It's News Guys, But Not As We Know it!

[guohua]

Well, you know how renown British food is around the world... stuff like tripe, pig's feet and black pudding!

I even recall my mother asking me to halve a pig's head because it wouldn't fit in a pot to boil.
The axe I used was as blunt as a hammer, but I was only eight years-old at the time and didn't know much.
(Yuk!)

In the interest of full disclosure, I HAVE eaten some fairly unconventional things. I've eaten snakes, turtles, alligators, raccoons, ostrich, and a kangaroo. I've eaten what we call here a "grampus", but which other folks in other places call a "water dog" or a "hellbender" - It's a sort of giant salamander, a great slimy prehistoric looking thing with a big flat head and a mouthful of teeth like really coarse sandpaper. My Dear Old Dad said they used to get up to around 4 or 5 feet long when he was a kid, but I've never seen one over about 2 1/2 feet long. Once you get past the slimy part (really just a mental thing), they're not much different than frogs - which I've also eaten - not just the legs, as that would be a waste of perfectly edible frog.

My dear Old Dad also said I ate ants when I was a kid, but I don't recall if they were any good or not - but the wife DID catch the daughter sitting in the yard eating fire ants one day when she was little, so I suppose it's not out of the realm of the possible. When questioned, she said they were good, and that they were "spicy" ROFLMAO!

I've eaten quail eggs preserved in jalapeno juice, a pickling of sorts I reckon. I've eaten what looked to me like gold fish that were so big we had to store them in a bathtub full of water to keep 'em fresh until it was time to clean 'em - I was told they were some kind of carp. We caught them with spears. I've eaten lizards, but they were big enough to make it worth my while to cook them over an open fire. I eat catfish, squirrels, and rabbits pretty regular.

For 3 days now there has been some sort of critter scampering, absolutely thundering, between the ceiling over my head and the floor in my attic. I reckon it's something that came in to get out of the cold, but if it don't stop annoying the crap out of me with it's scampering, I just might eat it, too!

I've also been known to eat bologna, vienna sausages, and potted meat - which some folks here call "spotted dog", and some others call "lips and ears", since all of those delicacies are made out of the parts of pigs that no one in their right mind would eat in their natural form - but if you turn them into a paste, there ain't no telling what they were before then, so it's all good.

In other places, in other times, I've eaten things that I have no idea what they were. One dish I kept smacking with a fork, because I was fairly certain it was trying to crawl off the plate when I wasn't looking. I've eaten octopus and squids, and watched other folks turn green at the very thought while I was eating them. They're pretty chewy, rubbery one might say, and it takes more work to eat them than they have nutritional value I'm sure.

Some things I just can't abide by, however. "Chitlins", which I believe are the same thing or similar to what you called "tripe", won't ever make it to my stomach. I can't believe they sell them in grocery stores, as if they were food or something. I did eat a pickled pigs foot once, but that ain't happening again, ever. Spam, Treet, or any equivalent is another thing that won't be entering my stomach - I don't even allow it to cross my threshold. No brains of any sort will make it down my gullet, since I'm fairly certain they wouldn't stay down, so why bother? And chicken feet - what the hell is up with folks eating chicken feet? I would have thought they were nothing but bone and gristle, but I'm told there is meat on their "palm" area. I say "I'm told", because that's not anything I'm ever going to find out first-hand. I'll never forget the first time I saw them, in an oriental restaurant, a bunch of chicken feet sticking up out of a pot, claws and all. When I saw them, I said "You gotta be shi... oh look! Little bitty octopii!" and away I went.

So you see, I really have no business disparaging traditional British fare - I guess maybe I'm just a picky eater! Could you pass the marmite?

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My husband has also and he just says he LOVES Waterdogs, they are best baked in foil buried in a bed of hot coal for an hour or so depending on size of the Waterdog.
He has an old recipe in his head, you use dried Nightcrawler (large earthworms) crushed and sprinkled over the Water Dog after it is warped with Sweet Potatoes or a Sweet Root in tin foil and baked.