[Sca-cooks] [Sca-Cooks] To 10 pantry items

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Aug 5, 2007, at 6:11 PM, Adele de Maisieres wrote:

> I confess, I'm not overly into blood sausage.  This is an opinion  
> based
> on having actually tried it, though.

It may depend to some extent on what type you get (or not). The  
English and Irish black puddings I've had have been okay, sort of dry  
and crumbly compared to the others, but they have relatively little  
fat and, often, a lot of bread or rusk crumbs and/or oatmeal. Okay  
for frying a few chunks with eggs, but not something I'd want to make  
a meal of. German blutwursts or their French equivalent tend to be  
literally bursting with meat, fat, blood, and one of those with fried  
apples and onions is arguably one of the most essentially carnivorous  
experiences one can have. I find that for newbies to the whole blood- 
sausage thing, they have their best experiences with some of the  
Polish or Russian black kishkas, which contain a lot of grain  
(usually buckwheat groats), meat, fat, onion, and just enough blood  
to color and flavor it all. The morcilla I had yesterday was  
somewhere in between, with lots of rice, moist and rich, but of not  
too alien a texture.

> That all sounds delicious.   I think you get a lot more out of  
> eating if
> you're willing to try new things.

I think my list of serious, won't-touch-it food prejudices begins and  
ends with balut (those fertilized duck egg?), and perhaps some insect  
dishes, that sort of thing. But a few enzymatically degraded fish  
guts? No big deal...

>   The best thing to with food opinions
> informed by "ewww! rotten fish!" type prejudices is to tune them out
> entirely.  More for the rest of us.  :-)
>
> (I made 10lb of sauerkraut for the last feast T and I cooked.  I  
> should
> have made 20.)

Well, it produces a lot of liquid, no? I don't think you really get  
20 lbs of sauerkraut from 20 lbs of cabbage...

These people, trying to fob off their rotten vegetables on innocent  
feastgoers... ;-)

Adamantius