Ethnic food

[Rupert]

I guess natto is kind of like all the worst possible tastes in miso applied to big, nasty, drippy boogers.

[Rupert]

I'd eat it if I were in prison and my only other choice was starving, but that's about it.

There aren't many things I wouldn't eat in that situation.

[Soup DeVille]

I guess natto is kind of like all the worst possible tastes in miso applied to big, nasty, drippy boogers.

I'm actually going to have to try it now. Who knows? Maybe my list will expand to 13 things?

[Rupert]

I like to have tried disgusting foods. When I told my metal-head friend that I'd eaten hakarl and didn't think it was disgusting, I became and honorary metal head.

[Laconian]

Around Mount Emei in the Sichuan province the locals eat monkey brains. They use special tables that contains the (living, fearful) monkey and immobilizes the head just above the table.

They open the monkey's head and eat the monkey's brains while it is alive and screaming. The monkey will display all sorts of emotions as its brain is consumed, from fear, to laughter, to crying, until it is finally dead.

I just added another item to your list.

[Rupert]

I wouldn't eat that, but only for the reason that it's cruel to the monkey.

Unless I were an anthropologist trying to get in with that culture...

[Soup DeVille]

Around Mount Emei in the Sichuan province the locals eat monkey brains. They use special tables that contains the (living, fearful) monkey and immobilizes the head just above the table.

They open the monkey's head and eat the monkey's brains while it is alive and screaming. The monkey will display all sorts of emotions as its brain is consumed, from fear, to laughter, to crying, until it is finally dead.

I just added another item to your list.

if that actually does exist, hells yes you did.

[Laconian]

Well this article doesn't say it's on Emei but the account is similar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_brain

Although most likely a rare practice[7][8], certain supposed methods by which monkey brains are eaten have sparked controversy. Certain restaurants provide special tables with a hole in the center. The live monkey is immobilized with its body below the table, and the top of its skull is removed with a knife. The head, which protrudes above the table top, serves as a bowl. Liquor may be poured into the skull and mixed with the brain. The diners then proceed to scoop out and eat parts of the brain.

]In the book Born Red, A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution author Gao Yuan describes looking inside restaurant windows of Guangzhou that "offered the famous monkey brains, served at a special table that locked the monkey's head in place; the waiter would open the skull and the diners would eat while the body wriggled under the table." Maxine Hong Kingston's book The Woman Warrior also contains a description of a monkey feast including the special table; Kingston attributes the description to her mother. The Attic: Memoir of a Chinese Landlord's Son is a 1998 memoir of life in Communist China by Guanlong Cao, in which the author describes the eating of live monkey brains.

[Soup DeVille]

Well this article doesn't say it's on Emei but the account is similar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_brain

Reading a couple of different things, its unclear to me whether this is done for nourishment, or for some supposed medicinal value. If its the latter, I don't really consider it a food, which is the same reason why such things as Tiger penis isn't on my list.

[Raza]

I've eaten brain, and a massive percentage of my diet is raw fish.  But I too draw the line at testicles.

[Rupert]

I'd eat testicles, so long as they didn't look like testicles.

[Soup DeVille]

I'd eat testicles, so long as they didn't look like testicles.

So, you'd eat a ball-burger?

[Rupert]

I dunno about the whole burger... I'd try a bite or two, and eat the rest if it was good.

[MX793]

There's a great little Greek restaurant in my town that makes some fantastic food.  I believe the guy who started it (his son now runs it, IIRC) actually came from Greece, so it's pretty authentic.

[Rupert]

Spanakopita is my friend.

[565]

Has anybody here tried hot pot? It's basically a meat fondue where you dip raw meat into a boiling broth that is _black_ with pepper and spices. You pull out the meat once it's cooked, roll it in a bit of sesame oil or peanut oil and eat away. The meat is often all-you-can-eat, which is terrible for your health because the spiciness makes it easy to overeat.

That's just one variation of thousands upon thousands of variations for hot pot.  Basically if you have stuff that you put into a boiling pot of water on the table, it's hot pot.

From where I come from, our variation involves a very clear broth and raw slices of lamb, cooked for a short period of time, and dipped in sauce containing seasoned tofu, raw eggs, and other random stuff.

The interesting thing about Chinese food is the enormous variation and variety possible, which often you have to go to China to sample (Panda express and PF Chang's don't count).  In China you could literally eat a different dish for every meal for the rest of your life and never have a repeat.  At every market you'll find people selling dishes and food that you've never seen in your life before.  It ranges from the delicious to the absolutely disgusting.

Here is an example of a particularly strange delicacy.  There is a dish called "Three Squeaks."  It is a plate entirely of newborn mice, the hairless blind kind.  They are raw.  They also happen to be alive.  The three squeaks refer to the three squeaks you hear when consuming them.  The first squeak is when you pick them up with your chop sticks.  The second squeak is when you quickly dunk them in hot water for sanitary reasons (or sauce, depending on region).  The third and final squeak you hear is when you put them in your mouth and chew.

[Soup DeVille]

That's just wrong man. if you're going to eat something, fucking kill it.

[Rupert]

I'm all for raw foods, but it's tough to get through the westerner's view on eating live mammals.

[Laconian]

565, what region are you from?

The hot pot I've had is Sichuan hot pot, I thought it was THE hot pot because that's what I found in Beijing and Kunming as well as in numerous restaurants around Seattle. The hot pot from your region sounds really tasty, so long as that seasoned tofu isn't the stinky kind.

I might visit Nanjing for work sometime in the next couple months, I'm definitely looking forward to the food. It's still worth it even if I get the runs.

[565]

565, what region are you from?

The hot pot I've had is Sichuan hot pot, I thought it was THE hot pot because that's what I found in Beijing and Kunming as well as in numerous restaurants around Seattle. The hot pot from your region sounds really tasty, so long as that seasoned tofu isn't the stinky kind.

I might visit Nanjing for work sometime in the next couple months, I'm definitely looking forward to the food. It's still worth it even if I get the runs.

I was originally from Tianjin.  The Sichuan hot pot is real popular right now, but I'm too much of a wimp for too much Sichuan food.  It's just too hot for me.

Everytime I visit China it's just one great resturant after another, and compared to US prices it's so ridiculously cheap.  I gain like 10 pounds every time I go back.

[Onslaught]

The only one I'd even touch would be Chinese.  That is unless you consider Sushi Japanese.

[Rupert]

It is. Sensitive stomach or just chicken?

[Raza]

The only one I'd even touch would be Chinese.  That is unless you consider Sushi Japanese.

It is.

It is. Sensitive stomach or just chicken?

He has an issue with food, as I recall.

[Rupert]

Oh, yeah.

[Onslaught]

It is. Sensitive stomach or just chicken?

VERY Sensitive stomach. But as a self respecting Southerner I'd never eat that strange food. Fried chicken with Mashed potato's and sweat tea for me please. The strangest stuff I'd try would be unsweetened tea the Yankees drink.

But I do love me some raw fish for some reason.

[Raza]

VERY Sensitive stomach. But as a self respecting Southerner I'd never eat that strange food. Fried chicken with Mashed potato's and sweat tea for me please. The strangest stuff I'd try would be unsweetened tea the Yankees drink.

But I do love me some raw fish for some reason.

I eat sushi probably 5-6 days a week.

But southern food...damn, that's fucking tasty.  Not healthy, but fucking delicious.

[Tave]

Sushi is really mild, as far as "ethnic" foods go, so that's not surprising.

[Onslaught]

I eat sushi probably 5-6 days a week.

But southern food...damn, that's fucking tasty.  Not healthy, but fucking delicious.

That's why so many of us are fat. And most of the men in my family are dead.
The bad stomach keeps me from that problem.

[Raza]

That's why so many of us are fat. And most of the men in my family are dead.
The bad stomach keeps me from that problem.

See, I just smoke and drink, that keeps me fit.

[Onslaught]

It's been a week and I've not had any Sushi. I know what's for dinner this Friday.

And what in the world do you eat at a Ethiopian restaurant? Do they drop the food on your table with little parachutes?
Do you go home with your belly all swollen out and still hungry?