Chamber of Horrors...er...Edibles
(Don't try these at home!)
This area is not for the easily nauseated or faint of heart. There will be
actual recipes, but unless this is a native dish in your country, I would advise
you not to try them. They are for educational and entertainment purposes only!!
:)
Food that is enjoyed in one culture may be rejected by people of other cultures
for a variety of reasons. Some people eat pork; others abhor it. Some people
eat dog; others are repulsed. Some people eat grasshoppers; others gag at the
thought. Keep that in mind now. Mwahahahaha!
Fowl Weather for October
Poultry is a common, inexpensive and healthier choice of protein in many countries.
There are some groups of people in the world however, for whom eating poultry
- notably chicken - is taboo. For some groups in the Sudan, the taboo is religious
in nature because the chicken is considered sacred. For those in India, the
chicken is considered a scavenger and thus dirty. The Japanese and Europeans
in the past may have kept them as pets, and for that reason would not eat them.
Some places in Vietnam, the Philippines and Polynesia forbid women to eat it,
believing the meat to be poisonous or encourage infidelity (don't ask me). But
there are many countries who do not have these prejudices. In fact, they will
eat every part of a bird, except maybe for the feathers, and those will be used
for bedding materials. With that in mind, let's find out what some of us may
have been missing!
Stews and gravies commonly call for the innards, or giblets, of poultry. Many
of us are already accustomed to eating the livers, hearts, necks and gizzards
of fowl. The next time you make giblet gravy though, see if you can add these
ingredients:
Heads Cocks' Combs (a traditional garnish used principally by French cooks.) Feet Blood Chicken Blood Soup (Ti sheh tan) Testicles Turkey Testes/U.S.
Bon appetit!
Preious month's delicacies
Scabbers anyone? Barbecues aren't only for hamburgers and hot dogs. Here are
two recipes for the grill.
Grilled Rat Bordeaux Style (Entrecôte à la bordelaise)/France No? How about Nagini then?
Grilled Snake Meat (Hebi ryori)/Japan Dragon, Phoenix, and Tiger Soup (Lung fung foo)/China Baked Bat (Pe'a) Red Ant Chutney (Chindi chutney)/India Bee Grubs in Coconut Cream (Mang non won)/Thailand Crisp Toasted Termites/Swaziland Fly Larvae/China Basic Preparation of Locusts and Grasshoppers Roasted Grasshoppers/American Navajo Nation Locust Dumplings (Jourad mtayeb)/Arabic North Africa Fried Mole Cricket (Con-de-com)/Vietnam Fried Cockchafer Grubs (Larves de hanneton sautées)/France Water Beetle Cocktail Sauce/Laos Fried Cactus Caterpillars (Gusanitos del maguey)/Mexico (Recipes are from Unmentionable Cuisine by Calvin W.
Schwabe.)
Scald the heads, carefully remove all the feathers, clean the mouth, trim the
neck, remove blood clots, and cut off the beak.
Cut off the combs, pick them all over with a needle, and while holding them
in flowing cold water squeeze them to force out the blood. Cover with cold water
in a pan and then heat the water rapidly until the skin of the combs can be
rubbed loose with a cloth sprinkled with salt. Remove the skin completely, soak
the combs again in cold water until they are white, and then put them into boiling
salted water to which a green onion and a parsley sprig have been added. Boil
for about half and hour and drain.
Poultry feet are especially rich in gelatin and therefore are excellent as stock
ingredients. If used as a meat, scald them, peel off the outer layer of skin,
and clip the nails.
Often used as a thickener for soups and stews, here is a colorful recipe from
China.
Cut a block of Tofu into thin strips 1-in. long. Fry a well-beaten egg in oil
as a very thin omelet. Prepare a second omelet and cut both into thin strips.
Boil 3 cups of water, add 1 cup chicken blood, and simmer 1 minute. Remove the
coagulated blood and cut it into thin, 1-in. strips. Reboil water, add the tofu
and coagulated blood, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the eggs 1 teaspoon vinegar,
1 teaspoon soy sauce, and a pinch of pepper.
Here is one recipe that is fun to try on unsuspecting dinner guests.
Partially thaw frozen turkey testicles and express the organ from its membranes
by squeezing it as one would peel a Concord grape. Coat the glands with well-seasoned
bread crumbs and deep-fry them individually in 325 to 350 degree F oil until
golden brown.
Alcoholic rats inhabiting wine cellars are skinned and eviscerated, brushed
with a thick sauce of olive oil and crushed shallots, and grilled over a fire
of broken wine barrels.
Boil snake heads and backbones in fish stock and discard them, reserving the
stock. Add Mirin and Shoyu. Marinate 3-in. strips of snake meat in this sauce,
thread each on a bamboo skewer, and grill over charcoal until brown, painting
frequently with some of the marinade. (Mrs. Norris and Nagini could both star
in this dish great for potlucks!)
Boil fillets of snake and ginger root for about 1 minute and drain. Line the
bottom of a pan with pork skins and cook them in a small amount of water until
they are gelatinized. In another pot prepare a broth from the meat of an old
cat and a chicken. Remove the meat and add to the broth mushrooms, bamboo shoots,
abalone, cloud ear fungus, scallops, and dried tangerine peel and cook about
15 minutes. Add the snake meat, pork skins, and shredded cooked chicken and
boil for 10 to 15 minutes longer. Other ingredients sometimes used include ham,
lean pork, and fish's stomach. Finally, add lemon leaves and chrysantheum leaves
and serve the soup with rice wine. In a simpler version, pieces of snake and
cat are steamed for 3 to 4 hours with some ginger root. Only the broth is eaten
after seasoning it with salt.
Flame fruit bats to remove the hair, or skin them. Eviscerate and cut the bats
into small pieces. Bake them in the ground oven, or umu, over hot rocks
or fry them with salt, pepper, and onions. Mmmmm...
Ants are collected in leaf cups and put directly into the hot ashes of the fire
for a few minutes. The ants then are removed and ground into a paste. Salt and
ground chilis are added and the mixture is baked. It is said to have "a sharp
clean taste" and is often eaten with alcoholic drinks or used with curries.
(*thinks there would need to be quite a few of those drinks to wash these down*)
Marinate bee grubs, sliced onions, and citrus leaves in coconut cream containing
some pepper. Wrap in pieces of linen and steam. Serve as a topping for rice.
(Hey, doesn't sound too bad, eh?)
Swarming termites are drowned in water, sun-dried, and roasted to a "delicate
crispness". They will keep this way for a year. (Great for trail mix methinks.)
Maggots of Chrysomyia flies similar to American screwworms (yum!) are
raised on meat baits in China, collected, washed, and sun-dried. They are eaten
this way both as food and medicine. (Hmmm...eat, get sick, take medicine, get
sick...)
Locusts and grasshoppers are prepared for cooking by removing the wings, the
small legs, and the distal portion of the hind legs. Then pull off the head,
withdrawing any attached viscera (yeah!). Most species of locusts and grasshoppers
contain 46 to 50 percent protein, as compared to 14.7 percent for T-bone steak!
Put prepared grasshoppers in the hot wood ashes of the cooking fire until well
browned. (These substitute well for those peanuts you forgot to bring on the
camp-out or as treats at the football game bonfire.)
Knead dried locusts with flour, salt, and a little water or milk. Form into
dumplings and cook in boiling water to which salt and buter have been added
until the dumplings float. Serve in place of rice or couscous. (Wonder if they're
better than grits.)
Wash mole crickets well. Mix with shelled peanuts and fry in lard (mmm). Serve
as a condiment.
(Cockchafers are scarabaeid beetles which are the largest beetles.) Place the
live grubs in vinegar for several hours. Then dip in an egg, milk, and flour
batter and fry in butter. Or fry the live grubs in butter or oil to which chopped
parsley and garlic have been added. (And you thought those were truffles in
your souffle!)
Pound together boiled shrimp and water beetles. Mix well with sufficient lime
juice, garlic, and pepper to use as a sauce for dipping raw vegetables. (Wonder
if it's better on a Ritz?)
Caterpillars of skipper butterflies, which live on the maguey cactus, are toasted
or fried and eaten with mescal as "caterpillar pretzels". They are even sold
canned in Mexico. (Since the maguey is the source of tequila, the taste could
be erm...interesting.)