"Foreign" foods

[Ellie]

A couple of different things got me thinking today about foods that we are unfamiliar with. We're all from different countries and different parts of the same countries, so there must be things that we are each unfamiliar with. So what have you tried from other places and what did you think of it?

One of my brothers lives in New Zealand and he always brings me Milo bars (yummy chocolate!) and Peanut Slab. Once he brought me marmite and that uh... wasn't exactly my type of thing.

One of my Canadian friends just sent me something called a Nanaimo bar. Really, all I can say about it is God bless Canada! hehe Well, it's chocolate, you know. ;D

When I was living in Michigan and Arizona my mom used to send me smoked squid, dried salted plums, and White Rabbit candy, which you can get in Hawaii (and probably California), but not in many other US cities. None of my friends would ever even touch any of it.

Please tell me you are a more adventurous bunch than them!

[hischild]

I ate some macadamias with garlic and onion on them for breakfast. LOL along with shortbread cookies and a ham sandwich on a potato roll. I actually seem to do better eating Viet Namese, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and other Eastern types foods than I do eating most N. American foods. I like most seafood except for oysters and shark. I have eaten things like wolf, bear, elk, deer, possum, squirrel, and many other wild game. I don't like domestic duck or goose but willingly eat the wild ones.

I don't like heavily salted foods at all (so no salted plums for me please) and after reading about marmite and vegemite I doubt that I would be willing to try either one. I belong to an organization that has International dinners every other month and have many friends who are refugees for many places so I have eaten foods that many aren't ever exposed too. But honestly Ellie my favorite foods from all cultures are usually the breads. It amazes me how we can take the same basic ingredients and come up with so many different tastes and textures.

When it comes to comfort foods though, give me mashed potatoes and chocolate with some turkey and cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce accompanied by broccoli and cheese. Oh and don't use those blue potatoes cuz I don't like them.

And can you please find your boxes thread and bump it for Gwen? I was looking for it but I keep getting distracted.

[hischild]

Ellie
What is White Rabbit candy?


What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?

[Ellie]

White Rabbit is like... hm. I guess it's kind of like a white milk taffy. It has rice paper on the outside that looks like plastic, but you can eat it. lol They're really good. I'll send you some one of these days.

I don't know about the strangest food... what's strange for some people is common for others, so it's hard to say. I really love dried cuttlefish (squid) and smoked octopus, and pretty much anything with seaweed. I guess those are a bit strange. I almost ate palolo worms (a Samoan delicacy) once, but chickened out at the last moment. I'm really adventurous when it comes to food, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat worms. lol

What about you? What's the strangest thing you've eaten?

[hischild]

Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll speaking of worms, back in the 80's one of my friends really got into growing red wigglers and night crawlers. We went through a spell of eating lots of worms trying to develop good recipes for using worms and crickets as protein. This was right after I discovered that I was allergic to soy and still needed to figure out an easy protein that was not animal based during my vegetarian years. There are many things that I would like to be able to try but my allergies scare me so much that recently I have stopped experimenting.

I have eaten some things with kelp but not many as they were never easily available here. That was another thing that was briefly popular during the 80's. I was often at the health food store were there were many unusual foods. I don't like sushi . . . I think that I have some valid fear issues about that after a friend died from eating improperly prepared sushi but I have eaten and enjoyed other similar items. One of my friends lives in Alaska now and when she comes to visit she sometimes brings Eskimo foods with her so I have even eaten whale fat and some of the dried fish that they eat uncooked. Looking back over my life though I guess I have had a wide variety of culinary experiences but I don't think that I could eat some of the stuff that they require people to eat on shows like Fear Factor and Survivor.

Some time ago I was talking to a guy about his mission trip to the Philippines and he described how at one time, these very sweet people offered him a thousand year old egg and how it was a sign that they accepted him and honored him. Even the memory of that egg had him gagging and choking so combined with his very graphic description and my own egg allergy it is pretty much a given that I won't try that. I wanted to try a haggis that another person described but I don't know of anywhere that one can be gotten. Oh and I have never eaten an oyster. They are totally repulsive to me. I did try though. I almost got a fried one down but ended up spitting it out.

[Ellie]

hehe Wow, you really did eat worms, huh? lol

I *love*love*love* sushi!!! I just don't care for any of the ones with raw fish. My favorites are made with vegetables and bean curd. There is a Hawaiian dish here called poke (po-kay) that is made from all kinds of raw seafoods, seaweed, and seasonings and I can't really eat that. Mostly because it's too hot, but raw stuff is not really my thing.

I couldn't eat the kind of stuff they eat on Fear Factor, either.

Was it a duck egg they gave your friend? The town I grew up in was mostly Chinese and Filipino families and all of my friends ate something called balut. (I won't describe it because it grosses me out to think about it, but you can Google it if you're interested and if you have a VERY strong stomach.) I couldn't do it. I guess everyone has to draw their own line somewhere and for me that line is at palolo worms and balut. lol

I love oysters, but only when they're cooked. They are very good if you dry them off a bit and then grill them. Then they taste a lot like fish if you ask me.

[hischild]

Hehehe now M@ can post about foreign food too. I wish that others would post on this thread. I know that they have McDonalds in these European countries but I also know that the Canadian menu is different than the one here. Someone in Nova Scotia once sent me pictures of the Mickey D near her house and they had some kind of lobster sandwich that made me drool. It was never offered to Americans.

[admin]

My mom is married to a man from Ghana and I have been experiencing some Africian food! Something I had was this african soup that had goat and chicken and peanut butter and ginger and jalepeno peppers on top of this stuff called fu fu which is this potatoe product that you don't chew but let it just slide down your throat. It was verrrrry interesting!! Also something we had was this plantine (which is like a banana but tastes different) and they fried it and you would eat it with a handful of peanuts. Both things were extremely tasty!!

Also, something else I've been eating since I came to Alberta is wild goose!! ;D It is really good! I am actually loving goose!! I never have eaten it before and think it is even tastier than turkey!

[Ellie]

Ooh Shanny, I would love to try that soup! I've never had goat, but everything else in it sounds good.

Oh and fried plantains are one of my favorite foods in the whole world. My favorite way to eat them is to fry them in butter and then pour hot fudge over them. Ahhh.... lol

[hischild]

hot fudge? You are strange my friend. Here most people who eat them put them into "fritters" which are deep fried and sometimes sprinkled with powered sugar and served with ice crean but most often they are cut kinda thin and then pounded and fried to serve as a veggie.