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Dinner parties with contentious food

(169 Posts)
Yammy Sun 07-Nov-21 16:49:11

Has anyone ever been to a dinner party where the food had obviously been chosen to be something that guests had either never encountered before or only liked by a certain percentage of those present on perpouse to wrong foot them? Two of mine would be jugged hare where we were told the cooking method of putting hare in a jug with its own blood and I got a plate of vertebrae, The other sauteed livers on toast before they were served we were asked who did not like liver and the ones of us who dared to admit had a half grapefruit plonked in front of us, the hosts had enviaged it would not to be everyone's taste.

MissAdventure Sun 07-Nov-21 21:17:38

Q. Sheeps head?

A. No, it's just the way I part my hair.

Deedaa Sun 07-Nov-21 21:24:35

I've eaten road kill in the past. When DH was driving a lorry for an abattoir he once found a ror deer that had just been killed by a car. He hung it up with the rest of the carcasses in the lorry and brought it home when he'd finished work. Also had a nice pheasant he picked up.

On the very rare occasions when any one comes for a meal now I always ask if there's anything they don't eat.

MissAdventure Sun 07-Nov-21 21:32:48

Oh gawd.
Venison.
I was told in detail how nice it is because deer are all muscle.... put me right off! grin

VioletSky Sun 07-Nov-21 21:35:55

We once booked Christmas Dinner and when we sat down we realised that the vegetarian option wasn't an actual Christmas dinner it was a pasta dish...

We left.

I am a meat eater so no Christmas Dinner for me but you don't offer a veggie Christmas meal and serve pasta.

Urmstongran Sun 07-Nov-21 21:45:49

And yet MissA when my sister in law who had been vegetarian for years and years decided to start eating some meat again (why? I didn’t ask, it was none of my business) she chose venison when eating out because ‘they’d had a nicer life’.

annsixty Sun 07-Nov-21 21:47:40

I was staying with a friend last year and for dinner the first evening she served a game casserole.
It contained pigeon which I can only associate with the verminous birds which make such a mess in my garden.
I ate it but didn’t go for second helpings.

Urmstongran Sun 07-Nov-21 21:51:47

Our Yorkshire Lass ate fried insects from popular street vendor stalls when in China for a year.
?

MissAdventure Sun 07-Nov-21 21:59:28

That's very true about the deer having a nicer life.
I can see the logic; I've just always been a bit squeamish about meat and what it actually was before it became meat.
Even my neighbours lovely dinners get eaten sans meat.
I put it out for the foxes and hope she never spots me.

sodapop Sun 07-Nov-21 22:18:08

We were invited to a neighbour's house and served home made tete de veau. There was an eye ball in it. Ugh.

kittylester Sun 07-Nov-21 22:30:58

My nan used to eat cow heel.

Shinamae Sun 07-Nov-21 22:37:47

Urmstongran

Ditto kitty and Baggs.
I adore this old recipe. Plain, simple & delicious with mash. In fact I made it earlier this week.
Cheap too.
The lamb’s liver was £1.19 from Sainsbury’s.
Maybe I should organise a dinner party ...
?

I’ll come, I love lambs liver ?

Shinamae Sun 07-Nov-21 22:42:22

Urmstongran

Pig’s trotters anyone? I’ve never known anyone actually eat them.

My dad did and he also used to eat half a pigs head!!

Calistemon Sun 07-Nov-21 22:45:29

Now off to look up jugged hare which I've heard of but know nothing about

I remember going to a restaurant about 55 years ago which served jugged hare, it was their speciality.
I didn't choose it.

MerylStreep Sun 07-Nov-21 22:46:54

Deedaa
You’ve reminded me of the first time I went to Scotland about 50 yrs ago.
We went to a ceilidh. I got into conversation about the sheep on the side of the road at night.
I asked what one did if one accidentally hit and killed one. They looked at me in bewilderment. The answer was: you put it in the boot and take it home ?

Calistemon Sun 07-Nov-21 22:49:45

sodapop

We were invited to a neighbour's house and served home made tete de veau. There was an eye ball in it. Ugh.

We were served goat when overseas and the skull was on the table with the cooked contents inside.

Maggiemaybe Sun 07-Nov-21 22:50:15

annsixty, a colleague who used to shoot offered to bring me some wood pigeons. Foolishly I envisaged them being oven ready, but no. By the time I’d cut off their heads, pulled out their innards, picked out the shot and plucked them I felt so sick I couldn’t even try them, though DH enjoyed the casserole. I’ve had pigeon since, but it took a few years…..

I eat very little meat these days, but I’d certainly be veggie if I had to prepare all my meat, let alone kill it. Hypocritical, I know.

Teacheranne Sun 07-Nov-21 23:02:50

I guess money was tight for us when I was young as we used to eat a lot of offal, mum would make delicious stews with kidney, liver or heart, with lashings of thick onion gravy.

Chicken was too expensive for us but one day for a treat mum served one for Sunday lunch. We four children tucked in and at the end, I asked mum how come all four of us had a leg. Silence around the table them mum confessed that we had all just eaten rabbit. Cue screams of horror from my eldest sister and the swift exit of my baby sister to check that out pet rabbit was still in its cage!

Luckily my parents did not like tripe and onions or we would have been expected to eat that as well. You went hungry if you did not eat what was on your plate!

GagaJo Sun 07-Nov-21 23:44:43

At one department meeting (in North of England state school) my head of dept brought chocolate covered ants in as a treat for us.

Considering some of our department wouldn't eat grapes or bananas, because they looked like they had bums (????), ants were a bridge too far.

Calistemon Sun 07-Nov-21 23:47:50

I ate an ant once (well, just its backside)
It was on a guided Bush walk and apparently green ants are full of Vitamin C.
It did taste like it, rather sour.

Calistemon Sun 07-Nov-21 23:48:33

Considering some of our department wouldn't eat grapes or bananas, because they looked like they had bums
?

Redhead56 Sun 07-Nov-21 23:51:35

I like haggis but tripe no way and trotters I never had them either. My mum never bought brawn but cooked heart we would not eat it. I remember my granny cooked sheepshead totally disgusting. It's hypocritical I know but if something was disguised it was more digestible when we were children.

welbeck Mon 08-Nov-21 00:00:59

i would not have eaten these strange things.
even as a child. not that i had to, fortunately.
i'd just eat cornflakes.

Chewbacca Mon 08-Nov-21 00:08:29

The farm shop near me sells "dressed squirrel". No idea what it tastes like and i dont intend to find out.

Many years ago, whilst an inpatient at hospital, I was served with a dish of pinky white mush. I was told that it was sweetbreads. I was about to eat it when the lady in the next bed told me what sweetbreads is. Bleurgh! Didn't touch it.

MissAdventure Mon 08-Nov-21 00:16:15

Dresses squirrel.
They sound as if they wear little breeches with their tails sticking out, with red waistcoats and a jaunty cap.

Chewbacca Mon 08-Nov-21 00:26:57

They possibly were in a previous life MissAdventure but they'll be wearing nothing more than a stock cube and a chopped onion from now on!