Hm, it's not an odd food, but picnics around here are definitely upgraded in importance if they include Maryland crabs and beer.
NORMAL oysters are also somewhat popular around here. It all depends on the amount of publicity the Bay is receiving at the time. Just recently they've found male bass carrying eggs. It's being investigated upstream...
We have Brats, but nothing like Usingers. The best we get here is Johnsonville, which is ok, but nothing beats a Usingers boiled in Miller Beer and then grilled.
Where I live there is a very heavy hispanic influence. They have some dish here that is made with Clamato juice and squid. I cannot even bring myself to look at it.
No chitlins here down south; however, we are big on grits, anything pickled- pigs feet, eggs..., pork rinds, barbeque and fried bologna sandwiches. I am a transplanted Yankee though and I have not partaken in too much of these "foods"!
When I lived down south, they did eat chitlins and collard greens and my friend Tammy said that her favorite was brains and eggs. She said it was calf brains. Yuck! I think those foods are more of a southern soul food than just a southern food.
We have fish frys here. The popular thing where I live is catfish. Whole catfish or catfish fritters (which are strips of catfish). We get lots of people from out of town that come here and want to sit by the "ocean", which is known by the locals as the Illinois River, and eat catfish.
We just got our deer back from being processed and will be eating pepper jack cheese and venison deer sticks for quite a while.
Not really any strange foods I can think of, but I thought I would share.
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Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticize them you will be a mile away and have their shoes.
I think I might have posted this elsewhere, but my dad has a story when he was a kid he looked in this pan on the stove and in it was a calve's brain that his ma was cooking and it freaked him out big time.
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"And like Web, I enjoy throwing JR under the bus. Problem is, it's usually under the special bus that I ride every day". Ghostdancer 12-18-09
Red meat is not on my list of all time favorite foods, anyway (don't EVEN get me started on ground beef ), but you start talking about brains and tongue and it just doesn't even register as tasty.
O.K. I'm gonna start on the ground beef anyway. We were at the cub scout training weekend and they were teaching us how to cook some really tasty things outdoors. One thing they make is foil burgers. You take a ground beef patty, fresh veggies (carrots, onions, potatoes, celery, peppers, etc.) and powdered soup mix and you butcher roll it in foil and put it directly on charcoal and cook it. It is awesome. ANYWAY...they had us doing this outside for obvious reasons and they had the meat in a bowl and the veggies in a bowl with water. You got your meat first, then your veggies. I cringed. Here we were sticking our meat grody hands in this bowl of veggies. No big deal, though, we were going to cook all of it, so I pressed on with just a little bit of a shudder. After we got done making them, though, we had veggies left over. All these people starting going up to the pool of e-coli and getting the veggies out and eating them raw. The other gals that were with me thought it was quite amusing the shade of green that I turned. It was so disgusting. Yes, I'm a germophobe when it comes to ground beef. I think it comes from living in Germany all those years and eating the beef over there and knowing I could get mad cow disease any day now. I'm not even allowed to give blood. The moral of the story - wash your hands after you touch your meat or I'm gonna puke. Boy, that didn't sound the same when I typed it as it did in my head.
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Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticize them you will be a mile away and have their shoes.
my cousin tom loves the raw ground beef. served with raw onions. I've seen him eat this each christmas since we were kids, and 30 yrs later it never ceases to amaze me he hasn't died.
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"And like Web, I enjoy throwing JR under the bus. Problem is, it's usually under the special bus that I ride every day". Ghostdancer 12-18-09
I mean, these poor people get sick cus their burger is undercooked. Restaurants get sued because of food poisening, and yet there's this whole segment of people out there that have the brass cahones to say SCREW IT, I'LL EAT IT RAW!
What's next, just taking a bite out of a living cow?!?
I had a buddy that I used to work with on 3rd shift. When it is 3 in the morning, and its your LUNCH TIME, you do not feel like doing anything to extravagant, plus the fast food joints are closed. And any place that is still open is prone to having masked gun men enter at that hour.
Anyways, my buddy liked the canned sardines. You can get them marinaded in olive oil, hot sauce, mustard, or brine. Served over crackers, it is the most convenient of lunches to make. One night I was punch-drunk enough from being over-worked that I tried a mustard-soaked sardine on a saltine. From then on, that was our lunch routine at least once a week for about a year- the 3 am grocery store marinated sardine in a can run. The quality sardines are referred to as "sardine steaks". The last time I revisted this was about 2 years ago, and the "yick" factor had returned. But that will always be a special memory about 3rd shift employment- "DUDE SHALL WE GET THE HOT SAUCE OR MUSTARD SARDINES TONIGHT!?"
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"And like Web, I enjoy throwing JR under the bus. Problem is, it's usually under the special bus that I ride every day". Ghostdancer 12-18-09
I myself love red beer. But when I go out of state and order a red beer they always look at me funny and I have to explain that I want a bud light with tomato juice in it.
In southern indiana they have fried cows brain sandwiches. Nope, I haven't got up the gumption to try one yet.
My grandma is from Louisiana and she got me hooked on grits. Add some sugar and milk, yum! Or, for lunch, grits with garlic and cheese.
Oh and Trish, try venison chili, it's the best! I cook the venison up with a little bit of hamburger so it cooks up better, and I add about 2 tablespoons of honey to my chili, and I swear it's the best!
My motto is that I'll try anything once as long as you don't tell me what it is first.
I make venison chili all the time. I make it the easy way, though. You take your meat, two cans of stewed tomatoes (the mexican flavored one is best) and two cans of chili beans, add your chili powder, salt, pepper, and cumin and let it simmer in the crockpot all day. I put it all in the cooker the night before and have my husband plug it in in the morning and supper is made when I get home. I also add some noodles about an hour before it's done just to soak up a little of the juice. Not a lot of noodles. I don't like really soupy chili.
When I was first married, I had no idea how to make chili and my husband wanted me to make some. My idea of chili was open a can. He talked me into making some from a chili brick. He said his mom always did that. O.k., I've mentioned before my lack of love for ground beef, but ground beef that's already in something that I don't know where it came from just is so gross for me. Anyway, it was the worst chili I have ever had in my life. The grease on the top of it would have choked a horse. I wouldn't even eat it. My husband ate two bowls of it and looked a little green doing it. After that, I bought a crockpot and it had a crockpot chili recipe in it. I've used that ever since. I will never ever use a chili brick again.
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Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticize them you will be a mile away and have their shoes.