Excited by new food

We went on a self-catering holiday a few years ago with extended family and I took a large pork joint from the freezer with us. Unfortunately I only realised it was a boned pig's head after it had thawed!
I cooked it very slowly and served it sort of shredded - so only owned up to what it was after the meal was finished. The cheek meat on pork is absolutely delicious, but a head doesn't go quite so far as a proper joint.

Thanks for the link to the tapas website grandtante. It looks good.

I can't bring myself to eat pigeon.
Having seen the verminous objects scavenging in town centres, however the ones in my garden are plump ,glossy and very well fed.

I love them all. Liver, kidneys, snails, octopuses, anything. Tripe, a bit funny, but I´ll eat it too. Funnily enough, the one thing that I cannot is rabbit. When I was a child my granny kept rabbits and then every once in a while I´d go out to feed them and the hutch was empty ...

Vs legs? Frog's legs! And I forgot the pig's head, pig's ears etc. at my Nanna's..

When we visited our maternal grandparents back in the 50s and 60s there was always tripe, brawn, black pudding, kidneys, liver, heart, pig's trotters, cow heel, salt fish and other such 'delicacies' on offer. I wouldn't touch any of them and I still won't! We moved away for my dad's work and I know my mother was very nostalgic about such food but she never had them unless we visited (except for black pudding which she craved and bought from Debenhams delicatessen, eating it cold on the way home!)

I've also never eaten king prawns, octopus or squid, crab, oysters and most other shellfish, locusts, vs' legs, witchetty bugs or mopani worms. I have eaten scallops. They are fine. I tried lobster. Not impressed. It's very much overrated. I ate a snail (not in shell) and it was OK but I wouldn't go out of my way to have another. I tried a mussel. It was pretty disgusting.

My self imposed meat rule is four legs, two legs (poultry) or no legs (fish). I'm not looking forward to a time when insects are the only form of animal protein! That's when I'll be vegetarian!

Some things I just cannot eat - I mean, I find myself thinking, why would anyone want to eat an ox's cheek ?

I think a lot has to do with food we (one) ate as children, as grannyactivist says too. My mother didn't ever eat or cook, pork (except very rarely bacon), or offal, liver, kidneys. So I never had a taste for any of that, still don't eat it. Never cook pork roast.

Re the question in the OP about new food - I'm looking forward to a cookery lesson next week on Persian cuisine.

I'm not keen on coriander leaves (prefer parsley) but I love coriander seeds. I grind them and put them in, among other things, flapjack. They add a certain 'orangeyness'.

I read something about cockroach milk and 'milking' (it kills them) today. Apparently it appears on Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop site.

I love cauliflower rice, especially with lots of turmeric and mushrooms...
But just the mention of coriander ? it tastes like soap in my mouth.

My seafood limit is prawn cocktail crisps

Lizzypopbottle wrote:
Juggernaut here in the North East, cockling means clearing your throat (probably before spitting), feeling sick or generally feeling revolted. There must be a reason for that!

There is always a reason for dialect words and meanings. I understand that corn cockles are small weeds that (?used to?) infest grain harvests.



From Middle English cockil, cokil, cokylle, from Old English coccel (“darnel”), of unknown origin, perhaps from a diminutive of Latin coccus (“berry”). Wiki

Thanks for that recipe GrannyO - the photo is exactly what the cockles looked like.

I like most cheap meat and fish dishes. I like rabbit, tongue, kidneys, heart, trotters, ribs, ham hock, pork belly, oxtail, pork cheeks and the now much more expensive lamb shanks. Winkles, whelks and cockles, shrimps, finnan haddock and kippers. My family were very poor when I was young so we ate a lot of offal - I liked it then and I like it now, but the cheaper cuts of meat are getting harder to find even in butcher's shops.

Cockles? Tripe? ???

Wow! Thank you for that grandetante. I have all the ingredients to hand so I will give it a go this week, and report back!

tarasmulticulturaltable.com/sundaysupper-spanish-tapas-zanahorias-alinadas-spanish-marinated-carrots/

I think this may be the carrot recipe you want Greyduster,
but this next one is easier to follow IMO
spanishsabores.com/2012/06/11/marinated-carrots-zanahorias-alinadas/

Nanabilly
My DF was a huge tripe fan, but thankfully so was my DM, so it was served up a lot!
lizzypopbottle
That sums up my feelings about cockles perfectly!

grannyactivist
I'm normally not keen on honeycomb tripe, but battered and deep fried it was lovely.
I love a nice bit of thick seam, with plenty of salt and vinegar, and there are times when I'd happily kill to get a plate of hodge!
Then again, I'm rather partial to a bit of cow heel, or a nice trotter too!
Can you tell my grandfather was a master butcher?

Peach salsa is lovely with most things, finely chopped peach, a spoon of brown sugar, finely chopped red onion, chopped garlic, tiny bit of chilli, and a bit of finely chopped fresh mint!

Juggernaut here in the North East, cockling means clearing your throat (probably before spitting), feeling sick or generally feeling revolted. There must be a reason for that!

tortillafortea.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/cockle-tempura/
Here's another

My husband loves tripe too . We have been married 40+ years and I've cooked it twice for him . Once when he broke his leg and once when I'd really hurt him and I was saying sorry.
I like trying new food too and will always order something out of the ordinary from a menu.

I looked up recipes for cockle popcorn and found the same one Marydoll; I'll give it a try, but I'm pretty sure the ones I had were in a tempura batter.
Juggernaught I love tripe - I thought I was the only person left in the world who did until I saw your post - so I'd like to try it battered, but not so keen on the idea of peach salsa with it.

I had a side dish of cauliflower rice with pine nuts and pomegranate in a well known Italian chain restaurant on Friday - delicious, will definitely order again.

I won't be trying Cockle Popcorn any time soon. To me, cockles look like something recently removed from a child's nose!
However, I had battered tripe strips with a peach salsa last week which was delicious!