Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I do have a probably odd liking for cold garlic bread. If it doesn't get eaten with the evening meal, it goes in the fridge and is breakfast or lunch the next morning. Same with pizza, but that's more normal.

I also apply hot barbequeue or curry sauce to just about anything, from toast to mashed potato. There's nothing in the world that can't be improved with spice.

 gorgon wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:


Coming to America from the UK, I was amazed at how totally conservative the US is with it's food, it's endless roads of restaurants all selling the same thing. The same menu repeated in a hundred thousand Italian restaurants, with food that barely resembles fresh Italian food. The hundred thousand Chinese restaurants with no seasoning or heat to their food, to appease the American conservative palate for sweet and bland.

Having lived in both countries a reasonable time, the UK utterly dominates the US for variety, innovation and quality. I cannot really get over how a mixing pot culture like America can be so totally rigid and set in how things are in the kitchen.

Weren't you living in central PA?

If this is still true...you're more or less living in a culinary wasteland. Come to where the good food is, and ask some locals about where to go.

See, you probably didn't have this issue in the UK because it was your home turf, and you knew the crap to avoid and where the good food was.

Yeah, you don't get more central than Williamsport really.

Loads of restaurants on a long road nicknamed the golden strip. Wings place, pizza place, 'italian' place, steak house, wings place, pizza place, 'italian' place, chinese place, dennys, red robin, wings place... etc etc.

And i'm not just talking about the quality really, it's the menu. You can take the menu from any one of the italian places and swap them around, same with the pizza place, the chinese etc. And they're all really bland. No seasoning (I'm not just talking about heat here, but flavors).

It is a lot lot better since moving to the coast and being a short trip from Boston. I can even find curry here and the town has a great thai place and a good authentic little taiwanese.

But it did make me realize, travelling through the vast interior, it's all the same food everywhere. And no, you don't find that in Britain any more. Almost ever single pub serving food is putting out different menus, trying out one or two really interesting options, offering vegetarian options, seasoning meals, being brave with stuff. I think it may eventually come to the US in a big way, but for the moment the vast majority is sadly lacking.

 toasteroven wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Bone Marrow. Boil the bones and bite them open and suck out the marrow.

See, this, this defeated me. "It's nutritious", they told me. "People have been eating bone marrow for millennia" they told me.

All true, I'm sure.

But people have done a lot of silly things for millennia.

I was raised to eat anything put in front of me, with a family who leave no scraps of meat on a bone. It tastes like sweet meat.

As a kid (and sometimes till as an adult) I loved eating Peanut Butter and Pickle sandwiches.

Smooth peanut butter on both sides and a layer of sweet bread & butter pickles.

It's really good, but I think people imagine really garlicky dill pickles and think it sounds gross.

 gorgon wrote:
Weren't you living in central PA?

If this is still true...you're more or less living in a culinary wasteland. Come to where the good food is, and ask some locals about where to go.

Very true, we drive through PA when we go to visit the in laws. We pretty much gave up on finding anything good and push through for better food in other states.

 gorgon wrote:
See, you probably didn't have this issue in the UK because it was your home turf, and you knew the crap to avoid and where the good food was.

Or he just likes to gripe about any and all things that aren't British.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Almost ever single pub serving food is putting out different menus, trying out one or two really interesting options, offering vegetarian options, seasoning meals, being brave with stuff.

Sorry, I don't buy that, especially in the Williamsport-equivalent towns or more rural areas in the UK.

Mainly because I don't think things are fundamentally different here or there. Plenty of Americans travel to the UK and come back bitching about how awful the food is. And I suspect that's because they're eating at all the wrong places.

 guardpiper wrote:


That sounds like a lot of the Nomadic cultures food, both terrestrial and marine. While tripe and some blood sausage is the grossest food I have eaten, I have seen some of the sheep related food that the Mongols eat and I am pretty sure most of that was based off of a bet too.
Now most Thai and Vietnamese food was developed on the bet of how much chiles can we put in this and still not cause the human stomach to dissolve. That's my own theory at any rate.

If you think about it many things that we eat today were probably scary to early man. But hunger and "I'll bet you can't" made them eat a lot of things.

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Weren't you living in central PA?

If this is still true...you're more or less living in a culinary wasteland. Come to where the good food is, and ask some locals about where to go.

Very true, we drive through PA when we go to visit the in laws. We pretty much gave up on finding anything good and push through for better food in other states.

Good food can be hard to find in the central areas. But then the city of Philadelphia is loaded with good restaurants. Pittsburgh has improved mightily since I lived there.

It's almost like there's a trend here...the nearer you are to a big city, the more likely it is that you'll find more variety and quality in the restaurants.

Edit: The mention of tripe made me think of Pepper Pot soup. Yum.

I like Peanut butter and Nacho sandwiches

 Torga_DW wrote:
I like eating liver. Apparently it's really gross, to the point that it needed to renamed 'fry' in this country. I get the strangest, most grossed out reactions when i mention that i like liver, and get told that its bad for me. Does that qualify?

Liver ? Gross ? Really ?
I'm not fond of calf liver, but I really enjoy some slices of duck liver in my salad.

I just LOVE Roquefort. Cheese + Molds. Yummy.

I also like camembert and sardines. It's not gross per se, but like any frenchman worth his salt, I enjoy old camembert and old sardines. The older the better. The cheese must have a creamy consistency and a strong scent. The canned fish should be several years old. A can of sardines that's several decades old is seen as a delicacy here.

I should also mention osban. Take haggis, bring in the north-african spices, sun, temperature and general lack of hygiene standards. Gross but delicious.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I like eating liver. Apparently it's really gross, to the point that it needed to renamed 'fry' in this country. I get the strangest, most grossed out reactions when i mention that i like liver, and get told that its bad for me. Does that qualify?

As someone who eats Kidney, Heart and Brain. Liver is in no way weird, gross, or anything other than delicious. Liver and mash is gorgeous.

 whembly wrote:
Pineapple & Anchovies Pizza

Where do you get that from, or do you make it yourself? That looks like hangover cure to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I can't think of anything gross I like to eat. If it were gross I probably wouldn't eat it.

I've been told that sushi and scotch eggs are both gross, and I like those. Kimchi too.

 gorgon wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Almost ever single pub serving food is putting out different menus, trying out one or two really interesting options, offering vegetarian options, seasoning meals, being brave with stuff.

Sorry, I don't buy that, especially in the Williamsport-equivalent towns or more rural areas in the UK.

Mainly because I don't think things are fundamentally different here or there. Plenty of Americans travel to the UK and come back bitching about how awful the food is. And I suspect that's because they're eating at all the wrong places.

Hate to tell you, but you're wrong on that. We went back at the beginning of the year. I took my American wife to some very very rural locations. To pubs in the Cornish hinterland (straw dogs territory).

I just asked her her opinion about what she saw there, what her impressions were. She said 'seasonal foods, fresh foods, local produce'.

So, here's a pub we went to with my dad and stepmum. In deepest darkest Zennor.

http://www.tinnersarms.com/

And an example menu.

http://www.tinnersarms.co.uk/lunch.htm

Food was excellent. I had locally hunted pigeon, locally raised boar sausage and locally caught mackerel mousse. Good, innovative and reasonably priced food is really readily available anywhere in the UK.

There was certainly some very nice food available in central PA, but no daring, no interesting, no real wow factor to be had. I don't know if it's the conservative palate of the consumer or the conservative mind of the menu writer, or a vicious cycle of both, but I'm hoping we're seeing a change to it.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Almost ever single pub serving food is putting out different menus, trying out one or two really interesting options, offering vegetarian options, seasoning meals, being brave with stuff.

Sorry, I don't buy that, especially in the Williamsport-equivalent towns or more rural areas in the UK.

Mainly because I don't think things are fundamentally different here or there. Plenty of Americans travel to the UK and come back bitching about how awful the food is. And I suspect that's because they're eating at all the wrong places.

Hate to tell you, but you're wrong on that. We went back at the beginning of the year. I took my American wife to some very very rural locations. To pubs in the Cornish hinterland (straw dogs territory).

I just asked her her opinion about what she saw there, what her impressions were. She said 'seasonal foods, fresh foods, local produce'.

So, here's a pub we went to with my dad and stepmum. In deepest darkest Zennor.

http://www.tinnersarms.com/

And an example menu.

http://www.tinnersarms.co.uk/lunch.htm

Food was excellent. I had locally hunted pigeon, locally raised boar sausage and locally caught mackerel mousse. Good, innovative and reasonably priced food is really readily available anywhere in the UK.

There was certainly some very nice food available in central PA, but no daring, no interesting, no real wow factor to be had. I don't know if it's the conservative palate of the consumer or the conservative mind of the menu writer, or a vicious cycle of both, but I'm hoping we're seeing a change to it.

To be honest, even the food in the chain pubs is improving. The 'gastropub' really has taken over the UK. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of crap. London, in particular, I find to be awful for food if you don't know where you're going, which is why I suspect many Americans have bad impressions of British cuisine. Here in Manchester, the good stuff is far easier to find and it's quickly becoming England's hip food capital.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Almost ever single pub serving food is putting out different menus, trying out one or two really interesting options, offering vegetarian options, seasoning meals, being brave with stuff.

Sorry, I don't buy that, especially in the Williamsport-equivalent towns or more rural areas in the UK.

Mainly because I don't think things are fundamentally different here or there. Plenty of Americans travel to the UK and come back bitching about how awful the food is. And I suspect that's because they're eating at all the wrong places.

Hate to tell you, but you're wrong on that. We went back at the beginning of the year. I took my American wife to some very very rural locations. To pubs in the Cornish hinterland (straw dogs territory).

I just asked her her opinion about what she saw there, what her impressions were. She said 'seasonal foods, fresh foods, local produce'.

So, here's a pub we went to with my dad and stepmum. In deepest darkest Zennor.

http://www.tinnersarms.com/

And an example menu.

http://www.tinnersarms.co.uk/lunch.htm

Food was excellent. I had locally hunted pigeon, locally raised boar sausage and locally caught mackerel mousse. Good, innovative and reasonably priced food is really readily available anywhere in the UK.

There was certainly some very nice food available in central PA, but no daring, no interesting, no real wow factor to be had. I don't know if it's the conservative palate of the consumer or the conservative mind of the menu writer, or a vicious cycle of both, but I'm hoping we're seeing a change to it.

Well, we have gastropubs in the US too. Maybe not in central PA...but then CENTRAL PA. I really don't know what to tell you other than that you're clearly making a lot of projections on either side of the pond.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Nothing really strikes me as particularly 'gross'. I suppose one of the things I do like that's generally considered foul is doner meat; I love a nice tray of doner and chips. Not many people can do anything more than grimace at the thought.

But that stuff's great! I've never met a person who has turned their nose up at it!

I've met far more people who loathe it than don't. Some people just have no culinary taste.

 gorgon wrote:
It's almost like there's a trend here...the nearer you are to a big city, the more likely it is that you'll find more variety and quality in the restaurants.

Very true. More population means more diversity in taste. In a small town like Spearfish there might be a small handful of people who want sushi. That's why there's only one place that will serve sushi once a month. Otherwise it's the Safeway deli for prepackaged sushi. But go to Rapid City and there are four places for sushi, all that are top notch quality. Methinks our Brit friend must have spent his time in smaller areas. Europeans don't seem to get how truly HUGE this country is, our states are the size of their countries. We have a lot of open space and more small rural area where you're lucky to find a mom and pop serving the usual selection of burgers and sandwiches that are popular with one or two local specialties that may not even be on the menu but the locals know are there. Otherwise it's the Chuckle McBubbleheads off the interstate exit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Litcheur wrote:
I'm not fond of calf liver, but I really enjoy some slices of duck liver in my salad.

There was a hot dog joint in Chicago we managed to find on one of our trips, Hot Doug's. They had a duck sausage with duck liver on top. It was amazing. They also had an alligator sausage that was tasty as well. It's a shame but they have closed down, no idea why. They just said goodbye on their website and are no more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
And i'm not just talking about the quality really, it's the menu. You can take the menu from any one of the italian places and swap them around, same with the pizza place, the chinese etc. And they're all really bland. No seasoning (I'm not just talking about heat here, but flavors).

No doubt that we have our share of culinary wastelands. Americans are a very mobile people and restaurants must cater to a wide variety of tastes. The market supports it's share of hole in the wall places with a half dozen tables and a tiny sign out front with food that is amazing. Where the locals who like that kind of food know about it and the owners stay afloat just barely but do it more out of love than looking for profits. However the big profits are in providing places for travelers to eat and travelers are a diverse lot, ranging from young people who would prefer that hole in the wall but can't find it to old people whose taste buds are dead so everything tastes the same anyhow, so off the interstates you get roads with boring places as far as the eye can see.

I suspect had you taken the time to search you would have found those holes in the wall.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
I was raised to eat anything put in front of me, with a family who leave no scraps of meat on a bone. It tastes like sweet meat.

Same here. My wife and son will cut the meat from the bone when we have chops or steak leaving quite a bit. So when I'm done with mine I take theirs and gnaw every last tasty morsel from the bones sucking the roasted marrow out as well. I make them laugh by making growling wolf like sounds while I do it....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:
I really don't know what to tell you other than that you're clearly making a lot of projections on either side of the pond.

I think he's just going to hate most things American no matter what you tell him. That's some ground not worth dying on....

Though they are becoming a fad, I enjoy roasted crickets when I can find them. People are mashing them up and putting them into energy bars now, which ruins them IMHO.

MGS, if you're a quick hop from Boston, you should try and hit the North Shore some time. I've had some world class meals in Beverly, Salem, and Gloucester. Definitely a few joints in that area that are on the bleeding edge of 'gastro pub'.

Boston has a bunch as well, but I know a lot fewer of them as I don't like waiting for a table while watching hipsters take 50 photos of their meals for Instagram.

I don't think I have anything that hasn't been mentioned (gunslinger you stole my one unique thing!), but...

Haggis. LOVE haggis. I can't understand why people recoil from it. (But then, they're probably people who never looked too closely at the hot-dog manufacturing process) Comfortingly stodgy, beautifully spiced, can't wait for Burns Night in a week or two.

Other types of offal, too. Liver, heart, kidney (after roasting a chicken and picking at the carcass, I like scooping the kidneys from their hiding-place under the pelvis). Beef shin slow cooked, braised, stewed, whatever you call it: thrown into a pot of stock with veg and seasoning and simmered for a few hours. The meat falls off the bone and the marrow melts out from the middle of it. Same with oxtail which I only found once, in a wee butcher shop. It maybe isn't too 'gross', but it's unusual enough to unsettle some people, made to realise that 'beef' is more than shapeless burgers, mince and steak from a supermarket package, and actually comes from some bit of a cow. And cold oxtongue is great - tastes a little like corned beef, but nicer.

Though on the flipside, I come from a family that's squeamish about any meat (not just poultry) with a hint of pink left in it, as if we'd all be instantly struck down with salmonella and Edwina Curry would personally quarantine our house. But my brother in law's introduced me to the pleasures of blue steak. Not that I'd have it every time, but when I do, it just tastes... right.

I've also tried curing my own salami (basically, raw pork made safe to eat by copious quantities of salt and a bit of sodium nitrate, then dried in beef intestines) and bacon. The latter smelled a little odd but was the best bacon I'd ever tasted, if I say so meself.

I've eaten a larger-than-average part of the animal kingdom, especially after a visit to that odd little restaurant in Edinburgh, once. Pigeon, rabbit, venison, wild boar saucisson, zebra, springbok, ostrich, crocodile... I love any kind of fish or shellfish except the red stuff - salmon and trout. I'm fond of sushi, and the most unusual example of that I've tried is octopus. (as in, a square of raw octopus flesh - though judging by the experience of chewing it, it's possible they mixed it up with the neoprene suit of the diver who caught it) I've eaten live waxworms and I've stir-fried crickets. (they taste a bit nutty)

Fish sauce. Stinks to high heaven. One of the worst things I've smelled (and I've been in Games Workshop in the height of summer), but added as a little seasoning to a dish, fantastic. The Hail Caesar book provides an ancient roman recipe and suggests 'strong soy sauce' as a substitute for garum. Nuts to that! A bottle of good fish sauce is what you want.

Lastly, cheese. I like cheese and strong cheese at that, but roquefort nobbled me the first time I tried it. I'm going to have to take another run at it.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Nothing really strikes me as particularly 'gross'. I suppose one of the things I do like that's generally considered foul is doner meat; I love a nice tray of doner and chips. Not many people can do anything more than grimace at the thought.

But that stuff's great! I've never met a person who has turned their nose up at it!

I've met far more people who loathe it than don't. Some people just have no culinary taste.

I love diner kebabs! But i Always tend to smother it with ketchup or bbq sauce.

 Albatross wrote:
Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of crap. London, in particular, I find to be awful for food if you don't know where you're going, which is why I suspect many Americans have bad impressions of British cuisine.

Perhaps it's just touristy (passing trade) places in general. The Italian restaurant across the road from my house in the UK was far better than any place I ate-out in Rome.

I think the stereotype of British people having bad food and being bad at cooking is fairly unwarranted now. It probably dates back to the early 20th century when industrialization brought us canned food, and was then compounded by WWII rationing. But now the idea is ridiculous. The UK has so much diversity in terms of restaurants, Italian, French, Thai, Japanese, Lebanese, Indian, and just about every pub has a nice selection of home made burgers, fish, roast dinners, baked potatoes, sandwiches etc... If you can't find something nice to eat in the UK then you can't be looking very hard. Also, British people are just as obsessed with cooking shows as everywhere else. We have fresh produce from all over the world, organic shops, farmers markets, sushi rollers, fondu sets... The idea that we just eat thrice boiled cabbage and whatever jellied eels are? is absurd (personally I have never even seen jellied eels let alone tried them).

I actually find the food I get at home to be far better than what I find on holiday. I hate going out for breakfast on the continent where you just get some bread rolls and a tomato. Where's the rest of it? Don't I at least get an egg? In NY I found a lot of basic stuff like bread and cheese was much more heavily processed than at home, even the Coke-Cola tasted sickly.

The best country I ever went to for food was South Africa. Perhaps because good quality food is so inexpensive there. You can literately eat yourself silly.

Sambal Ikan Bilis. It's dried anchovies in a hot chilli paste.goes great with Nasi Lemak which is coconut rice.

Spam.

Spam, spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

LOVELY SPAM, WONDERFUL SPAM
LOVELY SPAM WONDERFUL SPAM

Spam isn't half bad; I think more people hate it because it's what's accepted rather than because it's 'gross'. So far, the people I've asked "Have you actually tried spam?" have all said "No, but..."

Then again, I also love marmite on nearly everything, and as a hot drink (mixed about 50/50 with Bovril), so I might be the loony one... >_>

Spam really isn't that bad, especially depending on how you prepare it. It's not really any worse than any other processed meat, and it certainly has its uses.

I am a huge fan of the north Swedish delicacy Surströmming. Surströmming is herring that is fermented for six months, and eaten with barley crisp bread, butter, potatoes and finely chopped onions. To this you drink beer and and a lot of snaps.

It is of course delicious and should not be posted in this thread, but some weakling southeners apparently find the smell of this delicacy a bit to strong to their taste.

Snails. Super gross and disgusting texture. But whatcha gonna do when ya superiors order food.

Well, the thread is about foods you *like* to eat. But in your case, your get-out-of-jail-free card is to say that you're allergic.

Well I do like to eat them...but it's not for the snails themselves, it's for the social aspect...and the fact that the rest of the meal is top-notch-super-awesome.

For anyone thinking that English food is bland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix9OP1i9UN8

We didn't have potatoes until 'recently', and pasta and rice can't have been much sooner. Meat and 2 veg does dampen the inspiration a bit.

I'm partial to salami-based snacks (peperami), but I've read the ingredients beforehand.