitress over. Back it went to the kitchen.

I'd ordered a mains salad, which was various grains, salad, enduki beans,  halloumi (yes, yes, I know and I don't even have a hipster beard). While recounting tales of kitchen errors from my son I poked through my salad to realise with a sinking feeling that what I had was a pile of salad leaves and nothing else "excuse me, um, my salad, it seems to me missing, well most of it."

My salad returned and was very good. The scallops returned. Gently warmed. Slightly browned. ffs. MrsC loves seafood and couldn't bring herself to finish them. This was supposed to be a hot dish, served with some chips. Cold scallops and lukewarm chips on a cold plate.

We didn't get charged for the dishes and the staff were lovely. The chef needs a kick up the arse.

[Ruthie]

Not a pate-like-mouse.

You should definitely have sent that back.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Not a pate-like-mouse.

You should definitely have sent that back.

I know, right? potted crab, potted shrimp; getting that wrong in Yorkshire is criminal.

[ian]

Eating scallops in any restaurant is an extreme sport. I believe uncooked seafood is the thing these days, ever since the the era of 'seared tuna' began. We went from overcooking fish to merely pushing it through the kitchen from delivery door to table. I confess I'm not much of a fan of seafood anyway (you should see my special 'no tentacles please' dance I do in China, it's spectacular) but undercooked fish is a bugbear. I didn't order sashimi. I send tuna back and make them cook it properly so it's warm in the middle. I have no wish to eat cold, raw tuna.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Not a pate-like-mouse.

You should definitely have sent that back.

I know, right? potted crab, potted shrimp; getting that wrong in Yorkshire is criminal.

Bald rodent? 

[Mrs Pingu]

I like my tuna raw (I don't like the texture of cooked meat) but you can keep all other undercooked seafood.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Americans: chewy sweets in light blue wrappers should be mint, not vanilla, you fuckwits.

[ian]

Americans. Charmed though I was with your BBQ platter, it was in fact an entire meat mountain, a porcine Everest. My diminutive stomach only got me as far as a the foothills whereupon I was forced to descend to to the safety of a few half-hearted mouthfuls of coleslaw before admitting defeat. I. God alone knew where I was supposed to put the beans, sweet potato fries, and – as though that wasn't enough – biscuit (the southern kind, not a digestive). After 30 minutes of eating it just looked like I'd moved some food around the plate. I should know well enough the skipping the starter is always good sense in the US and once you dip south of the Mason-Dixon, don't even think about it.

[Andrij]

£7.50 for a fish finger sandwich?!? Sorry,  "Aspall Cyder battered line caught cod in a brioche bun, tartare sauce and fries (sic(k))". Other prices and descriptions similarly inflated. Glad I didn't plan to eat here - the  pint of cidre was expensive enough.