Dinner parties with contentious food

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

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!!

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 ?

My nan used to eat cow heel.

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

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.

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

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.

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’.

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.

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

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.

Q. Sheeps head?

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

Q. Pigs trotters?

A. No, it's just the way I walk.

Urmstongran

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

I adored pig's trotters. Mum would cook them and I'd sit on the back door step happily chewing away. I didn't have a sweet tooth and compared to trifle and cake they were divine.

I was about nine I think.

I don't mind a pickled egg.

Urmstongran,when I was a child I used to love eating winkles, we used a pin to get them out. Never swallowed the pin, luckily.

BlueBelle

I haven’t been to a dinner party for as long as I can remember
Never walked in those sort of circles
Dinner parties sounds very ‘poe sh’ I m a working class gal
So I wouldn’t be going unless they offered a nice vegetarian option

Oh dear, you mean friends getting together over a meal. Surely that happens all the time, a dinner party by another name. We had great ones in the 70s, with our Service neighbours, all living in the service flats. Much hilarity, great food, and plenty of lovely German wine with Baileys and coffee after. Nothing at all snobbish about us .

Remember in the early 70’s when pubs used to sell pickled eggs in jars on the counter? And a chap with a tray held up round his neck used to come in late at night (when we were pickled) selling tubs of cockles, mussels and winkles?
Himself used to buy some.
Ate them with what looked like a toothpick.

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