March 28, 2006

• mmmm, hotdogs... Chicken skin, hog jowls, tallow, grain leavings, what's not to love?
• White Trash Queso: 1 brick Velveeta, diced 1 can Ro*Tel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies [Optional 1 Pound Ground Buffalo, Browned] Combine ingredients in a crock pot on high. When the ingredients have mixed, lower to low. Serve with Chips. Thick chips.
• Man, I love me some white-trash queso. Although I can do without the green chilis. Back when Mrs. Helper could have cheese we used to have this concoction as dinner about twice a month. Although, we would use a high-falutin' double boiler for smoother heating...
• Although on posting I should have avoided reusing 'although.' Although those who believe so might just be grammar jerks.
• Before I read the extended post, I was totally thinking, "VELVEETA!" Right up there with certain lunch meats - like the kind of bologna that has little bits of pickle embedded in it. (or, heck, bologna and hot dogs, full stop.) But I thought those might be a European thing now common in the US.
• my husband & I 'rediscovered' tatertots last year, and that love affair has yet to falter...
• verbminx - you mean like olive loaf? Yuck. I once worked for a company that supplied Kraft foods...word around the campfire was, stuff like Velveeta and Cheese Whiz are actually grey before they add the fake yellow cheese coloring. Thus, I avoid pasteurized cheese foods. But here's something I've seen at potlucks, etc. that I've always considered to be really questionable on the taste scale - Kitty Litter Cake.
• Medusa, now there is nothing wrong with tater tots. Nothing. Nothing. At. All.
• Ro*Tel makes Milder for you (and Extra Hot for me). Velveeta is an ingredient, not a food. That's the definitional problem here.
• Mmm, tatertots. I think that's called "olive loaf", verbminx. I can remember staring at it in fascinated horror as a small child. I can think of a few "food" items like this... Spam, pickled pig's feet, pork rinds...
• Teh Mock Chicken.
• South Australia -- pie floater. Take a meat pie, turn it upside down in soup plate, cover it with pea soup, and add tomato sauce. Remember to get good and drunk before eating.
• Cheese Whiz - How can any food named whiz be good. Its motto is "cheesy and darn proud of it"
• Wolof, I can never speak to you again. That's just foul. Paua soup is the only thing I can think of right now. I think paua is another name for abalone, and the soup it makes is industrial grey.
• I have had Kitty Litter Cake and its really good!!! My adult 'reintroduction' to tatertots was: Dungeness Crab with butter + tatertots with dijon mustard = a divine meal!!! And we had 'turkeyloaf' for dinner tonight, homemade and yummy!!
• BlueHorse - every culture has some variation on sausage, which is intended to use the less "choice" part of the animals we sacrifice for our eating enjoyment. If you're into frugal, they're the way to go. I don't like the texture or flavor of most US hot dogs, but the kosher versions, like Nathan's and Sabrett's are very tasty, though Sabrett's is pretty fatty. They're all beef, so you don't have to get all oogly over chicken skins and the like. And bratwurst, salami, mortadella, chorizo, lop chong, boudin, etc., all have parts we might not eat on their own, but are some of my favorite things.
• Slight thread-jack here, but is there such a thing as a red hot dog anywhere other than Maine? That probably qualifies as a questionable culture-specific food. Though there are plenty of people that like them just fine.
• In Finland, Mämmi. Looks like shit, doesn't taste much better.
• Lady, your red hot dogs have infiltrated your only neighbor, New Hampshire. =P
• Chicken in a Can
• wait, did someone call me white trash?
• Scrapple. I love the stuff, but I have to admit it is kind of strange. Fry it up till it is crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and then spread it on toast. Delicious.
• es el Queso: It's possible, but I wouldn't have guessed 'white' if I were guessing. Are you indeed Queso Blanco?
• I've always hate that phrase "is considered a delicacy". I'd like to nominate it for an oxymoron, with the only people who seriously consider it a delicacy being a few crazy natives and a smattering of people with odd cravings.
• hated -- as in "i hate people who don't proofread"
• my dad, who grew up poor, ate Spam for pleasure, when he could well afford otherwise. I don't know if youse know, but Jim Hormel is gay and a big supporter (financially and perhaps otherwise) of GLBTetc ventures such as The Harvey Milk Institute of San Francisco, which I think is cool.
• Breakfast Tacos rule.
• The pie floater is actually a Scottish invention, imported to Oz. Vegemite is not despised by everyone except Australians, only by deranged Seppos. The superiority of Vegemite as a foodstuff can be attested by toddlers everywhere. I can't think of bad quisine at the moment. I lived in the UK as a kid, there's plenty of bad food there, perhaps I am blanking out the horrid memories because of trauma.
• I can't speak as to its universality, but in Korea they have a dish which essentially is a tofu brick stuffed with an eel. Now, you may wonder, how does one get an eel into a sem-soft brick of tofu without crumbling the soft curd? Simple! Into one (not quite) boiling large pot of water, drop one large brick of tofu, one live eel, and spices... You see, the eel, sensing that it is being roasted alive, will burrow into the cooler tofu block, before dying in the center. Voila! Self-stuffing food! *shudders* (My vote my USsian foods would have to be Spam, Corndogs, and Hormel vienna sausage)
• For Quebecers, or in my case an ex-Quebecer, one word: Poutine. Damn, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.
• McDonald's.
• ...on preview... Debaser, you've got to be kidding. Like, you're making fun of us, right? sensing that it is being roasted alive That would be the SEARING AGONY OF A SLOW DEATH it's sensing, there.
• I don't think that we should limit this to just your own cultures culinary tale of woe. We should all be able to poke the mysterious goo that makes up the global food scene. Scotland: haggis (never had it, but I find myself somehow hesitant to ingest something that itself is packaged in a stomach) Japan: natto. Also, I'm not sure what the proper name is, but you can find it in some ramen recipes... for lack of a better word, fish bologna. It's got a whitish center with a pinkish ring around the outside. It's just creepy. US: potted meat food product. I've had it (voluntarily), and can attest, that shit ain't right.
• I've got poutine in my bloodline as well, given my French Canadian heritage. Add maple sugar pie for dessert and you can witness the health problems develop in seconds. We also have Aboriginal and Metis blood, and some Western Canadian (via the USSR) heritage, so I guess pemmican, butter tarts and borscht have fed my near ancestors. Of all the aforementioned, I only regularly make and eat borscht, but butter tarts are an occasional treat. None of the rest would I eat, ever. I know I'm forgetting some of the Russian goodies, but pierogies are ubiquitous now, in the same way that asian greens are.
• Haggis is lovely! though it should be borne in mind that you're supposed to drink a lot of whisky when you eat it and that may influence my judgement. Faggots on the other hand are a delicacy I've never felt able to consume. Liquor, which accompanies Pie, Mash and eels is also an acquired taste ... and as for mushy peas ... eeeeuuuurrrrgh
• Eeeeeek, further investigation of the Manze's website linked above shows that, as of Friday, it will be my nearest takeaway. Gulp.
• The former Mrs. islander was of Swedish extraction and at Christmas her family found it necessary to serve lutefisk, a vile, slimy and reeking concoction of reconstituted dried cod and lye(!) that, when properly prepared over a period of days or weeks, attained the consistency and flavor of tubercular phlegm. Any pots or pans used in its preparation were normally so befouled that they had to be discarded. But her mom also made the best sourdough bicuits ever.
• AH! Lutefisk, or as I am wont to term it, Ljutefisk. Wedge can probably attest to the insanity this stuff induces in me.
• Weezel, Debaser wasn't joking. It's not just in Korea; there are some coastal Chinese who cook eels that way. The story goes that an eel fisherman who was boiling tofu one day, got news that his mother was very ill. He dumped the rest of his eels into the boiling pot and ran off to see his mother. Turns out she was all right, and he came back with some friends to have the eel and tofu soup. But on opening the pot, they couldn't find the eels. It was only by cutting open the blocks of tofu, did they find that the eels had burrowed into the tofu and died inside.
• Mmm, natto.
• Kraft Dinner, bitches...with ketchup! Go Canada!
• In the UK (and everywhere else) - Chitterlings, tripe, haggis, lights, lungs, caul. Basically all the bits of an animal left for the peasants after the town squire has nicked all the meat. Certain areas in the UK like weird stuff on their chips (US - fries). I've had Chips and Curry Sauce, Chips with Melted Cheese and Garlic (aka Cheesy Chips'n'Garlic), Chips and Gravy (that is, brown UK gravy).
• * ♥ all the sauces that go on chips, yes, even fake cheese*
• OK when backpakin thru Canada have to ask.... y is Canadian bacon so lauded??? thin and tasteless bring on the aussie version(patently patriotic and hang the fact) but also have to ask why is cheese orange?? Spent more than one hour trying to explain to native that cheese IN oz is yellow naturally = which additive are we missing out on????????? *they didn't believe me - thought i was hallucinating or something..) (Cheddar main argument - i do not believe it is naturally kinda orange or bright orange - enlightenment requested) As for food to die for - tripe - yeah sue me
• Oh and PS roo tail soup is good - long as oyu have lamingtons for dessert
• And - nasty food - witchetty grubs - ugh. Good for you and nutritious and staple diet (?) Still thinken the elders who sold us this one are laughing - apologies for any offence caused but still they taste UGH
• cheddar is naturally white. orange used to be done by adding carrot juice, and yellow was from marigold. for the nasty food list: i've never had one, but there was a furore over deep-fried mars bars a while back.
• Hmm dep fried mars bars heard of before - but local sydneysider just back from travels in deep north of Scotland - assures all that there is such a thing as deep fried ( I mean the thing in the non italian world already drips with fat......) but) pizza from at least Inverness??? Sounds like artery chokin heaven - confirmed reports of sightings????? Oh and poutine has to go on the nasties list!!!!!!
• her family found it necessary to serve lutefisk My employer finds it necessary to serve lutefisk at the annual Christmas buffet. Gross. What's worse? A number of my co-workers actually critique the stuff and claim it's not good enough. I don't think anyone mentioned kimchi...which I find totally foul but some people seem to like it.
• Kraft Dinner, bitches...with ketchup! Go Canada! "Ho dee oten doten day, ho dee oten day oh, ho dee oten doten day, fattening up our tapeworms!" "We just really dig the taste!"
• My great-grandmother threatens us with lutefisk. She claims she still has the recipe, but my mother and grandmother swear she hasn't actually carried out the threat since the mid-70s, when she made it as a cruel trick on my father. As Easter is coming up, the only foul food I can think of is the Meat Pie. Four kinds of meat, three kinds of cheese, and 36 eggs involved in the construction (the foundation is a wedding cake pan.) Maybe delicious to some, but to me it's 5" x 22" of heart attack. Oh, wait, speaking of family foods, there is nothing like gefilte fish made by an Italian woman. Just...mashing white fish together, something about it just...and anything that comes floating in brine that isn't a pickle. As for pure Americanisms, I'm afraid my muttly heritage beats out any horrible cheeses or deep frieds.
• My ex was an attorney for Kraft and swore me to certain corporate secrets she found too interesting not to share. However, she turned into a bitch so all pinky swears are off. Velveeta actually has four different recipes. Why? Well because it's a made of waste products and the formula will vary based on what they need to find means to dispose of. It's not just bad food, it's scarcely food. In industrial quantities like Kraft is dealing with, disposing of huge quantities of certain substances is quite problematic. It's expensive as the waste needs to either be processed into something safe for disposal or... made into food so that you all are buying their waste product and loading up nacho chips with it.
• As someone's who's predominantly British I'd like to apologize for just about everything done in traditional kitchens with few exceptions. Well, one that I can think of... Yorkshire Pudding. That stuff rocks. The rest is either painfully boring, bad or just stolen wholesale from other cultures and/or so ubiquitous that no one could really claim it. Fish and chips are tasty, sure, but deep frying is hardly a solitary art know to just one country.
• Frito pie. Essentially just canned chili with fritos stuck in it and a bunch of cheese on top. Low-rent, but addictive as hell. I also have an unjustly maligned one: The BLT-MPB(ot), or Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato with Mayonnaise and Peanut Butter (on toast). Everytime I describe it to someone, they think it's disgusting. With one exception, everyone who I've gotten to try one has loved it.
• How's about some jellied pigs feet? With the hair, nails and all - dropped into a pot of boiling water, simmered for a good hour or two until reduced into a lovely jiggling gelatinous mess... (though I couldn't get past the stubbly hog hairs when I tried it). Natto is mighty fine. Now for a real treat, there's always suppon, which if you eat in the traditional manner includes drinking the blood of that fresh snapper (slit the throat, drain the blood into a bowl and there you have it). On preview: all this talk of Velvetta has reminded me of a yummy tidbit from my youth. Back in elementary parochial school, nothing was to waste. During lunch, any milk that was remaining in your pint-sized paper carton was to be dumped into a large metal pot. It always looked quite disgusting: bits of food, and the occasional chocolate milk, commingling together (not to mention the saliva washback that was surely there). Rumors were always abound as to the final destination of the daily leftover milk. Turned out that it was always incorporated it into the next day's dessert ~ ~ usually cake or pudding.
• Velveeta actually has four different recipes. Why? Well because it's a made of waste products and the formula will vary based on what they need to find means to dispose of. It's not just bad food, it's scarcely food. In industrial quantities like Kraft is dealing with, disposing of huge quantities of certain substances is quite problematic. It's expensive as the waste needs to either be processed into something safe for disposal or... made into food so that you all are buying their waste product and loading up nacho chips with it. So THAT's what they do with all the cheez-dust sweepings from the Mac & Cheese... interesting...
• There is nothing nasty about Frito Pie. Or tatertots. Or leftover chili over tatertots with lots of melted cheese... I really do have taste. Promise
• MCT, I don't like you any more. you would defile the beauty that is peanut butter with the vile abomination of mayonnaise. NASTY!!!! I am really glad I haven't eaten velvetta since childhood... mr. medusa & I were fondly recalling childhood memories of meatloaf sandwiches tho...mmmmm...meatloafy
• After six years of living here, one of the things I'm still not used to about Ontario is that no matter where you go, if you order fries (or chips) the waitress will ask "d'ya want gravy on your fries?" Oh, yes. And could you please shit on my hamburger as well? Please, please do pour a mixture of animal fat, cooked blood and flour over my greasy potatoes, that would be just fine.
• Ya don' like it, yew kin go back ta Nogravia, or wherever the hail yer from, tenderfoot.
• While living in Mexico, I was introduced by a native to the delicious homestyle adding of a dollop of mayonnaise to all tacos. It was Viva La Yum! Also, here is a partial list of Tested Kraft Dinner Enhancers; Mayo, curry paste, tuna, salsa, bacon grease, lemon juice, ketchup, ranch dressing...oh KD, thou art versatile. Oh, BTW, is SOS (shit on a shingle) a universal mom-in-a-hurry trick? Do Indian kids get like leftover palak paneer on naan, or Chinese kids get old ginger beef on yesterday's steamed buns?
• My mother once made me a sandwich for lunch in grade 1 with cold, cut up hot dogs nd mayonnaise. In return I dutifully took home and left my snoopy lunch box with a pool of vomit and a sandwich with one bite out of it floating in the bottom.
• MJ, I suspect you are right re the ubiquity of SOS. SC, I would like to invite you to join my 12-step support organization ASNCA (Adult. Survivors. (of) Nutritional. Child. Abuse.)
• One time I ate at this place called TGIF Fridays? Or Applebees? Or Flingers? Or Chotchkies? Or something... Anyway, there were some things they served that looked food like. They, uh, weren’t.
• In Denmark where i live "Gammelost" ("Old Cheese") is a must on every smørrebrødsbord >(Smorgasbord). Gammelost is a har cheese that has been allowed to "ripen" for at least a year, and it is usually covered with a whitish grayny powder outside, which on closer inspection (not recommended) turns out to be live cheesemites! It i serves in crumbly slices on dark rye bread with bacon lard instead of butter, and topped with raw onion rings and slices of meat jelly. Invariably accompanied by "Rød Ålborg Snaps", a cumin flavoured alcoholic beverage made from potatoes and with a voltage of 45% alcohol! Skål!
• cabingirl, I have to tell you that the Kitty Litter recipe link completely grossed me out. But I'm 42 years old. I forwarded it to my 6 year old niece to get her reaction, but haven't heard back yet.
• Oh, and per the Curious George: White Castle hamburgers.
• Strangely, though, White Castle makes them with a different, far superior taste if you're drunk and purchasing them at 4 in the morning.
• HW, I am 38 and the kitty litter cat is GOOD!!!
• 1 litter box (preferably a NEW one!) Preferably? Preferably?
• Well, it does taste pretty good, Medusa, so that's not really why I pointed it out. My point is that it's not "in good taste", so to speak. I mean, c'mon - forming tootsie rolls into fake cat turds for a dessert?
• I think that mämmi seems like it would be quite tasty, and full of surprises. Yum! what creeps me out is blood pudding or head cheese - gack. Poutine is very tasty to me, although fattening. Not so good when they scatter ground critter shavings over it, though. Ptoo.
• ah! I see cabingirl. having been raised on hotdogs and kraft dinners myself, I wouldn't know good taste if it slapped me in the face ;)
• YES OLIVE LOAF IS PRECISELY THE MONSTROSITY I WAS THINKING OF. But I don't know that I would describe it as "American" - it might just be a deli food, which I think would probably mean it was originally European. Ditto "Vienna Sausages" - that's not really something that most people would describe as "typically American food," unlike hot dogs or Velveeta. (Or maybe we've just been fooled by the "Vienna" in the name. Seriously, though, I don't know of any US-born Americans who deeply like or eat the things. We'll do hot dogs, but not canned.) Frito Pie must be sort of ersatz - it's more "USian" than anything else, but it's mostly composed of appropriative approximations or bastardizations of Mexican foods, or at least Native foods from what is now the Southwestern US.... I think White Castle hamburgers, and other "sliders," definitely all qualify for inclusion under this topic. (I live in the same town as both Wendy's and White Castle corporate HQs... WC's is this weird industrial metal building that's still sort of halfheartedly going for the "castle" theme, but in a really depressing institutional way.)
• Poutine ranks right up there with most obnoxious foodstuffs ever tried - and this to someone brought up on offal. Yeah OK my taste was destroyed as a child. Hate vegemite too - ranks right up there with poutine (s) ! Cabingirl you are so right about Kimchi - how can you trust a food you can smell triple wrapped thirty feet before you meet it...UGH
• On the other hand, the best possible food smell in all the world is onions and garlic sauteeing in olive oil. N'est-ce pas?
• twinkles are evil, aren't they?
• HW, put shallots in there too, and I'm right with you!
• Hawthorne and Alnedra... Oui Oui Oui. Still I have known that addictive smell to be followed by haute disgusting still not quite sure how that was managed.
• Fried twinkies?
• HW and Alnedra, shall we add some chopped celery to that saute?
• I forwarded it to my 6 year old niece to get her reaction, but haven't heard back yet. She's probably busy in the kitchen.
• ...or dumping out the litter box.
• Might as well add chopped carrots to complete the Holy Trinity (onions, carrots, celery).
• And how about some finely chopped peppers for a little zing?
• Then we mix it all up with mayonnaise and spread it on Wonder Bread!
• Heathen!
• My mother knew someone who ate fluffernutter sandwhiches (fluffernut marshmallow creme and peanut butter on white bread) with bacon. Mmm...nothing like greasy crunchy bacon to compliment fluffy marshmallow... Marshmallow in jar is in and of itself pretty disgusting, really.
• sausage in 2 doughnuts. Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Hey, I'm not sayin' I was there - just reporting what the kids said at school.
• Kinda like a threesome...
• Hmm Krispy Kreme donuts. Sadly, the closest I can get to feed my rapidly developed Tim Hortons addiction. 6 months post return home to earn more money and departure from the land of the maple leaf, still wish I had the million or so needed to start a franchise here and firestorm those KK fakers. (Of course, the fact that being the initial Australian franchisee for Tim Hortons and stand to earn millions upon millions upon......) *gibbers and gets dragged off* 'It is still the hot chocolate I love' she said
• I have never tried a Krispy Kreme. I'm afraid that if I started, I wouldn't be able to stop.
• That's about it. And don't try to start a franchise. They've got that sewn up tighter than a . . . well - tight.
• Krispy Kreme donuts are the most highly overrated foodstuff I've ever eaten.
• Yea. They're donuts. Just donuts. Fresh donuts. But just donuts. mmmmmm, doh-nuts /obligatory
• I just bought some Iron Chef General Tso's Sauce The last ingredient is "miced onion". Should I worry?
• They're very sanitary creatures. So are the mice. [NOT MICEIST]
• That must be where they have mice chew up the onions to save on knife-sharpening costs. Very efficient. The only downside is, none of the mice can get dates.
• Those onion-mincing mice smell worse than a Koko hoodie in a dank, moist cave.
• I see your dank Koko cave and your onion-mincing-mice and raise you one caterwauling kitfisto with cramps and a cleaver.
• Get 'yer fresh hot and cheap Beijing-style baozi! [steamed buns] Squares of cardboard picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda -- a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap -- then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning are stirred in. *licks lips*
• Official: China's food safety crisis could trigger unrest