Pictures of Miscellaneous Stuff & Things

[Stanwade]

I have eaten cat, snakes, turtle, frogs, snails, raw mussels. Nothing special, except for breaded frog legs, which are great.
In Bulgaria, the classics are beef, pork and lamb inwards - stomach, intestines, liver, heart, kidneys, brain ... Delicacy!
I know a pub where they make amazing soup with stomach and shank, seasoned with garlic, vinegar and chili pepper. After eating, your mouth burns and you can kill someone with your breath, but you feel wonderful.

sounds delicious! when I take weird (to them) organ meat to work my friends well say "we'll eat the muscles, you eat the guts" I always say that's fine, more for me! Can't beat chicken livers, hearts, gizzards or just about any organ meat from most animals if it's prepared right..pickled deer hearts are one of my favorites..

[Steve Warden]

Guys, guys, guys!!!
You're missin' it here!
This thread is PICTURES of Misc stuff and things.
I ain't seen no pics of all this food you're talkin' 'bout!!


I'm one that knows two things about food I haven't tried:
1) People won't eat what's killed others.
B) If people eat it, they must like it.

If it ain't killin' 'em, and they like it, then it won't kill me and I might like it. I'd more than likely give it a go.

[Stanwade]

Steve--I'm going to smoke a couple of hams tomorrow night --I'll post pictures! One store bought, one homemade, I brined it myself.. can't wait!

[cudgee]

If we start posting pictures of all creatures and critters being for human consumption, the animal rights group may well shut us down.

[Quick Steel]

Phil, Looking at your gustatory history, I must admit that one of the things I will be giving thanks for this Thursday is the simple fact that I was born into a northern urban environment.

[Colonel26]

My worst was puppy dog stew.

Garry, your comment reminded me of my old uncle. As a youngster I was taught children were to be seen not heard. On one of those occasions when I was actually listening, there was a conversation about eating unusual meats. Any how, it came down to ol' Unkie asking if anyone had ever eaten fox? He then added it tastes a lot like dog. I hadn't thought of that in years!

The lowly possum is much esteemed in a small town between us and Panama City. The town of Wausau, Florida has a large statue of a possum to commemorate it for sustaining the area during the depression years. The Opossum is fondly referred to as a "sand hill chicken". That community holds an annual Possum Festival each year, the 1st Saturday of August. The same old uncle I mentioned earlier used to catch possums and put them in a chicken brooder and fatten them and sell them to certain folks.

The most interesting "unusual meat" I ever had was bobcat. We had a feller on our maintenance crew that was quite an interesting man. He was about as wide as he was tall, wore bib overalls and was a furniture grade carpenter, he did good wood work. One morning he showed up at the shop with a big pot in his hands and was fussing about his guineas escaping , etc. He made the statement, "The only way to catch a guinea was to shoot it. If y'all are around at dinner time I'm going to make some big cat head biscuits." Most of the crew came to the shop for lunch expecting guinea stew rather than going to a restaurant. Right before we were to eat, this ol' boy grabbed my arm and said,"Boss man, don't bail out on me 'cause this ain't guinea stew!" It smelled good, looked good, a white gravy with little fancy cubed up meat and vegetables. He then told me it was the back-strap of a bobcat. So I said okay, not a problem. We said grace, everybody got a bowl full and a biscuit and was enjoying the guinea stew until a little feller that was raised down where Pine log Creek and the Choctawhatchee River come together. He said,"We ate a lot of guineas when I was a youngun' and the meat was a lot darker than this." The ol' boy who was doing the cookin' said, "Who said anything about guinea stew?" Several bowls were quickly pushed toward the center of the work table we used to eat on. He had fooled the crew by just making a comment that led us to believe he had a guinea in the pot! He told us how the bobcat had tried to catch his guineas and when he was skinning the bobcat he noticed how good the back-straps looked so he cubed them up,browned them and made a delicious stew. His wife is sweet little Filipino lady, in her accent she told us several times, "You no eat anything he brings up here!" He brought coon hash and he also made a coon and possum hash that was very tasty. We used to have some good dinners at the shop, fried venison or fried fish and quite often we would invite the big bosses from the district office. They bragged on the venison, little did they know it sometimes was road kill!

Personally, in addition to the things mentioned above, we have eaten armadillo, rattlesnake, Cattle egret, gator, mudfish (bowfin), buffalo and probaly some other things I can't remember. One year during a outdoor facilities inspection, I went to lunch with the inspector, he was from India. We ate at a local burger place and he ordered a bun with all the trimmings without the meat. This led to an interesting discussion of our religious views. He looked at me and grinned when I told him, "I'm a Southern Baptist and I'll eat anything that don't eat me first!"

When you go to "recolletin' , they say you're gettin' old!
Treefarme

My oldest boy wants to trap a bobcat so bad he can’t stand it. For one reason they’re the most expensive hides you can trap around here. But the other reason is he want to eat it. We’ve read that it is delicious.

I have eaten cat, snakes, turtle, frogs, snails, raw mussels. Nothing special, except for breaded frog legs, which are great.
In Bulgaria, the classics are beef, pork and lamb inwards - stomach, intestines, liver, heart, kidneys, brain ... Delicacy!
I know a pub where they make amazing soup with stomach and shank, seasoned with garlic, vinegar and chili pepper. After eating, your mouth burns and you can kill someone with your breath, but you feel wonderful.

Once in Monterrey Mexico I was translating for a local company at a trade show. The two big bosses and I were eating dinner (lunch) in the hotel cantina and we ordered a tray that had a variety of appetizers and snacks. One particular bowl of a very delicious and savory “dip” was everyone’s favorite. Those ol boys spoke fluent southern Kentucky English and nothing else so they asked me what it was. I got the menu and went down the list and the only thing left was “tripe”.

Now I’m thinking in Spanish. So it didn’t dawn on me. I kept mumbling it over and over and finally it hit! I said it’s tripe! They asked what it was and when I told them they wouldn’t eat any more. lol. I thought it was good.

[treefarmer]

Wade, I failed to mention all the civilized offal meats, your comment about tripe triggered my recollection of some more delicious meats! Tripe is a delicacy to some folks as is the hog maw, both are stomach muscle. Heart, liver, tongue, sweet breads(thymus gland), brains and even mountain oysters are edible beef parts. A real treat used to be “liver and lights” when it was hog butchering time. Pickled pigs feet are still a good snack. Stanwade mentioned pickled deer heart, that sounds like something worth exploring. The gizzards and livers from the poultry world are always good. There is waterfowl called a Coot, it has very dark flesh which folks used to cook with rice. They have a large gizzard and that is a delicacy to some folks. Moving back into the wild game meats such as the coots, reminded me that folks used to eat robins and meadow larks(field larks) when times were hard.
Rambling through all this brings to mind the Hank Williams,jr song, A country boy can survive.
Treefarmer

[Mumbleypeg]

Wade, do you recall the Spanish name? Possibly some type of “menudo” (tripe soup) or “mole de panza” (sauce of stomach). Both are popular in Mexican cuisine but I’m sure there are others. I spent a lot of time in Mexico (mostly Aguascalientes, Leon, and Zacatecas) and enjoyed the food. But I know only enough Spanish to be dangerous. So most of the time I had no idea what I was eating. I managed mostly on “Una mas Cervesa por favor” and “¿Que es los Baños?”.

Ken

[cudgee]

Wade, I failed to mention all the civilized offal meats, your comment about tripe triggered my recollection of some more delicious meats! Tripe is a delicacy to some folks as is the hog maw, both are stomach muscle. Heart, liver, tongue, sweet breads(thymus gland), brains and even mountain oysters are edible beef parts. A real treat used to be “liver and lights” when it was hog butchering time. Pickled pigs feet are still a good snack. Stanwade mentioned pickled deer heart, that sounds like something worth exploring. The gizzards and livers from the poultry world are always good. There is waterfowl called a Coot, it has very dark flesh which folks used to cook with rice. They have a large gizzard and that is a delicacy to some folks. Moving back into the wild game meats such as the coots, reminded me that folks used to eat robins and meadow larks(field larks) when times were hard.
Rambling through all this brings to mind the Hank Williams,jr song, A country boy can survive.
Treefarmer

My dad, loved Tripe and Sheeps Brains and Kidneys, you used to be able to get them from any butcher, the people that went through the 2 world wars and the depression learned to compromise and make do with cheap cuts and not much was wasted. I can still remember dad having brains and liver on a Saturday morning, for breakfast.

[Stanwade]

I love tripe..I have to drive an hour to find it though... everything mentioned sounds awesome!! When we roast a whole hog, I go for the eyeballs and the muscle right behind the eyes as soon as we pull it off the cooker..

Oh--how to cook kidneys: put them in a pot of water and boil the pi$& out of them!!

[cudgee]

I love tripe..I have to drive an hour to find it though... everything mentioned sounds awesome!! When we roast a whole hog, I go for the eyeballs and the muscle right behind the eyes as soon as we pull it off the cooker..

Oh--how to cook kidneys: put them in a pot of water and boil the pi$& out of them!!

I think my dad used to slice them up and fry em in butter.

[Mumbleypeg]

When my grandparents butchered a hog nothing was wasted. My paternal grandmother was German. One of her specialties was “Pannhaas”, aka scrapple. Most of the leftover parts of the pig went into it, along with cornmeal grits. Fried with eggs and toast makes a great breakfast.

Ken

[zzyzzogeton]

Wade, do you recall the Spanish name? Possibly some type of “menudo” (tripe soup) or “mole de panza” (sauce of stomach). Both are popular in Mexican cuisine but I’m sure there are others. I spent a lot of time in Mexico (mostly Aguascalientes, Leon, and Zacatecas) and enjoyed the food. But I know only enough Spanish to be dangerous. So most of the time I had no idea what I was eating. I managed mostly on “Una mas Cervesa por favor” and “¿Que es los Baños?”.

Ken

That reminds me of my 4 semesters of Spanish at tu. when I went back to school after getting off active duty.

My first semester, I signed up for the only Spanish class I could get in - M-F 8-9. Turned out there were 3 other Computer Sciences majors in the class. We ended up taking all 4 semesters together since our required classes were all the same.

The final semester the final included a 15 minute conversation with 2 to 4 people. Naturally we chose to do it together. Came time for the exam and we sat down at a table with the instructor sitting in the corner. She said "Go." and we started to jabbering away. After about 9 or 10 minutes she said "Stop."

She then said "What language are you speaking?" We all said "Spanish." She said "No. It sounds kinda like Spanish but I can't follow what you are talking about very well. I can only understand about 60% of what you are saying. Where did you take Spanish?"

We told her here at tu.

"Who were your instructors?"

We gave her the names of our instructors. She told us the best she could give us was a "B" as we were obviously having a conversation even if she coudn't understand us. We kinda hung our heads, said thanks and walked out of the room. Once in the hall, the high fives began and off we went.

A few days later, we called called into the CS office and told to go see the Dean of Languages at 10 am the next day.

When we got there, so was our 4th semester instructor. She took us into the Dean's office, sat us down and said "Start your conversation over." We looked at each other, kinda shrugged and started talking.

Less than 10 minutes later the Dean tells us to stop. He shook his head and said "We've obviously failed these guys."

We kinda all said "What do you mean?"

He (the Dean is a native Texan) said "Y'all were not taught Spanish. Y'all have developed your own oddball dialect of Spanish." He looked at out instructor He then he apologized again, said we were not going to have our grades degraded for it.

It turned out our first instructor was a blonde Jewish female from California who had learned Spanish in Spain, our second instructor was a male Bolivian, the third a Male Brazilian for whom Spanish was actually his 3rd language, and our final one was a female Argentinian.

We had started out knowing Tex-Mex Spanglish, added Castillian Spanish, added Bolivian pronunciation and vocabulary, then we added Portuguese laced pronunciation and even ended up adding Portuguese slang, and then topped it off with Argentinian influences.

Now, I can get by with "Una cerveza, por favor." Una cerveza mas, por favor." and "Donde esta el bano?" and not much else.

[Stanwade]

When my grandparents butchered a hog nothing was wasted. My paternal grandmother was German. One of her specialties was “Pannhaas”, aka scrapple. Most of the leftover parts of the pig went into it, along with cornmeal grits. Fried with eggs and toast makes a great breakfast.

Ken

Ken-- I love scrapple! And head cheese..my grandpa on my mother's side, half Polish, used to make it (head cheese) from scratch years ago when I was a little boy.. one time they had a pig roast at my uncle's house down the road, probably like 40 years ago, and they rigged the door prize for my grandpa to win-- it was the pigs head from the uncooked pig... he was happier than a pig in you know what!

[Colonel26]

Wade, do you recall the Spanish name? Possibly some type of “menudo” (tripe soup) or “mole de panza” (sauce of stomach). Both are popular in Mexican cuisine but I’m sure there are others. I spent a lot of time in Mexico (mostly Aguascalientes, Leon, and Zacatecas) and enjoyed the food. But I know only enough Spanish to be dangerous. So most of the time I had no idea what I was eating. I managed mostly on “Una mas Cervesa por favor” and “¿Que es los Baños?”.

Ken

No it wasn’t menudo, I’ve had that and while the flavor was good I didn’t care for the texture at all. On the menus in this particular place it was just listed as tripe (pronounced in Spanish pronunciation). It was like a meaty paste, very smooth with some chiles in it.

I’ve worked in the fancy parts of Monterey, and done mission work in the dumps (literally) of Piedras Negras. And I’ve been in the northern and southern parts of Honduras living with the locals. In both countries I’ve met some of the kindest, nicest people on the planet and both countries had one thing in common, the food was outstanding. Especially if you ignored where all the gringos went and went to the little hole in the wall places where the Mexicans and Hondurans ate.

Wade, I failed to mention all the civilized offal meats, your comment about tripe triggered my recollection of some more delicious meats! Tripe is a delicacy to some folks as is the hog maw, both are stomach muscle. Heart, liver, tongue, sweet breads(thymus gland), brains and even mountain oysters are edible beef parts. A real treat used to be “liver and lights” when it was hog butchering time. Pickled pigs feet are still a good snack. Stanwade mentioned pickled deer heart, that sounds like something worth exploring. The gizzards and livers from the poultry world are always good. There is waterfowl called a Coot, it has very dark flesh which folks used to cook with rice. They have a large gizzard and that is a delicacy to some folks. Moving back into the wild game meats such as the coots, reminded me that folks used to eat robins and meadow larks(field larks) when times were hard.
Rambling through all this brings to mind the Hank Williams,jr song, A country boy can survive.
Treefarmer

I’m a big fan of the liver of most any critter, but I’ve never had the gizzards. I have eaten “huevos del toro” aka mountain oysters fried up by some real nice Mexican folk and the boys and I thought they were delicious. I’ve even had pig heart and beef tongue, both which I think are delicious. Oh and since scrapie was mentioned, I’ve had the southern redneck version we call souse meat and I like that too!

[Colonel26]

Wade, do you recall the Spanish name? Possibly some type of “menudo” (tripe soup) or “mole de panza” (sauce of stomach). Both are popular in Mexican cuisine but I’m sure there are others. I spent a lot of time in Mexico (mostly Aguascalientes, Leon, and Zacatecas) and enjoyed the food. But I know only enough Spanish to be dangerous. So most of the time I had no idea what I was eating. I managed mostly on “Una mas Cervesa por favor” and “¿Que es los Baños?”.

Ken

That reminds me of my 4 semesters of Spanish at tu. when I went back to school after getting off active duty.

My first semester, I signed up for the only Spanish class I could get in - M-F 8-9. Turned out there were 3 other Computer Sciences majors in the class. We ended up taking all 4 semesters together since our required classes were all the same.

The final semester the final included a 15 minute conversation with 2 to 4 people. Naturally we chose to do it together. Came time for the exam and we sat down at a table with the instructor sitting in the corner. She said "Go." and we started to jabbering away. After about 9 or 10 minutes she said "Stop."

She then said "What language are you speaking?" We all said "Spanish." She said "No. It sounds kinda like Spanish but I can't follow what you are talking about very well. I can only understand about 60% of what you are saying. Where did you take Spanish?"

We told her here at tu.

"Who were your instructors?"

We gave her the names of our instructors. She told us the best she could give us was a "B" as we were obviously having a conversation even if she coudn't understand us. We kinda hung our heads, said thanks and walked out of the room. Once in the hall, the high fives began and off we went.

A few days later, we called called into the CS office and told to go see the Dean of Languages at 10 am the next day.

When we got there, so was our 4th semester instructor. She took us into the Dean's office, sat us down and said "Start your conversation over." We looked at each other, kinda shrugged and started talking.

Less than 10 minutes later the Dean tells us to stop. He shook his head and said "We've obviously failed these guys."

We kinda all said "What do you mean?"

He (the Dean is a native Texan) said "Y'all were not taught Spanish. Y'all have developed your own oddball dialect of Spanish." He looked at out instructor He then he apologized again, said we were not going to have our grades degraded for it.

It turned out our first instructor was a blonde Jewish female from California who had learned Spanish in Spain, our second instructor was a male Bolivian, the third a Male Brazilian for whom Spanish was actually his 3rd language, and our final one was a female Argentinian.

We had started out knowing Tex-Mex Spanglish, added Castillian Spanish, added Bolivian pronunciation and vocabulary, then we added Portuguese laced pronunciation and even ended up adding Portuguese slang, and then topped it off with Argentinian influences.

Now, I can get by with "Una cerveza, por favor." Una cerveza mas, por favor." and "Donde esta el bano?" and not much else.

It’s true that you tend to mimic the accent and speech patterns of those you are around. And a little known fact is that the entire Spanish speaking world makes fun of the Spanish that is spoken in Mexico, both their unique words and their accent and cadence in speaking.

One time in Honduras I had this teenage boy who spoke no English assisting me for the week that I was there. After about the third day he looked at me and said (in Spanish) you’re Spanish is getting better. Now I knew exactly what he meant, but I asked him to explain anyway. He said, “yeah, the first couple of days you sounded like a Mexican.” I asked him what a Mexican sounds like, and He said, “they sound like they’re singing all the time. Their voice goes up and down, and they talk so slow.”LOL It was all I could do to keep from laughing. Maybe being so close to all us southerners in the US has ruined their Spanish! Lol

[cudgee]

When my grandparents butchered a hog nothing was wasted. My paternal grandmother was German. One of her specialties was “Pannhaas”, aka scrapple. Most of the leftover parts of the pig went into it, along with cornmeal grits. Fried with eggs and toast makes a great breakfast.

Ken

Mate, looking at that, i could have that served up to me for Sunday breakfast.

[PigStikr]

I've ate tripe once and it was a great way to fix a hangover....When I was younger theere was a meat cutting house not far from me that I would buy cow bellies for $1.00 apiece after the freeze set in...I'd slice it into 4" strips roll it up and put it in a barrel to use as dawg feed..you feed a dog a ball of that for three days they don't want nothing on the 4th day....they got fat and shinny during the cold winter months....they don't sell liver gizzards & all them body organs these days because that's where all the toxins growth hormones and what ever they feed to make cattle make weight are stored....I'm about do for a plate of liver & onions with gravy..it's all about that liver gravy!! & the Gov. has Big Bob's shut down again

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Some of the hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants around me used to serve menudo on Saturdays as a hangover cure from Friday nights...

I've never been a guts & gizzards eater. My grandfather loved all that stuff. Whenever we butchered an animal, he got all those packages - heart, liver, "sweetbreads", brain, etc, etc.

[Eustace]

A man went to a bullfight in Madrid. After the performance he visited the best restaurant and ordered the chef's specialty. They served him a portion of french fries, corn and two pieces of meat. Everything was very tasty. The man asked what he had for dinner.
- Criadillas, señor - the waiter replied.
- What is criadillas?
- The bull's balls.
The next day the man ordered the same, but this time the meat was small and nasty.
- What is this?
- Criadillas, señor.
- No, I ordered this yesterday and the meat was very tasty!
- Oh, señor! The bull doesn't always lose ...

[Colonel26]

A man went to a bullfight in Madrid. After the performance he visited the best restaurant and ordered the chef's specialty. They served him a portion of french fries, corn and two pieces of meat. Everything was very tasty. The man asked what he had for dinner.
- Criadillas, señor - the waiter replied.
- What is criadillas?
- The bull's balls.
The next day the man ordered the same, but this time the meat was small and nasty.
- What is this?
- Criadillas, señor.
- No, I ordered this yesterday and the meat was very tasty!
- Oh, señor! The bull doesn't always lose ...

ROFL! I had heard that one but had forgotten it. Hilarious!

[Quick Steel]

Now that is funny.

[zzyzzogeton]

A man went to a bullfight in Madrid. After the performance he visited the best restaurant and ordered the chef's specialty. They served him a portion of french fries, corn and two pieces of meat. Everything was very tasty. The man asked what he had for dinner.
- Criadillas, señor - the waiter replied.
- What is criadillas?
- The bull's balls.
The next day the man ordered the same, but this time the meat was small and nasty.
- What is this?
- Criadillas, señor.
- No, I ordered this yesterday and the meat was very tasty!
- Oh, señor! The bull doesn't always lose ...

Oh, that's bad. Real bad. ROTFLMAO bad.

[Mumbleypeg]

Fish must be biting pretty good here! One of the hottest fishing spots.

Ken

[Stanwade]

How very cheeky...