[Sca-cooks] GIFILLTE FISH ::WAS::: TURKEY GRAVY

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Susan Fox-Davis wrote:

> Phillippa wrote:
>
>
>>I've just never met any non-Jewish adults who liked the stuff!
>>Phillipa
>>
>
> My lord husband Jared, who has been "assimilated" enough to like it.  I
> learned to cook and like Deep-South goodies for him, and he's done
> likewise for my NYC Jewish "soul foods."
>
> I've long maintained that every culture has some food that its own
> members long for, but which nobody else can stand.  Gefilte Fish, Turnip
> Greens, Lutefisk, Haggis, what's yours?
>
> Selene, catching up in Caid


The only food I genuinely fear are those Philippino embryonic duck eggs. As far as I can tell, I will try just about anything else, but have a general dislike for both most eggplant preparations, with some exceptions, and frozen lima beans (no exceptions to date). I do think, though, that a lot of the food "dislikes" that are widely publicized are cases where people were brought up in a tradition that a particular food is awful, and no matter what its quality or characteristics may be in real life, it is its role in this world to be reviled. Haggis is a classic example of this; most of the people that complain about it, especially outisde of the SCA, it seems, have never even seen one, let alone tasted it, and many of these same people will eat liverwurst or scrapple without adverse comment. It amounts to a sort of licensed xenophobia, in some cases parent-sanctioned as "cute".


Let's see... what are a few of my favorite things? Real head cheese. Real scrapple. Haggis. Both thousand-year and salted duck eggs. Tripe in nearly any form. Liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, all that stuff. Brains I will eat, but I prefer them blanched, trimmed, sliced, battered and fried. Black puddings. (Hmm, I have some in the freezer. Do I have any eggs, or how about some fried apples with those?) Jellyfish, assorted cephalopods, sea cucumber. I do _not_ like sea urchin roe. Raw herring fillets, on the other hand, are kewl, as is lightly cured gravlax. (Also more heavily cured, too.) Bean curd in nearly any form is good, and anybody who says it is tasteless is a poophead.


Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

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