For those who don't think that plain scrapple is living dangerously enough.
Posted on 09/05/2001 5:38:43 AM PDT by Orual
If it's true that you are what you eat, then what are we to make of the fact that we live here in the land of foie gras with chocolate sauce? Of eel with roasted watermelon and green tea-cauliflower foam? Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: Today, the New York culinary scene provides food for thought to challenge even the most bizarre tastes. See which Manhattan restaurants have the weirdest dishes of all: Can your palate handle it?
#7: Foie Gras with Dark Chocolate Sauce and Orange Marmalade
Goose liver only a chocoholic could love...
• $72 prix fixe at Lutece
The Dish: Is it breakfast? An appetizer? Dessert? If you're pressed for time, kill three courses in one slab of foie gras, drowned in dark chocolate sauce and accented with orange marmalade. All that's missing is the toast. The New York Times called it “ill-chosen” and “out of register” but still gave new chef David Feau’s pyrotechnics two stars.
The Restaurant: What would Andre Soltner think of this revamped culinary legend? The guiding force behind Lutece ( 249 E. 50th St.) is long retired, and his pantheon is being turned on its head. East Side ladies beware, this is not your father’s Lutece.
Other Dishes: Feau, formerly of Guy Savoy in Paris, is no French-cuisine snob. He borrows flavors from around the world to create dishes like raw tuna with cilantro, apple and Moroccan oil; cumin- and rosemary-crusted lamb loin with lemon sauce and parsnip gratin; and curried squab with mascarpone and fava beans.
#10: Lobster with American Cheese
The sublime and the ridiculous on a plate.
• $22.95 at East Boat Restaurant The Dish: Think of it as a new use for the Kraft single: Icky, viscous processed cheese defiles pricey lobster flesh. “Like tuna melt!” the owner told the reviewer from the New York Post.
The Restaurant: The Post’s Steve Cuozzo, the only New York critic to pore through the bizarre, voluminous menu at East Boat Restaurant (72 Kenmare St.), recently declared the place “NY’s weirdest eatery.”
Other Dishes: An endless variety of lobster preparations, from Sichuan to satay, served alongside garlic bread, New England clam chowder, and wok-sauteed spaghetti slathered in ketchup.
I have also had Snakes blood served shanghai style. Many of you have probably been to a really nice steak restaurant where they present the steak to you before it is cooked. The restaurants in China present the live snake to you before it is cooked. The snake meat is fried in spicy hot peanut oil, it is quite good but more than a few pieces will leave you burning in the stomach. The blood from the snake is mixed with chinese rice wine and served raw. I had some of that too, did not really enjoy it. It was hard too decide which was more repulsive the blood or the rice wine. The weirdest part of the whole meal was the little dish they brought out to me that had one of the snake internal organs floating in liquid. It was raw. I asked what it was and they could not tell me. I refused to eat it. The next day the person who tried to give me it told me it was a gall bladder.
The last delicacy I tried was fried scorpion. They taste just like a very salty potato chip.
And no, I did not have any Haggis.
Good choice. Haggis is awful stuff. I've read that a recent food fad in Scotland is batter-dipped, deep fried Mars bars.
Ditter, you were right. It is a skin disease.
My cousin, who among other things is a cookbook writer and editor, dropped star-gazey pie on me this weekend. "What's that," I asked innocently. "Pilchards," she said. "You mean those fish?" I ask. "Yes," she said, "You stick them through the top crust so that their little heads stick out -- gazing at the stars, see?"
Gaaaah.
Actually, I enjoyed the Pipes & Drums a great deal at The Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
Blech bump! We made scrapple in Home Ec - it was disgusting. We had to slice it, fry it, and put maple syrup on it. That was more than 40 years ago, and I still remember how horrible it was.
Then there was the time I went to Aunt Mary's with my new husband and in-laws. We had a meal that included homemade bread and some sort of meat topping. Everyone was raving about how good the meal was, so I innocently asked what the meat was.
Everyone sort of stopped talking, and finally someone said, "It's pork." On the way home, my husband informed me that it was HEAD cheese - made from a REAL pig's head. They butchered their own animals, and used EVERY part.
Did I mention that was my FIRST husband? Not he of champagne and cashews fame.
I tried to eat one once, but my nose caught a whiff of the aroma, and it gave me the dry heaves.
I ate the Haggis
By and by Hallelujah
I ate the Haggis, Now I
Feel like a cat on the warm hood
of a car that's just done driving
on a cold winter's day hey hey
Brought to me from Scotland
with a fiver I can't spend
got directions on the can
to serve it up with a wee dram
A wee dram of Irish Whiskey
on a cold winter's day
Lamb, oats and Suet
boiled in the stomach of a sheep
I ate the Haggis
By and by Hallelujah
I ate the Haggis now my
Father used to tell me
Don't go pissin on the apples
that have fallen from the tree
cause you'll see that when yer hungry
and yer backs against the wall
a fallen apple ain't so bad
to eat
I ate the Haggis by and by
Hallelujah.
~~~By Jimmy Smith of The Gourds
MP3 of Jimmy singing The Pogues' Waxie's Dargle at Jovitas in Austin ('cause I could'na find Tha Haggis).
Should you ever come across this strange carnival food, take a pass...
One time, at a Goodwill store, I saw a dish that was square and purple. Would that qualify?
Personaly, my favorite is a Spam and Marshmallow Fluff sandwich on Pumpernickle.
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