Southern Food: What's the wierdest food you have tried?
When I was living in Texas my dad would bring home...lets just say.. odd kinds of meat. Well I didn't think it was very odd when I was a little girl. One night he made something that looked like chicken and dumplings but it ended up being squirrel and dumplings and also had me try rattle snake, ostrich, alligator gar, snappin turtle. Which all were surprisingly delicious. So just want to know what weird things other people have eaten. So what's the weirdest thing you have tried and liked?
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15 Comments:
The oddest food I've ever eaten (well, perhaps not oddest, but not liked when tried) was sea cucumbers. Definitely not a Texas thang.
CJ McD at 8:49PM on 09/14/09
I never thought that the food I had in NC at my grandma's was ever weird, but today I logged onto the recipe section of SE and got a recipe for green fried tomatoes. I love all kinds of greens and black eyed peas and persimmon pudding, but GFT was tough to swallow and I eat almost everything. I eat mofungo, alligator and frog so I am adventuresome. I think they'll be deep sixed tomorrow.
janaatwg at 9:06PM on 09/14/09
As a boy I would bait a large hook line with chicken guts and tie it to a Clorox bottle. I would paddle out to the center of our pond and drop it in the water.
Next day the bottle would usually be wrapped around brush at the edge of the pond. I would then grab the bottle with a pole hook and drag it onto the bank. At the end of that hook would often be an snapping turtle the size of a dish pan.
My dad would cut it's fist sized head off and dump it's body into boiling water. He would then clean and dress it and cut it up like chicken. Mom would flour it and and fry it exactly as she would chicken.
Fried snapping turtle (aka mud turtle) tastes great and it's absolutely true that some pieces tastes like chicken while others taste like fish.
We were careful to dispose of the turtle head in a safe place as it would live for 24 hours and could still give you quite a bite if you were unfortunate enough to step on it.
We also ate possom but not unless it was caught and pinned up for a week and fed scratch so that it's system would be free of whatever it might have scavenged. Possom is best served with sweet taters. We even have a possom festval in SC. Yall know what a seven course meal in Clemson is? ............................. a six pack and a possom.
I never cared much for squirrel as it reminds me of eating a rat and it's just too dang greasy.
Poultrygeist at 9:17PM on 09/14/09
@ poultrygeist--only a week? we always waited at least 2 weeks.
beth1 at 9:39PM on 09/14/09
@ poultrygeist--I've never tried possum before. Maybe one of these days I'll try it. But you are certainly right about squirrel it is very gamy as well as greasy.
ambrimberry at 10:00PM on 09/14/09
The last really funky thing I tried was sea urchin at a sushi bar. I don't recommend it to non serious foodies. The texture was delightful, but after a few spoonfulls the taste really bugged me out.
Pinupgirl4ever at 12:48AM on 09/15/09
LARDO. TRY FRYING STRIPS AND LAYING STRIPS ON RAW OYSTER ON THE HALF SHELL . SAVE THE GREASE AND FRY ANYTHING IN IT.
jfitz at 6:29AM on 09/15/09
There is no such thing as weird food! It's all good. (If it's not poisonous)
Historically and culturally people endure culture and politics to feed our children, and therefore develop the art of creating delicious culinary creations when we forgive preconceptions and taboos.
What we in the Western World have grimaced at is thankfully now being heralded as fine adventure in cuisine these days. Thanks more broad traveling interests and the internet.
Thank God I was born in these times!
Not Yukio at 7:01AM on 09/15/09
If we are taking Southern cuisine I would have to say alligator, very good, I will order it again.
pjracz10 at 10:36AM on 09/15/09
Alligator and turtle and frog legs at the Yearling restaurant near Micanopy.
redfish at 11:24AM on 09/15/09
in zoos all over the world, there is a description of the animal, habitat etc. on the cage, here in south louisiana there's a recipe on the cage.
olddad at 12:37PM on 09/15/09
Wierdest would have to be Squirrel. only because you see them around you every day and its kinda like eating a familiar pet.
CATERPILLARGIRL at 1:30PM on 09/15/09
The truly strangest thing I have ever eaten is Poke Salad cooked by my neighbor when I was a kid. It is a green that grows as a weed in the south. It is poisonous unless it is parboiled - so I think you have to trust the chef!
In Australia, we got a change from American "exotic" of ostrich burgers and fried alligator and tried crocodile, emu, and kangaroo.
olddad, your right about LA. You can get just about about any wild critter at a restaurant here and most of it was at the bottom of a lake or in someone's yard that morning. I see folks with deer stands (used for hunting) set up in their front yards, plus the roadside stands buy catfish and crawdads to sell to customers.
minutia at 3:54PM on 09/15/09
Most of the weirest foods I've tried were junk food and snack foods and actually not really foods at all.......twinkies anyone?
CJ McD at 6:04PM on 09/15/09
minutia, I grew up eating poke salad with sliced boiled eggs on top. As a boy I was always on the look out for a good stand of poke. When I found it I'd go back to the house, announce my discovery and get a grocery bag to pick "a mess". In the south we always picked "a mess" of greens.
beth 1 - you're right, it's better to wait two weeks to clean out a possom
Armadillos have now migrated up I-95 to SC. Haven't eaten one yet but somebody said they ain't nothing but possom-on-the-half shell.
Poultrygeist at 4:54PM on 09/16/09