Food and Food Culture

I'm just here watching as I'd eat a Guinea Pig.

I lie, I wish it was Guinea Pig day. I really miss eating it . I also wonder for the Llama hamburgers on the Andean urban regions.

I'm still angry at the Cat Ban on the Peruvian North. I know is weird, but we're literally the country that eat Llamas and guinea pigs. The fact that the Afro-Peruvians were also the group that eat cat the most really didn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 20th 2019 at 2:13:39 PM

I wouldn't eat cat. I was always told growing up that hyena and cat taste horrible and don't make good biltong/ bushmeat. Baboons and vervet monkeys shot as pests apparently taste alright, but I go green just thinking about it — knowingly eating cousins is not my jam. Farm kids. <shakes head> Reasons why I turned down homemade stokkies at school: not just the risk of beetle larva if badly dried... xP

I'm a city girl at heart, even though I was technically rural in Switzerland. I like to see a stamp telling me it's ostrich, dammit!

Ah, biltong — I wish I had more options than beef, but I'm glad more shops supply it in the UK these days. Even if the stuff you get in Sainbury's is sliced. It's not real biltong if you don't risk losing teeth if you forgot your knife.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jan 20th 2019 at 7:40:15 PM

Come to think of it, if deer and rabbits are fair game, cuteness probably doesn't factor into it...

Because of the risk of contracting tularemia I'm reluctant to try out rodents, TBH. I've heard rabbits taste well, though.

Rabbit is fine enough, but I get your point. It's always best to eat meat from a place which can be verified, just in case.

As with snails. Never eat wild snails. It can go very badly. -_-'

I think not all snails are edible. I don't worry too much about that and only eat them at the restaurant.

Rabbits are quite tasty. I am not a big fan because they are quite annoying what with all the small bones. When I was a child my grandma would take me and my brother to a farm and have us pick a rabbit. We picked a cute one but were quite disappointed when we understood we would eat it.

Edited by gropcbf on Jan 20th 2019 at 9:24:38 PM

Puff adder, worse for the bony, but way easier on the conscience.

Well, unless you happen to be a reptile person, I guess. In my defence: killing a puff adder with a spade is self-defence (was on latrine duty). So was braaiing it behind the teachers' backs: the packed meals on that school trip were vile (pro-tip: don't leave a long weekend's worth of packed food and drink in a combie/ minivan with no available shade in the beginning of summer).

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jan 20th 2019 at 8:41:53 PM

I'm of Chinese descent. We've never had much of a taboo against eating anything regardless of how "cute" or "ugly" it is.

Edited by M84 on Jan 21st 2019 at 4:33:06 AM

Frankly, I would eat pretty much everything which isn't an endangered species and is labelled as edible/tasty food. I would at least try it once. I would only draw the lines at rats or anything else which might carry some weird/dangerous illness, anything which is potentially poisonous (Japan, you are crazy), and anything which just doesn't smell good (because I think the smell is trying to tell us something).

I'm still ashamed about how my country send a Chinese Peruvian to jail because the neighbors suspected he prepared dog for his restaurant

He didn't. And all of this just happened like one or two years ago

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 20th 2019 at 7:10:05 AM

M84: I remenber in a book call the travel with wan(about a spanish writing about china), and in one part a chinise tell him that "we are in china, we eat everything that fly except helicopter, anything that walk except tanks and everything that swing except submarines", it make me chukle for some reason.

Latin american racism, it never disapoint.

Rabbit is quite possibly the worst-tasting meat I've ever had.

I've had rabbit once. The joke that it tastes like chicken isn't too far off, although it's saltier, chewier, and less sweet.

Wow, thank you for your replies everyone and sorry for not replying earlier, had some complications on the job and had little time for writing.

Still I managed to get myself into a local pub for a sunday roast:

First off I made the classic mistake of not looking up on how waiting works beforehand, so I first asked the barkeep for a table to which I got a baffled "wherever you like" and then sat down awkwardly for 10 minutes until it dawned to me and googled for a guide to find out that I was supposed to order at the counter before sitting down, d'oh. Actually not that bad of a system, I always hate to wait for the bill anyway.

So on the board in front of the pub they offered a 2 sunday roasts menu and I naively assumed that this was a serving for a single person. I ordered a beef and a chicken roast and ended up with a whole table full of stuff.

Unfortunately the food was only lukewarm and by the time I got to the second plate already cold, I think their kitchen was about to be closed when I ordered since it was almost 4 p.m. .

Still I finished most of it besides some of the side dishes. The beef was a shoelace but had a nice strong flavor, and with some gravy it was still edible. The Yorkshire pudding was nice with some gravy and a spritz of malt vinegar.

I liked how nicely roasted the potatoes were, they had a nice crunch without being too dry.

My favorite were these glazed sweet potatoes (?), they had a strong sweet flavor and a nice sticky moisture to them.

The sage stuffing surprised me, I assumed it would be, well, stuffed into the chicken, but it came in a little dumpling on the side. But it tasted really good with the chicken which was nice and tender.

The beer was a Captain Smith's Rye which I choose randomly but I liked its malty flavor, would drink again.

So yeah a bit rocky but most of my dissatisfaction can be traced to the food being cold because I came at an off hour. Tomorrow I will be strolling Manchester (I am between Manchester and Birmingham).

@Topic: I remember rabbit meat as tasting like slightly salty chicken ( ), not bad but not a must. I often get weird looks from people when I gush about how tasty pidgeon's are because most see them as winged-vermin, only people who also have grandparent's still into pidgeon racing tend to have eaten them.

Edited by Kiefen on Jan 21st 2019 at 12:56:09 PM

Not a big fan myself, but a LOT depends on how it is cooked. Rabbit gets dry pretty fast.

And how it got killed...that is the general rules with all wild meat. Well, Rabbit isn't really wild, but just like it is the case with hunting game, it ruins the meat if the rabbit is too afraid at the point of dying. That is to a certain degree true for most animals, but with some the difference is bigger.

It is really hard to get good game because hunters tend to keep the "best shots" so to speak for themselves, so unless you know a skilled hunter, you are out of look there…

Honestly, pidgeon are mostly too much of a hassle for my taste. It doesn't taste that much better than chicken and is more bone than anything.

(yes, I was serious when I said that I am pretty open to trying pretty much anything...crocodile for example tastes great, and I have a thing for ostrich, though it is not that easy to make it correctly).

Edited by Swanpride on Jan 21st 2019 at 4:02:32 AM

Yeah. It was freshly caught rabbit and was cooked by someone who knew what they were doing. It almost knocked me out.

If you think pigeon is too much of a hassle, try preparing quail. Helped Mum with that once for a dinner-do she held for family and friends that had come over to Switzerland for Christmas. (For those few Swiss who might be interested; nope, not Migros. For some unknown reason, the Placette in Vevey went through a brief quail phase in the mid '90s — eggs, birds, premade amuse bouche... all sorts of quaily weirdness. No idea what the manager was thinking.)

It tasted great, but I promised myself I would never, ever, ever do that again.

Fiddly doesn't begin to describe it. xP

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jan 21st 2019 at 2:17:48 PM

I never thought much of rabbit. Though, I only had it in a stew.

Though it was also a bit offputting before it was cooked because the smell of not-prepared meat being prepared just sort of got everywhere.

I already think that it is too much work to eat it, so I certainly don't want to prepare it. Same with the eggs, btw.

It's Burns Night tonight so my family will be having our traditional Burns Night dinner: Cock-a-Leekie Soup for starter and then Haggis with neeps (Swede) and tatties for a main with everything washed down with whiskey. I am looking forward to it.

Ugh, leeks. I never could bring myself to like them.

They're one of my favourite types of veg but I rarely have them these days as they do give me gas, which is something I try to avoid with my bowel problems but it is a special occasion.

Edited by SebastianGray on Jan 25th 2019 at 2:59:09 PM

I love me a proper leak pudding (suet and all) with onion gravy and selection of mixed veg. I very, very rarely indulge, though.

Also, I rarely make my own: buying a whole pack of Atora for personal use = loads of waste. I just so rarely use suet and lard; my apologies to all the family recipes that are just gathering dust.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jan 25th 2019 at 5:11:29 PM

I like using lard as a cooking fat.

Wish I could find the chicken and leek pie recipe I once made, though. Wasn't too hard or complicated or full of spices and incidental ingredients.

And today is also Dydd Santes Dwynwen (St. Dwynwen's Day) in Wales. St. Dwynwen has a tragic tale but she died blessing the romantic lives of other lovers so they wouldn't have to suffer what she went through, so the 25th January is basically the Welsh Valentine's Day. Yes, Wales has two Valentine's Days.

So, get out the romance food!

The Welsh news has been recommending three course meals consisting of sourbread with cheese melted over it for a starter, a lamb rack with laverbread herb sauce, ^note laverbread = an oat-based paste made from laver seaweed; laver is closely related to nori and can be used the same way, and chocolate fondant with a cherry-flavoured centre.

The food of love, apparently.

By the way, I found that kale goes really well with haggis, neeps and tatties.

So I tried the soda roast with a beef roast. Turned out pretty well. Tonight I am making rice, beef, and veggies with a sauce made from the leftover broth. The beef turned out pretty good if a little dry but was good. It goes pretty well with pickled jalapenos.

Speaking of pickled things. The hardest damn thing to find in Omaha is Picked Garlic. I used to buy it all the time but it has vanished from store shelves all over town.