Just found out about pickled hotdogs. Sounds disgusting.
I learned about Korean kimchi in my teens. It was one of those things that white American people would talk about while eating mashed potatoes.
Apparently Korean people would bury cabbage in their backyard and then leave it there for a month and then dig it up and eat it!
Now I have kimchi 2-3 times a week. My favorite weekend breakfast is over-easy eggs with jasmine rice and kimchi, with a little soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha.
Brains. Anything to do with brains. Never had them but I once saw Graham Kerr, TV chef of the 70s and 80s, make sheep’s brains on his show. I remember him saying they were very high in cholesterol. Of course we all know monkey’s brains, though popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often to be found in Washington DC, for what that’s worth.
Blood pudding
Russian immigrant to the U.S. here. When I was a teenager and heard about peanut butter, I thought it was the weirdest and grossest thing.
When I first tried it I did think it was a bit gross, just… too much.
Now I eat it with enjoyment.
I had a couple friends who liked peanut butter and cheddar cheese sandwiches. I tried one - meh.
Cheese and Vegemite though, that shit is delicious.
On google images, it looks like when kids have to cook for the first time in a sitcom with the “mom and dad leave them to run the house by themselves” episode. On wikipedia it looks nicer and more sensible.
Alarming to anyone who doesn’t know about plantains, though i believe sweet bananas are also used. I think it would be a textural nightmare going from the banana to the rice.
Just found out about pickled hotdogs. Sounds disgusting.
Speaking of pickles, a lot of things that are pickled are really surprising. Pickled grapes for instance. I knew i’d love them but it takes some convincing to get people to try them.
Looks like eating Che Guevara.
Okroshka. It’s a Russian summer soup served cold and slightly effervescent made with ham, boiled potatoes, raw cucumbers and radishes, served in a “broth” made of kvass (children’s beer made from fermented black rye bread) with a little smetana or buttermilk and oh my god so much dill. It’s still a pretty strange dish to me after having eaten it many times.
Never heard of it, but the ingredients make it sound amazingly good. Gotta try it.
children’s beer made from fermented black rye bread
sounds crazy enough
Kvass is yummy. It’s either not hopped or not hopped very much. I get some every time I go to the closest big international market. I keep meaning to make some. The recipe is basically put bread in water, add sugar, wait, it’s ready in two or three days.
Yeah. In the summer Russians have big tanker trucks of kvass on the streets, similar to what we use to transport gasoline in here in the states, and you bring like an empty two liter and give em a coin and they fill it up for you.
Molé. Chocolate with savory and spicy? Weird.
But damn, does it work.
Sushi was rrrreal weird when we heard of it for the first time as kids. Now, I love it - the actual rice that’s technically sushi and almost anything you can put on, in, over or around it
Also seaweed. One of the best savoury foods I know, but after growing up smelling the huge piles of different seaweeds on Australian beaches, I had trouble believing you could eat that stuff.
Not that I’ve had this, but going through an old cookbook of my mom’s, I came across a recipe for Mock Turtle soup, which called for calf brains.
ರ╭╮ರ
Every country has some sort of “out there” food that others are repulsed by.
I’ve had natto (fermented soybeans) from Japan which weren’t terrible but had a texture I couldn’t get behind, and I’ve had surstromming (fermented fish) from Sweden that is probably the most horrific substance known to mankind.
Is surstromming really that bad? I thought it was just shit tier YouTubers making click bait by eating it wrong.
Like marmite, it is going to taste bad if you eat it from a table spoon on it’s own. But that is a skill issue.
I thought that surströmming was okay, it just depends on how you use it. The way it was explained to me is that you’re actually supposed to use it more like a spice. So, rather than eating it alone, you add a little bit to a sandwich.
It smells terrible, so much that it’s best if you submerge the can in water before opening it (plus it sprays everywhere if you don’). But adding it as a spice to something like a sandwich and it’s actually not that bad.
Fairy Bread from Australia. Sprinkles on bread.
Very common as kids party food.
And butter, don’t forget that
This is completely normal in the Netherlands. Behold: hagelslag, it comes in both chocolate and fruity variants.
I don’t know why this is different, but it is.
Na, Fairy Bread is way better then hs. Don’t tell my Dutch wife though…
For your crimes against Dutchness, I sentence you to having all the stroop in your stroopwafels replaced with Vegemite.
A true Australian would still eat that. Probably with tears of patriotic joy.
Jesus mate, for the country having the ICC you sure know how to kick off a war crime like thatm
the concept of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches disgusts me to this day.
That’s insane (from my North American perspective).
Peanut butter and sweet is the thing peanut butter is used for.
I am actually struggling to find a second example of peanut butter use that I know about that isn’t “take something sweet but slap some peanut butter in there too” (I’ve heard of peanut butter and celery and that just sounds like a desperate way to make raw celery palatable)
Peanut butter and celery is actually great. The water in the celery compensates for any dryness in the peanut butter, so you can eat more peanut butter than if it was by itself.
Many peanut sauces can be started from a peanut butter base.
peanut butter is just way too sweet on its own. peanuts are insanely calorie-dense. not to mention the awful texture.
People will say that and then use Nutella, which is basically frosting.
But that just sounds like you hate peanut butter, not that peanut butter and jam in a sandwich is an off putting combination.
no, that makes it way worse. and grape of all things…
Why do so many non-Americans assume that it has to be grape? There are other fruits. Strawberry is popular. Blackberry. Raspberry.
I do this Jamaican-style peanut butter stew, which sounds mad but is delicious.
It must be weird to grow up without being used to peanut butter in cooking. Chicken satay is a very normal thing to eat here in Australia. Fifty years ago, maybe not, but nowadays, it’s as normal as sushi or peanut butter and jam sammies.
I have a recipe for a casserole with chicken, peanut butter, coconut and sweet chilli sauce… sounds totally random, but it’s delicious
Not a recipe, but durian. I tried it for the first time a few weeks ago fresh in Malaysia, and though the smell was enticing, the taste was not.
Haggis. Really wasn’t keen on it when I first heard about it. Went to Scotland and tried it, and enjoyed it. Would not eat more than one portion, it is incredibly rich.
Balut. Haven’t not gone to the Philippines yet, but this is something I’m not sure I’m game to try.
Sauerkraut. I never liked anything pickled when I was younger, and when I tried it, I didn’t like it. I think it was probably because it was from a jar. I really like it now.
Edit: How could I forget this one. So I worked in the West Wimmera region for a while, and then I was told about this: The florrie. It is uniquely Horsham, Victoria. My colleague is not good as describing things so it sounded worse than it is.
Florrie sounds surprisingly good. Like Steak-umms in the US.
Steak-umms are absolutely shit tier food but so damn good for some reason.
Had to look that up. It actually just looks like kebab meat.
Which triggers another food item memory: the HSP. It’s called this in Victoria, but other things in other states. I’ve not had one of these yet either.
That looks and sounds really good.
