Delicious Foods – That others here may not have tried

I thought it would be fun to take a little break from some political subjects and see what some delicious foods everyone here have ate, that others may not have tried. I like to think of myself as a sort of foodie and willing to try most anything foodwise. I’ll start with a few of mine:

Ceviche – Ceviche is a seafood dish where diced cubes of raw fish marinate in a lemon or lime juice mixture, and the reaction of the citrus juices cures the fish protein and causes it to become opaque and firm while absorbing flavor.
I first tried and fell in love with Ceviche on my first visit to the Bahamas. There was a old local Bahamian who would set up a cart just outside of the Villa association that we stayed in Treasure Cay ( sadly the Villas were mostly all destroyed in hurricane Dorian in Sept. 2019 ) He made fresh Conch Ceviche right in front of you. I think I started most of my mornings visiting him. Since then I have made Ceviche at home using shrimp, Crab, and lobster. Its great served on crackers or toasted baguettes.

Pierogi – Pierogi are filled dumplings made by wrapping unleavened dough around a savoury or sweet filling and cooking in boiling water. They are often pan-fried before serving.
I was introduced to these by my wife. Her family grew up eating these. It was a recipe that goes back several generations in her family. The one’s here family made were different than most Pierogi’s that others make ( Normally filled with potatoes or cheese ) The ones her family made are filled with a really dry cottage Cheese and fresh Mint. I am not a real fan of them. Her family eats them by the plateful. I can normally eat 1 or 2 of them if they are fried after they are boiled. They are normally served right after taking out of boiling water.

Lets hear of some of your not so common favorite foods !!!

Good topic, I like all the weird foods too. On the charcuterie side Liver Pate/Braunschweiger, Blood sausage, liver wurst, head cheese are all good by me. Lengua (tongue) tacos, tripe, chitlins, liver, heart, pickled herring/fish, and all the weird seafoods. There’s not much I don’t like, except Lutefisk I don’t really get the allure.

Baccala (sp?) Salted/cured cod that is soaked to soften/de-salt and then cooked with potatoes/garlic/olive oil/black pepper/butter. Either Italian or creation(maybe both?) in origin. A very ethnic dish that I have not encountered away from the iron range.

potica and porketta both come to mind as common up here and relatively uncommon in other areas.

Cabbage rolls. Polish comfort food.

Tikka masala. I’ve mentioned this a few times over the past week. Difficult to explain. Looks like an Indian dish, actually an English creation.

Oxtail. Mainly a cut reserved for braising, soup and stew. The beef flavor stands up well to the hours of stewing or braising.

Anyone ever have Boudin? Its a cajun dish common in Louisiana and Texas. I had it while visiting family in Houston. Its a sausage with rice and all sorts of great spices. The one time we had Red Stag boudin that was absolutely unreal.
I tried finding it somewhere here, but its nowhere to be found. I think its similar to a blood sausage.

Boudin can be really good, basically a cooked meat sausage with rice filler. I want to say Dixie’s on Grand would have it occasionally, but just found out they are closed for good which is a huge bummer that place was great!

We used to make cupworst (sp?). Traditionally it was made by boiling the head of the cow to get all the meat off of it when butchering…when we made it we would just use trimmings. It would end up a bit mushy and very rich. You would pack it into square molds and freeze it. We would slice it up thin and fry it so the outside was crisp and the inside was soft yet, normally a breakfast meat.

Looks like what we made is close to Kochwurst, we used lots of allspice and barley in ours.

I went to a wild game feed once that had a variety of food on the menu. Barbecued raccoon, rattlesnake cakes, jalapeno dove poppers, and baked ostrich. The rattlesnake cakes were very good. The ostrich, not so much lol. I’ve also had horse when I was overseas. The meat is similar to beef, but leaner. It has more of a sweet taste. Its quite popular in Europe.

fishthumper wrote:

Since then I have made Ceviche

I was a non believer in this, (don’t eat raw fish) but after having it a number of times at a Stillwater restaurant, I’m a believer! Love the shrimp Ceviche!

And don’t try to talk me into eating raw fish. Ain’t going to happen.

Abu Nader (sic) Deli on Como Ave has some killer falafel and shwarma. Some other unique foods would be beer battered perch eggs fresh. Usually made in the heat of the moment a case of Busch deep. Soft textured, creamy flavor. Pretty good, I think.

Last summer in Alaska we kept the eggs from our Salmon and cooked them up. Cooking them is not easy, one batch we did something wrong and everyone broke. Friend of ours that was with us is from Sweden and he has them quite often but has never made them before, normally putting it on rye bread with cream cheese, we also would heat them up and top our eggs with them for breakfast.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

I was a non believer in this, (don’t eat raw fish) but after having it a number of times at a Stillwater restaurant, I’m a believer! Love the shrimp Ceviche!

And don’t try to talk me into eating raw fish. Ain’t going to happen.

Brian, traditional ceviche is raw fish/seafood you know. Its denatured in an acidic citrus juice, but its not cooked. So technically its still considered raw.

gimruis wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brian Klawitter wrote:</div>
I was a non believer in this, (don’t eat raw fish) but after having it a number of times at a Stillwater restaurant, I’m a believer! Love the shrimp Ceviche!

And don’t try to talk me into eating raw fish. Ain’t going to happen.

Brian, traditional ceviche is raw fish/seafood you know. Its denatured in an acidic citrus juice, but its not cooked. So technically its still considered raw.

Yes and No. Its not really cooking the meat but its not raw either :
” Technically speaking, cooking requires heat, so ceviche (also known as seviche or cebiche), a dish in which raw fish is marinated in citrus juice, isn’t cooked. But it’s not exactly raw, either. Both heat and citric acid are agents of a chemical process called denaturation.

Its a bummer that your friends got sick after eating it. In all the times I’ve had it at restaurants and at home, myself or no one else I know has gotten sick. I’ve also ate a ton of Sushi and Sashimi ( Raw fish ) and have never got sick from that either.

Every year for xmas my family makes sauerkraut soup from pig feet (pork hocks). My sister likes to call it pig foot soup. I look forward to it every year.
I have had alligator a couple of times and enjoyed it.
My family raised rabbits growing up and ate them at least twice a week.

fishthumper wrote:

Its a bummer that your friends got sick after eating it. In all the times I’ve had it at restaurants and at home, myself or no one else I know has gotten sick. I’ve also ate a ton of Sushi and Sashimi ( Raw fish ) and have never got sick from that either.

I’ve been violently ill from both salmonella (eggs) and e-coli (meat) that were under cooked. I’m not going down that road again. All my food that is considered high risk is fully cooked now. Raw fish is completely out of the question.

Its all good though, carry on.

Good topic…I’ve been fortunate to travel all of the world and tried some interesting stuff. Chicken feet, chicken knees, pigeon soup, blood sausage, and some others.

I really enjoyed osterich and kangaroo the few times I have been able to have it.

One thing is I always tried everything…..didn’t like them all but I tried them. Even a few things that do this day I don’t know what they were.

Beef Tartar – AKA “Tiger Meat”.
A local shop by me grounds fresh sirloin and mixes it with onions and a few other things. Eaten 100% raw and cold, usually on a cracker.

VERY good.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Beef Tartar – AKA “Tiger Meat”.
A local shop by me grounds fresh sirloin and mixes it with onions and a few other things. Eaten 100% raw and cold, usually on a cracker.

VERY good.

A good beef Tartar is yummy. had it several time and loved it.

onestout wrote:

We used to make cupworst (sp?). Traditionally it was made by boiling the head of the cow to get all the meat off of it when butchering…when we made it we would just use trimmings. It would end up a bit mushy and very rich. You would pack it into square molds and freeze it. We would slice it up thin and fry it so the outside was crisp and the inside was soft yet, normally a breakfast meat.

Looks like what we made is close to Kochwurst, we used lots of allspice and barley in ours.

We do something similar but with pig head. Called Gritwurst or in german, Gritfaust. I use pork roasts now.
Anyhow, boil it up and remove bone, teeth and grisel. Run it through the grinder, then add steel cut oats, spices usually all spice and pepper. Cook it up in a roaster until thick then in pans to cut in squares after cool and freeze.
Fry it up and eat. I like it crispier rather than softer.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Beef Tartar – AKA “Tiger Meat”.
A local shop by me grounds fresh sirloin and mixes it with onions and a few other things. Eaten 100% raw and cold, usually on a cracker.

VERY good.

Back in the day we made “woof woof”. Lean Ground beef, onions and whatever spices. Lots of em.
Throw in on a cracker raw and cold.
Wash it down with beer.

Both my Favorite Sister and Mother in Law ate Cannibal Burgers.

They loved them. I fried a can of spam and made them both sick.

Used to eat a lot of gritvurst (as my grampa called it), fried kinda crispy and pour maple syrup on it. YUM !!

I’m hungry now

Syrniki – Russian pancakes made with cottage cheese, flour, egg

Another is Balinki (so??) cold smoked/cured sturgeon with dill and oranges

Menudo

The Russian Pancake thing got me thinking of my Latvian Grandpa – When I was a young he lived with us until his death. He lived through some stuff during WW2 before luckily escaping and immigrating with my grandma, my two young uncles and my infant mom. They stayed in many refugee camps while going through the immigration process in Europe. I think the food they survived on became comfort food for him and I used to eat it all the time.

For breakfast he would set white bread slices out for a day to dry and eat them the next day with butter. basically a giant buttered crouton. Along with that he would heat milk up, dump some peas into it along with some butter and maybe a little oatmeal to make kind of a gruel. I ate that stuff up, man! Makes me want to try to re-create it to see if it’s as good as I remember. He’d feed a bowl of the same stuff to the dog!

My grandma used to make specken dicken (spelling). My cousins raved about it, but I dont ever recall having it. Anyone know what it is? I was thinking it was some sort of pancake.

Sorry ThunderLund but not sure even my dog would eat that gruel.

We did not really eat anything crazy growing up. Ate a lot of squirrel, we hunted them a fair amount. My mom used to make head cheese and I was always repulsed by it, even the smell was nasty.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

The Russian Pancake thing got me thinking of my Latvian Grandpa – When I was a young he lived with us until his death. He lived through some stuff during WW2 before luckily escaping and immigrating with my grandma, my two young uncles and my infant mom. They stayed in many refugee camps while going through the immigration process in Europe. I think the food they survived on became comfort food for him and I used to eat it all the time.

For breakfast he would set white bread slices out for a day to dry and eat them the next day with butter. basically a giant buttered crouton. Along with that he would heat milk up, dump some peas into it along with some butter and maybe a little oatmeal to make kind of a gruel. I ate that stuff up, man! Makes me want to try to re-create it to see if it’s as good as I remember. He’d feed a bowl of the same stuff to the dog!

Signs of having great people in your life and the influence they have on you. To me, it’s so comforting when I smell certain foods. Immediately it takes me back to important people, simple means in life, and I think about the great times we had.

Lutefisk – Dad loved it, the runnier the better as he would say. I would eat it just to prove that I’m Swedish, but it isn’t something I would ask for.

Snake ii’s wrote:

Lutefisk – Dad loved it, the runnier the better as he would say. I would eat it just to prove that I’m Swedish, but it isn’t something I would ask for.

Never understood why someone would take perfectly good cod and wreck it by doing this