We have had a number of cooking threads, all very enjoyable, with much lyrical waxing over various foods.
The other day I saw one of those gung-ho TV adventurers recounting his worst taste experience. (It was drinking the fluids from a dead camel's intestine apparently).
I'd put that little nugget to the back of my brain until just now, when it was recalled with startling clarity as I tried, for the first and definitely the last time, Chinese Spare Ribs Flavour Pot Noodle.
So - what was your worst meal, or at least your most unfavouritest food in all the world?
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Went to what had been the best Gastro Pub in Rutland. It changed hands and didn't have a very good reputation but I went anyway. Ordered pan fried calves liver and a piece of something arrived about the texture of the sole of a flip-flop. Pierced it with the knife and fork, with difficulty, and some pink pus/slime oozed out. Rejected and had a steak.
The other day I was in another pub and ordered calves liver and was given pig's - the difference is blindingly obvious, half eaten and not charged, Tip - only eat live in an Italian restaurant if you want to be 100% sure that it will be good. Anywhere else is a gamble with varying odds, in my experience
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My worst meal ever was in an Italian restaurant...in Italy!
Garda del Riva, Lake Garda to be precise.
Ordered Swordfish and got the bottom of someone's Ug boot I reckon.
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>> Went to what had been the best Gastro Pub in Rutland. It changed hands and
>> didn't have a very good reputation but I went anyway. Ordered pan fried calves liver
>> and a piece of something arrived about the texture of the sole of a flip-flop.
>> Pierced it with the knife and fork, with difficulty, and some pink pus/slime oozed out.
>> Rejected and had a steak.
>>
>> The other day I was in another pub and ordered calves liver and was given
>> pig's - the difference is blindingly obvious, half eaten and not charged, Tip - only
>> eat live in an Italian restaurant if you want to be 100% sure that it
>> will be good. Anywhere else is a gamble with varying odds, in my experience
Name names Melders. I frequent pubs in Rutland from time to time, I have a right to know.
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You are welcome! The one that sold me grilled flip-flop has been well turned round and is back to its best - The Black Bull at Market Overton. The man who used to run it, in its heyday, runs an excellent lunch only restaurant called the Potting Shed, in the Rutland Village complex half a mile beyond the abandoned Ashwell Prison. Other locals that are good are the Jackson Stopps at Stretton, across the A1 from the RamJam, Jim's Yard in Stamford, run the former owner of the Jackson Stopps and, if your budget is big enough, the Olive Branch at Clipsham
www.rutlandvillage.co.uk/html/cafe.html
www.theolivebranchpub.com/editorials.asp?d=2
www.jimsyard.biz/
www.thejacksonstops.com/
Let me know when you are in the area, I'll buy you a beer and show you my cataract scar!
Mods - Comment and info NOT advertising - I have used all these places!
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My worst memory of food is skool dinna's - especialadad cheez salad, I was a bittova finicky eater as a kyd
(eat anything now) and that smell of blimmin cheese salad put me orf cheeze for the next furty years!
I gave up cheese again a phew years ago though as it gives me snot and boggies, dairy see!
**Good grief** I just looked up the word boggies on google :( back to Bing again for me then.
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Like Dog, school dinners. Lumpy, floury mash and greens boiled to an inch of their lives were general hazards The anti piece de resistance were the grease luncheon meat fritters. A still cannot look at Spam.
Didn't even escape them by moving school - they must have been in the West Riding's school cookbook.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 13:45
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I can still smell it now, and it's 51 years ago!!
:)
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I am an omnivore and not at all fussy - I usually eat anything.. But on a business trip 25 years ago to Nigeria, I ventured out a long way - 200 miles from Lagos - and ended up eating local curried something plus minced yams..
Now I like curry and I quite like yams, but this was so heavily spiced I found it virtually inedible.. It was HOT .. and so was the weather - c 40C .. The good news was the local bottled beer was drinkable and cold. The bad news was the recycled screwtop bottles in which it was sold had not been properly cleaned and there was a dead slug? in the bottom of the first bottle I was given. The replacement was Ok..
Some meals you never forget: that was one.
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>> Nigeria, I ventured out a long way - 200 miles from Lagos - and ended up eating local curried something plus minced yams..
Heh heh... the very heavy peppering would suggest you were still in the West though. Those Yorubas love their pepper. Fortunately I do too. But I did once turn down a plate of bluish tubes in gravy, which looked like intestines. When I asked the waiter what they were, he replied blandly: 'Intestines.'
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I was in Jinan in China late last year and was invited out for an evening meal. The highlight, if that is quite right word, was a sort of a soup made with sea cucumber. This even put the chicken feet and sliced jelly fish into the shade.
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Yes, I decided not to eat the chickens feet in a back street restaurant in the rougher part of Singapore (when it had rough parts)
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I`ll eat most things and try to enjoy them! - the "worst" thing I have ever tried to eat and failed, is a "Snotty" soft-boiled egg!! EWWW!! - never again!. On the subject of Eggs, one that Always turns my stomach, and will never cross my lips is those "Boiled 3parts incubated Duck eggs, complete with beak,legs and guts" "think" its a Vietnam speciallity??
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Raw eggz are good for ya - full of EFA's
:)
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I remember Singapore for two foods: chilli crab (messy but fabulous) and durian (a fruit like a giant, unripe conker, with an acquired taste and smell, that is banned from public transport in many parts of Asia). I had my first taste of both on the same night, and since the same colleague was paying both times it seemed churlish not to try it. The taste is like an enormously powerful Camembert, and I can't see myself acquiring it, but you never know.
Worst meal ever? Far from it! That medallion (overcooked and underseasoned) goes to a restaurant, now thankfully defunct, in Battersea Rise, SW11. It was Valentines Day 1995 but I was dining with my brother and we had no reservation. This place had space, which should have rung an alarm, and once our food arrived, we knew why. The dishes appeared to have been assembled by someone who'd never eaten or even seen them himself, and included a supposed Mexican salsa that was plainly tomato ketchup.
When we pointed out that the bread was hard and dry, the proprietor peevishly insisted that it had been fresh from Safeway that morning and offered to show us the receipt. When we asked for some more, what she brought back had the rubbery warmth that comes only from bunging bread in a microwave. We ate what we could (we were hungry) paid what we thought it as worth and left.
I've certainly had worse food than that, but I remember that night as the biggest mismatch between what was promised and what appeared on the table.
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>> I remember Singapore for two foods: chilli crab (messy but fabulous)
Yeah, Had mine at a place called Pongle! Aptly named it was by a pig farm.
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I wonder what Mr pda has to say?
;>)
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He's probably a yes man - yes dear, coming dear, 3 blimmin bags full dear.
:)
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He's at work tubby tommy:)
I knew there was a reason I didn't want him on this forum!
Meldrew, try The Swan at Harringworth.
Worst for me was the third of a pint of milk I was forced to drink at school....never been able to face milk on it's own since.
Pat
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Yes Pat. I had a sad meeting with relatives of an RAF bomber crew whose parents had been killed in a crash on the nearby airfield (Spanhoe). I helped organise the meeting and we did have good food at the Swan which made the day a bit better. Huge viaduct at Harringworth too, still used by freight traffic from time to time
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>> Yes Pat. I had a sad meeting with relatives of an RAF bomber crew whose
>> parents had been killed in a crash on the nearby airfield (Spanhoe). I helped organise
>> the meeting and we did have good food at the Swan which made the day
>> a bit better. Huge viaduct at Harringworth too, still used by freight traffic from time
>> to time
Yup can verify the Swan as a good place to eat, have explored Spanhoe (or whats left of it) and videoed a steam train over the Harringworth Viaduct.
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I don't dislike the Fens now I've been here for 30 years but I really do miss those rolling hills of my home area.
I lived at Tilton, Ashwell, Oakham and Launde and loved every minute of it.
Pat
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>>durian (a fruit like a giant, unripe conker, with an acquired taste and smell, that is banned from public transport in many parts of Asia).
>>
and aircraft
>>
I had my first taste of both on the same night, and since the same colleague was paying both times it seemed churlish not to try it. The taste is like an enormously powerful Camembert, and I can't see myself acquiring it, but you never know.
>>
We got one smuggled into our UK office from Singapore ( via a flight)
You are right re the unusual taste. The smell was in the office for days and one of the ladies tried some and then complained the smell stayed on her fingers for days.
The description of its taste / smell is so difficult to describe.
It is along time ago but to me tasted of fried onions & more witha a custard type texture ??
Just looked at Wikipedia.
Have a look at the sectiom "Flavour and odour" and you will see how others attempt to describe it.
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I have had a few in my time..... several in China where I had the worst Peking Duck I have ever tasted and something in Shanghai that had SWMBO and I both incapacitated and fighting over the loo.... I will never forget her projectile vomiting spectacularly into the fountain in the reception area of the hotel......
Only recently I went against my better instincts and had an Indian meal with a couple of colleagues in Doha , the restaurant was recommended and the mutton jalfrezi seemed OK at the time but at a meeting next day on the main airforce base I had to make excuses and make a mad dash for the gents leaving the Colonel I had been speaking to wondering what was up.... very embarrassing......
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I had a Welsh rarebit once (but it's a bit too early for that sort of thing)
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Camel is an aquired taste, looks like beef but has a very sweet tang.
Goat reminded me of liver, it has quite a grainy texture.
Ive no intention to repeat either experience.
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Having eaten part of a seafood pizza at lunchtime (I have disliked all pizzas ever since) I went to a noisy dinner in the suburbs of Algiers hosted by the mayor of the suburb. After a couple of glasses of the tannin-rich heavyweight red wine they make in those parts I felt sick, excused myself and went and threw up in the bog. Returned pale and sweating and tried to make myself civil.
A few minutes later a waiter approached and, in the suave manner characteristic of Algerian waiters, bawled angrily: 'Qui a dégueulé dans la toilette?' I admitted that it had been me and apologised.
The mayor, rather sweetly I thought, said that he had often done the same thing himself.
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Nothing really - I had a dodgy apple pie on Victoria Station (Mcr) once about 35 years ago, but apart from that never a really bad meal. American meals....oh yes yummy.
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Pig's bottom
Campsite owner was demonstrating his new spit to our youth group, he overestimated the size if the pig and it was pretty much all there was when we were served last. I've been able to recognise a...holes in the blink of an eye ever since.
And don't beleive that guff about 'everything bar the squeak' being edible - not if you want to retain everything else you've eaten
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Did it not occur to you that 'squeak' might be a euphemism?
};---)
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Then again, having just endured, but argued the toss about the bill and declining to pay , a Premier inn meal of borderline thawed out pate with still frozen butter, and a pizza where the base was indistinguishable from unrisen dough, Pig's bum has a certain appeal. It would have to be well cooked with plenty of apple sauce, but better than £15 for an heap of sun-mediocre dross
Last edited by: borasport on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 21:01
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I am not going into school food, apart from saying the boarding house relied on the day school feeding us reasonably and the day school relied on us eating at home ....
On my 21st, we were in Edinburgh visiting my Grandmother for her 80th. My uncle recommended to a 'good' restaurant where we could eat before boarding the night sleeper back to London. I had Lobster Thermidor - big mistake, rendered fairly disgusting by too heavy a hand with the English mustard, but not wanting to upset fairly new husband I ploughed on with it. He had haggis - over cooked, dried out and fairly disgusting. The head waitress was really embarrassed but her boss was dismissive of us and our opinions.
It is a really bad idea to eat poor lobster before catching a night sleeper .......
I still only use English mustard in powdered form in cheese sauces and with hindsight realise the liberal dosing with mustard was probably covering up suspect lobster.
Fortunately, the chef at the hotel my husband was working in cooked me a spectacular meal the following weekend.
My least favourite food, apart from English mustard? blackcurrants.
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Of course home cooking can be fairly dire. I particularly dislike undercooked potatoes. If they are properly cooked, I don't mind plain boiled with the right meat. One can always put butter and pepper sauce on them.
I like mashed potatoes to be mashed too. Not just beaten up a bit and full of coarse lumps.
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The worst meal I remember was Haggis, Neeps and Tatties in a restaurant in Ullapool. Now I like Haggis normally, but this was bone dry and piled up on the plate, and the Neeps and Tatties were completely tasteless. A shame, as I'd had the best walk of my life - a ten hour trek to and from a mountain called Suilven. Still it didn't spoil the day.
An Australian couple at the table said to me "If in doubt eat fish". There might be some truth in it, as long as it isn't shellfish. Oysters for example.
I remember feeling rather poorly, crouched in the gutter of a road in Leigh on Sea after having cockles followed by a few beers. Of course, soon after that, they shut that particular beach down after it was discovered that the cockles had excessive concentrations of metals in them..
I don't have a strong stomach though, a real regret of mine. Oh for a stomach like Keith Richards.
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Tete de veau (calf's head) in sauce 'gribiche' (dunno what it means) that tasted like vomit, followed by 'mousse au chocolat' that was clearly Angel Delight. You don't always eat well in France.
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>> You don't always eat well in France.
No, you certainly don't. But an omelette nowhere in particular can still cheer you up sometimes. Or just some bread and butter - tartines as it is pretentiously called - with your morning coffee in the right café in the Grands Boulevards. Or pain aux lardons, mmmmmm! But the baker profession is said to be going down the khazi, hard work and no profit... sounds like the end of the world more or less.
Nothing would induce me to try tête de veau. Never fancied Captain Aubrey's favourite dish soused pig's face either...
On a positive note, I ate a lot of liver (don't know whose it was, but probably a cow's) in the street in Ghana once, with rice (not the more usual kenkey or maize stodge) from a huge aluminium tub. It wasn't heavily peppered but I was hungry and it was awfully good. The fat lady selling it was so pleased to see me enjoying it that she kept heaping more on my plate. 'Livah!'
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 18:24
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What I've found in France in recent years is the demise of the artisan's meal - (Plat de jour) - mind you I had a very acceptable meal in a Moroccan Restaurant in Rouen in September - add to that a couple of beakers of very acceptable beer. I like France.
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I found a great place serving plat du jour last month on the edge of the Alpe d'Huez ski area.
In fact I visited 3 times in one week for lunch...15 euros for typically roti de porc avec frites et un grande salade verte, a glass of vin rouge (or rose or white) then coffee. Great value for a ski resort...www.laforetdemaronne.com
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>I found a great place serving plat du jour last month on the edge of the Alpe d'Huez ski area.
I haven't been to Alpe d'Huez for years but I think it's always been one of the more reasonable resorts price-wise.
Last time I went was on a company do.
Lots of capable skiers amongst us but nowhere near the BBC cameraman recording us on the slopes while skiing backwards with a huge camera on his shoulders.
Nice job if you can get it!
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I worked with a guy who was in the Royal Marines. His job ? He was permanent staff at their Banff (Canada) ski school.....now that must have been what was known as a "cushy" posting !
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Sauce gribiche is a mayonnaise-style cold egg sauce in the French cuisine, made by emulsifying hard-boiled egg yolks and mustard with a neutral oil like canola or grapeseed. The sauce is finished with chopped pickled cucumbers, capers, parsley, chervil and tarragon. It also includes hard-boiled egg whites cut in a julienne.
Doesn't read well to a chap who likes pickles and chutney!
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>> sauce 'gribiche' (dunno what it means) that tasted like vomit,
Had some venison soup that tasted of sick in a rest house when I was nine or ten. Children do react strongly to unfamiliar flavours though. I think my parents ate it without complaint.
Fortunately I liked very hot curries from the start. But I am an impulsive, unreliable cook. I made a spaghetti all'arabbiata last night that really could have been better. Herself didn't complain about the chilli content, as she sometimes does, but said the spaghetti was too al dente (which it was). The chillis at least were good, Thai ones in a packet.
Part of the problem was the garlic, some feeble organic stuff in irritatingly small cloves. Decent garlic is very hard to get down here in the sticks. The other problem is getting enough basil. There's a stall in Portobello Road where you can get a huge bunch for a quid or so, but down here you have to buy some rather faded-tasting small plants of it in a pot. I imagine people just keep the pot on the kitchen windowsill and use a couple of leaves for decoration.
At least I used real tomatoes instead of a tin of cheapo chopped ones. As always though they were hard and tasteless, although improved by cooking. Why aren't there any proper tomatoes in this country?
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"There's a stall in Portobello Road where you can get a huge bunch for a quid "
What in January? Wrong season for Basil, even in Italy. Only the pot grown greenhouse stuff around at the moment.
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Just been given, by a friend who has family in Sicily, a very large brown paper bag with dried oregano in it.
The smell is just incredible, this stuff is powerful
Not sure if to cook with it, or buy a packet of rizlas and smoke it.
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>> Not sure if to cook with it, or buy a packet of rizlas and smoke it.
Tee heee... the father of an Algerian acquaintance made me smoke some thyme once. He claimed it was good for the lungs. He was quite a wicked old thing who had been in 'the revolution' as Algerians call the nationalist struggle against the French, and later the same day slipped me a piece of quite decent hash which he had got from one of his old revolutionary buddies. Very civil of him.
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>> What in January? Wrong season for Basil, even in Italy. Only the pot grown greenhouse stuff around at the moment.
No doubt that's where they get it, from market gardeners with greenhouses. I haven't noticed it being unavailable in winter.
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>> I don't have a strong stomach though
I do. Mine's always been as good as a cat's, pretty well. But it isn't as hungry as it used to be. I don't eat much these days and it depresses me a bit. Age, years of abuse or both.
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>>I like mashed potatoes to be mashed too. Not just beaten up a bit and full of coarse lumps.<<
Tell ya something I've been doing lately (apart from that!) ... I was watching Jamie Oliver t'other week and he was con-cocting something that looked like taters & carots mashed together, so I thought Mmm!
So I've been doing that occasionally and it's quite nice (and colourful)
But - it turns out that Jamie O was actually cooking sweet potatoes ;}
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The meal I avoid is the pub "Sunday Lunch" especially at the cheaper end of the scale. Not really a fan of the traditional favourite anyway but badly done it's truly horrible Overcooked meat kept warm, greasy potatoes and boiled vegetables covered in bisto gravy, UGGH
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 18:25
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That reminds me - I had a Rostibif sunday lunch at a Spanish restaurant in Tenerife once,
The beef was like that blimming braised stuff, and the veg was those little cubes out of a tin (don't ask about the spuds!)
It was cheap though :)
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It would have to be. Why do people want that stuff in Spain?
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The fact is CG - many Brits abroad want good home cooking (with chips) and a fool [sic] English in the morning.
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>> The fact is CG - many Brits abroad want good home cooking (with chips) and
>> a fool [sic] English in the morning.
They want to turn it into the UK with added sun :)
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Had plenty of rubbish and good meals over the years.
Der Mensch ist was er est..;)
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>>They want to turn it into the UK with added sun :)<<
And I reckon they've managed it in many areas of Espania por favor.
We used to go to a place in Los Cristianos called Desperate Dan's for a 'belly buster' now and again.
:)
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I am gratified that nobody has complained about the food they are given at home. This is excellent but I have to say that my partner's kitchen has a label on the door saying "BURNS UNIT"
Last edited by: Meldrew on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 19:50
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The modern version of the the dinner gong here is the smoke alarm ! Even the dogs don't bother running anymore when that goes off.
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I remember the after effects of what may have been an iffy pork pie the day before.
I was about half-an-hours drive away from home, but fortunately the place had a lavatory. I spent most of the morning there and waited until my visits were at least three-quarters-of-an-hour apart before starting off.
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>> >> The fact is CG - many Brits abroad want good home cooking (with chips)
>> and
>> >> a fool [sic] English in the morning.
>>
>> They want to turn it into the UK with added sun :)
.......................and why not?
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Plain English food can be good, though!
A truly special 43rd wedding anniversary meal tonight :-)
ALDI premium (very good BTW) sausages, mash, fried mushrooms, sweetcorn & peas, the latter left from yesterday, home made onion gravy; all topped off by a bottle of Viña Sol! (From our dwindling stock brought back from Spain!)
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>>A truly special 43rd wedding anniversary meal tonight :-)<<
Happy Anniversary Roger (and the Mrs) - good home cooking, you can't beat it, better than all this ere foreign junk!
:)
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Yeah all this foreign muck a good old fashion english meal.>:)
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Yeah, black pudding and mushy peas :(
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Black pudding and mushy peas,
A ferret down me trousers, if you please,
A pint wi' a head on it an' then you'll know
You're singing the Northern Calypso.
That was Hale and Paice in about 1988 and I've not heard it since. Gawd knows what made it stick in my mind.
I love black pud. Our regular butcher does a Scottish one with oatmeal. Fantastic with fried onions in a floury bap on a cold Sunday morning.
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>>I love black pud<<
I've never tried it, but I would as I'm not finicky any more, I've eaten Heart which was quite nice,
And pigs trotters, but they are an acquired taste!
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>> I love black pud. Our regular butcher does a Scottish one with oatmeal. Fantastic with
>> fried onions in a floury bap on a cold Sunday morning.
The term black pudding covers a range of products; the Scots type you mention is very different from the fine textured BP served in Stoke or the Black Country.
Best I've ever had comes from the butcher by the CoOp in Stornoway (Charles Macleod?) Brought a whole one back after visiting for my 50th. It had to go in the hold on the plane home - Loganair not prepared to risk a hi-jack by ecky thump!! (Remember the Goodies?)
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I like black pudding, but had a problem getting through the half-pound lump of the stuff I was served at a chippy in Millom.
What on earth goes into white pudding?
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>>half-pound lump of the stuff I was served at a chippy in Millom.<<
You`ve been here!!!! ;-) - was that the "Barbarque" in Crown St? They are renowned for a "goodly" helping! - no Transfats used in frying, and all batter is made with Beer!
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>>You`ve been here!!!! ;-) - was that the "Barbarque" in Crown St?
No idea! It was back in '69 - '70.
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>> A truly special 43rd wedding anniversary meal tonight :-)
>> ALDI premium (very good BTW) sausages
Can't help wondering whether you allowed the word 'snorkers' to fall from your lips Roger... but no, not on a special occasion surely?
:o}
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>> I like mashed potatoes to be mashed too. Not just beaten up a bit and
>> full of coarse lumps.
We have a stainless steel potato ricer - magic for decent mashed taters.
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>>We have a stainless steel potato ricer - magic for decent mashed taters.
We bought a ricer but found that it produced rather gloopy mashed potatoes. Not very nice at all.
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I use a stainless steel ricer for mash as well. Dont get gloopy mash here, and here is how its done.
Boil your spuds, but not too soft. Drain spuds into a drainer, place knob of butter into the still hot pan, then rice your spuds from the drainer into and on top of the melted butter oin the pan
Whip your riced spuds into the butter with a fork, adding a little hot milk till you have perfectly fluffy mashed spuds, adding salt and pepper as you go. I also use a dollop of Helmans. Or Dijon mustard.
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You didn't mention the most important factor. Use a floury type of potato like Estima or Maris Piper and not the waxy type. Very best are Wilja in my opinion.
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Funnily, I have never found type of spud to be a problem using my method. The important thing is to mash the spuds before you add milk/butter/stuff.
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A general purpose spud will be OK. A waxy potato like Charlotte will not make good mash whatever you do to it. Wilja will make mash to die for. Potatoes vary huge in their taste and cooking qualities. Well worth trying or even growing different varieties.
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Still got to cook the things properly, Roger, or you get bits that taste raw even after the ricer has squashed them. Trick is at the cutting stage - evenly-sized pieces, so when one is done, they're all done. Then plenty of time to let them steam off before introducing them to Sir Tim.
Did ours a different way tonight. Our combination microwave thingy does a decent simulacrum of a jacket potato in about 20 minutes - nothing like yer typical wet-paper-bag microwave potato. So I cooked a few of those, let them cool a bit, then scooped out the insides into a pan of hot milk. Add butter, salt, pepper, stir a little (but not much - it works best slightly rough) and you have baked potato mash to go with braised liver and mushrooms.
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>>I use a stainless steel ricer for mash as well.
We only tried it twice then reverted to our old method. Still got the ricer somewhere, so I'll give your method a go over the weekend.
Thanks, Zero.
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>>You didn't mention the most important factor.
It'll be Maris Piper.
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I'll eat pretty much most things but I draw the line at anything containing courgettes and/or aubergines. Awful, hateful things.
Can't abide snails either (sorry, L'escargot!)
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The only food I have tried in recent memory that I found absolutely, unrelentingly, unrepeatably foul was kimchi. This is a Korean staple dish, and consists basically of fermented, spiced cabbage in any one of a variety of sauces, served cold. I actually struggled to swallow the small taster mouthful, with every fibre of my being wanting to spit it out.
I will try anything once, though.
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My German g/f used to make Sauerkraut for me - the proper stuff like, can't say I dis-liked it,
Very good for you apparently, full of probiotics, they say.
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On a walking holiday with friends along the GR5 in the Jura a few years ago.
We always ate the 'local' food & the proprietor of a small hotel recommended his sausages for my evening meal. Now I love bangers/snorkers but these were described as 'andouillette'....basically chitterlings, or a mix of calves & pigs intestines wrapped in London Rubber Company rejects. Absolutely disgusting and one mouthful made me want to gyp.
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>> On a walking holiday with friends along the GR5 in the Jura a few years
>> ago.
Read that twice before clicking that it was France and not Jura in the Inner Hebrides. Andouillette, like Black Pud varies. Some is quite delicately flavoured but others leave one in no doubt as to the meat's origin!!
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You're a braver man than me
"French andouillette, on the other hand, is an acquired taste and can be an interesting challenge even for adventurous eaters who don’t object to the taste or aroma of feces. It is sometimes eaten cold, as in picnic baskets. Served cold and sliced thinly, the smell, taste, and texture may be mistaken for an andouille [a milder, less stinky sausage], but on closer inspection the texture is considerably more rubbery and the meat has a more feces-like flavor. By contrast, many French eateries serve andouillette as a hot dish, and foreigners have been repulsed by the aroma, to the point where they find it inedible. While hot andouillette smells of feces, food safety requires that all such matter is removed from the meat before cooking. Feces-like aroma can be attributed to the common use of the pig’s colon (chitterlings) in this sausage, and stems from the same compounds that give feces some of its odors."
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Not brave, just stupid. I was expecting something like wild boar or venison sausage. Not intestines from pigs.
How my friends laughed.
Last edited by: legacylad on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 22:19
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Went to local Indian last Saturday night to find a rivet off the frying pan in the meal!!
I didn't make a fuss as been going there for years the manager knew it had come off just my luck i bit it!!
However got my meal for free and the 4x rounds of drinks for me and our lass so still a good night but wouldn't have been if the filling had come out.
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Ahh, the romance and aroma of the gut-scraping trade. And still people eat tripe and gizzard-wrapped sausages.....
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>> "French andouillette, on the other hand, is an acquired taste and can be an interesting
>> challenge even for adventurous eaters
Ordered it once in a Relais Routiers place.
Presumably a known problem for the English; Madame looked at me sideways and asked 'Vous connaisez anduoillete monsieur'?
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>> My German g/f used to make Sauerkraut for me - the proper stuff like, can't
>> say I dis-liked it,
Sauerkraut is delicious.
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Another vote for school dinners. Disgusting muck. Worst being that foul biscuit type pudding you needed an axe to break with wretch worthy custard. Primary school food was the absolute worst. High school (after spending years on sandwiches) was slightly better.
I wasn't a fussy eater until I went to school. So many foods were rendered inedible I couldn't stand to touch them for years.
Only recent one was some ignoramus making lasagne with corned beef! Salad was half a tomato and some limp lettuce. Even my Dad left it. That's how bad it was. He eats anything virtually.
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I used to like school food!
Being pretty well omnivorous, I used to do well from seconds or other lad's pet hates.
Well burnt sausages for breakfast, figgy duff, made in long tubular tins, for pudding at lunchtime, the small bottle of milk and meat paste sarnies for supper, before sloping of to the dorm and fighting a battle with Matron to shut the windows after she had opened them!
My abiding memory of school catering was the cook - a Miss Rabson (I remember her name after more than 60 years!). She was a chain smoker and always had a fag hanging loosely from her lips, even to the extent of it causing a nasty yellow nicotine stain from her upper lip to her nose!
Elf & safety - it had not been invented then.
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School meals in our place were dreadful, but after I'd been there about eight years the head cook was suddenly moved along, and it transpired that he'd been embezzling all that time. The food took a turn for the better, and I still recall with fondness the piquant delights of "gala pie" of a Saturday lunchtime.
Less so the early experience with tinned strawberries rendered to a pulpy mass and lost in strange pink custard, or the battered "fish" that actually squirted grease in the air when you put a fork into it.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 2 Feb 12 at 08:54
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>> or the battered "fish" that actually squirted grease in the air
>> when you put a fork into it.
Ah Yes, I remember that, served on Friday, known in our school as Spunk Fish
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>> Ah Yes, I remember that, served on Friday, known in our school as Spunk Fish
>>
The piece of cod that passeth all understanding.
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:)
Oh I do so love a Victorian joke. Most of my best material is from The Anti-Gallican after all.
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One of the worst meals i've had was when I first met my wife's mother and step-father in rural France.
I've long been badly fussy with my food and as a result of having grand parents and great aunts/uncles who were rural based and would only eat the 'good stuff', i've inherited that 'the decent part of the joint or not at all' philosophy.
I was worried about the trip anyway and primed my new (then) girlfriend to ring ahead and explain what i'm like (e.g. I won't touch lamb or pork, just don't like the taste).
So what do I get served on my first night, despite the phone call ahead...lamb.....and her step-father proudly told me he'd got it from the butcher on a deal as it needed to be sold that day.
That was a rough meal that, I left most of it and stocked up on bread. Ever after that i've point blank refused to go there until the food situation was sorted, particularly as when her mother would visit us, there'd be £50 of fruit bought especially..until I pointed out that I got rockall towards my tastes when I visted them, so why was my budget coughing up 50 spondoolies, the other way around?
Her step-father is easily the meanest human being I have ever met..by some way. Fortunately for me, my wife agrees with me.
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I quite like andouille and andouillette, as well as chitterlings and tripe. Chitterlings - fraise de porc - is a luxury in France, 18 odd euros a kilo last time I saw any. SWMBO has reminded me of 'eel in green sauce' we had in Belgium years ago that was sick-making.
The French workman's lunch is actually the 'menu ouvrier' and is alive and well, I'm pleased to say. We had a lovely artichoke salad and lamb stew one on Tuesday. The 'plat du jour' is the dish of the day that usually forms part of it. You take what comes and it doesn't often disappoint. The whole thing used to cost about a fiver but is now 10-12, thanks to the delights of the Euro...
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Your worst meal - Meldrew
