Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Anyone want to have an intelligent, adult conversation about food and culture and the relative rationality of our culinary taboos?

Passy,

Of course I'm not the one to set the standards for this blog, but are you?

YOU are the one who called those who want to eat dog or read about foods you might find disgusting "total morons." Again, if you'd expressed your personal disgust, I wouldn't have come out of my relative anonymity to challenge you.

You didn't. You called the rest of us morons, exposing yourself as an intolerant, ethnocentric, food-bigot.

I'm more than willing to tone down the rhetoric -- I don't have any bone to pick with you personally. I am a world traveler and avid foodie, and my family is multi-ethnic, multi-cultural. It's bad enough when other kids tell my kids that their ethnic cuisine is disgusting or immoral -- it's incomprehensible when someone makes those claims on a blog intended for adults who are interested in experiencing and learning about food.

Please think about the implications of your rant. Such sentiments expressed in such a way make this place a hostile environment for people who may not share your nationality, your culture or your "dog"ma.

In short, it's one thing to say you think someone's food is unappetizing to you; it's another thing to call people idiots for their cultural preferences.

http://www.jenisicecreams.com

Jeni's in Columbus, Ohio is an amazing source for interesting ice creams of all kinds. She was recently featured in the Dean & Deluca holiday catalog, and she'll ship her stuff all over the country. Now all of us can get Jeni's on a regular basis.

She's become quite famous for her Salty Caramel, and you can't beat her Lapsang Souchong with Aramagnac Prunes. Her Queen City Cayenne is super-spicy, and her Thai Chili (peanut butter, cayenne, coconut milk) is a revelation.

If you haven't profiled Jeni yet, you really should!

Oh, and the Goat's Cheese with Cognac Fig Sauce is mind blowing...

When my wife and I lived in Detroit, we found a couple of great places -- on of them was imaginatively named "Detroit Bagel," and it served the real thing, the real way. Lines out the door, steam on the window -- the bagels were so hot, one could barely touch the bottom of the bag.

I always ordered one salt, one plain. No need to slice, toast or schmear. The bagels were perfect by themselves.

Unfortunately, we now live in Columbus, Ohio, which has some great restaurants but is seriously lacking in the bagel department.

Sigh.

For the record, I have domesticated chickens, have worked on my cousin's dairy farm, and begged my parents for a pet pig throughout most of my childhood. I also have a dog. And have had a goldfish. Is eating fish barbaric? Am I horrible for eating a hamburger last night, just because I've named cows? Should I be deemed a moron and shot because I eat chicken almost every day, just because I have a pet chick?

Eating living things is how we survive, and most of us couldn't without separating life from food. I probably wouldn't eat dog, because it doesn't sound like a tasty meat, not because I'm unable to separate Fido's face from a bowl of stew. Nobody is trying to change your stance, just please keep your judgmental, inane, negative, ridiculous and hasty comments to a minimum, especially if you are unprepared to defend them in an informed, realistic and healthy debate. Nobody "makes the rules" for this blog, but I think everyone can agree to at least keep the hate out and the information in.

I'm kinda iffy on this sensationalist kind of news...

On one hand, its fascinating and is a draw for readers, on the other, this kind of food is not so unusual or fascinating to people who are familiar with it as a part of their culture.
I have a hard time legitimizing any food as weird or gross anymore because someone, somewhere probably eats it and enjoys it and doesn't find it that odd.

Good for you, Sewell to try other foods, but these foods are only exoticized by a purely Western life experience and standard.
This kind of treatment does the culture no favors by keying in on the weird and eew factor.

@Johnmccollum
Bring the discourse on. I am ready! :)

I could give a rat's fried hind quarter what the reality tv people are eating. I never want to eat a dog because dogs are pets to me. In the immortal words of DL Hughley, "you don't walk food". I never had a pet pig, cow or chicken. Reason being I EAT THEM! Don't even think about what you might eat if the chickens, pigs and cows were gone. We are all 3 meals from anarchy. My neighbor across the street is a nice person but if I was starving he would be nice with some mashed and gravy.
As for the next supermodel, feed her a pound of couth. I don't care what she won she is an asshat! Tell her to sweat that out of her pores.

Anyone want to have an intelligent, adult conversation about food and culture and the relative rationality of our culinary taboos?

"sorry, but not too many people domesticate cows or pigs."

So... our culture's decision to domesticate certain animals renders all other cultures' decision to eat those animals barbaric? Riiiight.

And if I could find a culture that domesticates or reveres cattle (say, a Hindu culture), that would mean that our culture's consumption of beef is barbaric and moronic?

Again, I can understand the idea that eating ALL animals is immoral. I can't fathom the argument that makes your personal preferences morally binding on the rest of us.

Anyway.