Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

AdamB, this stayed green a surprisingly long time (three, four days) in a plain old plastic container. I guess the tomatillo protected the avocado from oxidization?

I could eat a quart of guac myself...

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Dinuguan, because all my relatives told me it was chocolate stew.

Grasshopper, cow brain

Snake, abalone, sea cucumber, durian, alligator, moose, kangaroo.

When I was young I ate my parasitic twin.

snake 4 ways (soup, stir-fry, deep-fry, blood mixed with vodka as a shot, - taiwan
crickets stuffed with french fries and deep friend - taiwan
live fish with only head half deep-fried, tail half served raw - taiwan
bull penis / turkey testicle - ny (izakaya place)

Dog cooked in a spicy stew. Raw sea urchin eggs (scooped up from freshly cracked live urchin) - very intense saline taste. Japanese squid shiokara (salted, fermented seafood - very, very slimy). On a similar note: bakasang from the North Sulawesi region of Indonesia (a grey sludge of a very pungent condiment made of salted, fermented fish, similar to bagoong from the Phillipines).

Plus other foods considered extreme by others (based on the comments here), but completely normal for me:
- cow tongue, brain, tripe, heart
- pork ear, blood, feet/hock
- chicken feet, intestines (deep fried, they're great snacks!), gizzard, liver, heart
- goat's feet
- bats (body and wings)
- 'thousand year' eggs
- durian! (luv' em since I was a kid)
- sea cucumber, jellyfish, etc.

But I do have my limits: no bugs, larvae, worms and other creepy crawlies...

Scape a bit of dirt from a pig's knuckle and throw that in too will ya. Jeez!

with you all the way, chichi.

the only editorializing going on here is naming the column "The Nasty Bits" so as to ward off close-minded people and make it sound "good" to be "bad"; otherwise, there is no trend going on here, just a newfound (and hopefully long-lasting) respect for the food and animals that we consume.

some of the earliest comments on this thread are laughable and Lorenzo's comments about offal being a trend as opposed to eating primal cuts just means that he's fallen for the very long, mainstream and profitable trend of trimmed chicken breasts, pork tenderloins, and steaks being the only acceptable protein, easily purchased in vacuum-sealed packs at costco.

this banter is cracking me up. i kind of agree w/ both sides - this offal craze is annoying (only b/c i hate 'crazes' and anything resembling 'foodie trendy' - gag me) and also necessary. every single one of our ancestors used offal often in their dishes and, for some reason, we all kind of stopped. Americans just don't eat much offal unless it was passed down from their heritage. I grew up hearing the word "pigs feet" often - but I'm Italian and that was a main ingredient in my grandma's sunday gravy. Had I ever eaten duck tounge before last year, no. Had I ever realized how amazing veal liver is for dinner until 5 years ago? Nope. How about how to clean a kidney? Not since eating it in France for the first time 6 years ago. Once I was exposed to and convinced of how great these lesser cuts could be (usually b/c i trust restaurants when traveling), I started using them in my dishes more and more. I no longer fear things I didn't grow up with - I embrace them. I think that's the point of all this (kinda - but, let's be honest, the name of this blog is SERIOUS Eats - they want a bit of shock factor) - to trust them on how delicious something could be.

oh, and w/ these crispy pig ears, they are really good. i made these from fergus' book. first ate pigs ears a la plancha style in Madrid. but you really do have to go easy on eating them b/c they are very rich. paired w/ the salad is a great thing to do.

I don't get the negative comments. But, then I don't get the people who get upset when I make negative comments about Sandra Lee (no one here, btw. Just an internet observation).

I really like this column because even if the recipe is something I wouldn't make (mostly just because it's more difficult to procure items and BF will only eat offal that he can easily identify as "muscle" - tongue, heart, etc.), it still lets me think about food preparation and technique. I purchased a whole oxtail the other day to braise and I thought about this column. I keep hoping the store in question gets in some duck feet and/or tongues. I'm pretty sure I can get BF to try the tongues. The feet might have to wait until my mom visits.