Foodspam: ??? Special
In honour of my exciting dinner of a croissant with soft cheese, we're going to have a food spam of Weird Shit I've Eaten and Enjoyed (also in honour of that Weird Korean Food article on omona).
Warning: Unlike my previous foodspams, lots of these might gross you out.
STINKY TOFU (CHAO)
Let's start off with something relatively normal! It's just fermented tofu, with a "stinky" smell. An acquired taste, I'd presume, like durian. I love the soft, non-fried version - the texture is a bit like foie gras. The version I usually eat has very strong taste.
SILKWORM LARVA
My grandma's favourite! They're delicious stir-fried. Very crunchy and rich. I love the bee larva as well. There's this specialised restaurant my parents sometimes take me to - we always order the stir fried bee larva with butter. So buttery and crunchy!
PIG BRAIN OMELETTE
sobs my favourite omelette in the world. Yes it's omelette with pig's brain. Pig's brain is rly good ok. It's high in cholesterol, but the taste is rich and soft like foie gras and it's like heaven. Actually the brain always tastes rly good. Animals whose brain I enjoy: pigs, chickens, fish. /inappropriate Sylar jokes
FISH EYES
Speaking of fish head/brain... I particularly enjoy fish eyes. They're so gelatinous and rich in flavour. My favourite part about fish head tbh.
PIG INTESTINES
Pig's intestine stuffed with pig's blood, fat, herbs, salt and pepper. It's just blood sausage tbh. Similar to Korean soondae! Normally boiled or fried, it's rich in taste, chewy, and just generally very good. My grandma used to live near this pig slaughter house and they'd offer her the best set of fresh intestines they just got from the pigs that morning. Ah, good times.
PIG LIVER
Stir fried pig livers are my favourite. They're different from soft duck/goose liver. Pig livers are harder and darker in taste. Actually I find all intestines from pigs and chickens very good.
BALUTS
This is the point when most Western people scream. Uh it's just an egg, ppl. A very good egg, but an egg. I know the duck embryo might look a bit disturbing, but if one can eat a grown bird/duck and an egg, then what's the problem? Baluts are eaten with salt, herbs, and sliced ginger. The yellow yolk is the best part for me - soft and rich and heavenly. *__*
FIELD RATS
lol I ate this maybe only once, a rly long time ago, but I remember finding it okay and enjoyable at the time. I mean, they are rats, but they are rats on rice fields that eat rice and cereal, not the dirty kind in the city. Once you cook them, it's just like any other kind of meat. A bit like chicken if I remember right.
TONKA JASMINE
And now finally for a peaceful ending! The tonka jasmine is a very pretty flower, we used to grow it in our garden. They're also delicious stir fried. Or cooked in broth. *__* My mom knows a lot of delicious flowers that look so good outside and on the dining table. Tbf, she did spend childhood in a rural village...
lol by now some people are probably going O___O and DDDDD: at this post. Brain? Embryos? Intestines? /bad person, etc. As a carnivore, I find nothing particularly DDD: about this. Tbh, I find them pretty tame and natural compared to processed fast food and instant meals with tons of sketchy chemicals and ingredients.
Speaking of which, I recently watched a lot of documentaries about the food industry, both in the US and in Europe (Food Inc, We Feed The World, etc.) and they're very very interesting. It's not like I ever had any delusion about the food industry, but some stuff are still particularly note-worthy. Bad treatment of animals is no surprise, I knew about processing factories and everything, but the industrial scale with which everything is produced? Wow. I mean, growing up in Asia, I've seen chickens' throats being cut in the backyard, etc. it's all normal life, but to see everything done in such huge scale with all these humonguous machinery? Wow. The chickens that are too fat to walk in the US? Wow.
To be honest, I can see it from a business point of view and understand why it is this way. It's just the most obvious way to make food so cheap so most people can afford it and consume more.
One other point raised that I find very interesting is that they say nowadays vegetables and fruits in the supermarket don't taste like the real thing anymore. They're modified and engineered to look gorgeous and attract buyers, but at the same time the taste and nutritional value are sacrificed. Hmm.
Warning: Unlike my previous foodspams, lots of these might gross you out.
STINKY TOFU (CHAO)
Let's start off with something relatively normal! It's just fermented tofu, with a "stinky" smell. An acquired taste, I'd presume, like durian. I love the soft, non-fried version - the texture is a bit like foie gras. The version I usually eat has very strong taste.
SILKWORM LARVA
My grandma's favourite! They're delicious stir-fried. Very crunchy and rich. I love the bee larva as well. There's this specialised restaurant my parents sometimes take me to - we always order the stir fried bee larva with butter. So buttery and crunchy!
PIG BRAIN OMELETTE
sobs my favourite omelette in the world. Yes it's omelette with pig's brain. Pig's brain is rly good ok. It's high in cholesterol, but the taste is rich and soft like foie gras and it's like heaven. Actually the brain always tastes rly good. Animals whose brain I enjoy: pigs, chickens, fish. /inappropriate Sylar jokes
FISH EYES
Speaking of fish head/brain... I particularly enjoy fish eyes. They're so gelatinous and rich in flavour. My favourite part about fish head tbh.
PIG INTESTINES
Pig's intestine stuffed with pig's blood, fat, herbs, salt and pepper. It's just blood sausage tbh. Similar to Korean soondae! Normally boiled or fried, it's rich in taste, chewy, and just generally very good. My grandma used to live near this pig slaughter house and they'd offer her the best set of fresh intestines they just got from the pigs that morning. Ah, good times.
PIG LIVER
Stir fried pig livers are my favourite. They're different from soft duck/goose liver. Pig livers are harder and darker in taste. Actually I find all intestines from pigs and chickens very good.
BALUTS
This is the point when most Western people scream. Uh it's just an egg, ppl. A very good egg, but an egg. I know the duck embryo might look a bit disturbing, but if one can eat a grown bird/duck and an egg, then what's the problem? Baluts are eaten with salt, herbs, and sliced ginger. The yellow yolk is the best part for me - soft and rich and heavenly. *__*
FIELD RATS
lol I ate this maybe only once, a rly long time ago, but I remember finding it okay and enjoyable at the time. I mean, they are rats, but they are rats on rice fields that eat rice and cereal, not the dirty kind in the city. Once you cook them, it's just like any other kind of meat. A bit like chicken if I remember right.
TONKA JASMINE
And now finally for a peaceful ending! The tonka jasmine is a very pretty flower, we used to grow it in our garden. They're also delicious stir fried. Or cooked in broth. *__* My mom knows a lot of delicious flowers that look so good outside and on the dining table. Tbf, she did spend childhood in a rural village...
lol by now some people are probably going O___O and DDDDD: at this post. Brain? Embryos? Intestines? /bad person, etc. As a carnivore, I find nothing particularly DDD: about this. Tbh, I find them pretty tame and natural compared to processed fast food and instant meals with tons of sketchy chemicals and ingredients.
Speaking of which, I recently watched a lot of documentaries about the food industry, both in the US and in Europe (Food Inc, We Feed The World, etc.) and they're very very interesting. It's not like I ever had any delusion about the food industry, but some stuff are still particularly note-worthy. Bad treatment of animals is no surprise, I knew about processing factories and everything, but the industrial scale with which everything is produced? Wow. I mean, growing up in Asia, I've seen chickens' throats being cut in the backyard, etc. it's all normal life, but to see everything done in such huge scale with all these humonguous machinery? Wow. The chickens that are too fat to walk in the US? Wow.
To be honest, I can see it from a business point of view and understand why it is this way. It's just the most obvious way to make food so cheap so most people can afford it and consume more.
One other point raised that I find very interesting is that they say nowadays vegetables and fruits in the supermarket don't taste like the real thing anymore. They're modified and engineered to look gorgeous and attract buyers, but at the same time the taste and nutritional value are sacrificed. Hmm.