Tasty versions of horrible foods

[John Coloccia]

Now wait! What do I do with the cabbage? Just chop it into fine strands? Does it have to age?

I buy my cabbage in bags marked "Sauerkraut". Sometimes I age it in the freezer until I'm ready to use it.

I like my kraut, but I'm not hardcore

[Darius Ferlas]

If you could post a full-ish recipe, that would be awesome. I have tried to mimic the taste of real German sauerkraut a bunch of times. But I have never been able to reduce the acidity that makes generic American sauerkraut so unpleasant without it becoming bland.

There is a simple way to reduce the acidity. Rinse it with cold water. You can do it using running water but this may take too much acidity away. For some sauerkraut recipes where rinsing is recommended I usual give sauerkraut a cold water bath in a proportion of 1 part of water 3 part of sauerkraut. Rather than poring out the excess water after about 10 minutes, I scoop the kraut out of the water. The proportions can be changed to suit your taste.

Another way is to add grated apple or carrots. Not too much though. I'd say 1/4 of a medium apple to a quart of sauerkraut and let it bite through (i.e. stand for 2-3 hours).

This won't work with most US and Canadian sauerkraut brands though. They add all kinds of things that are pure blasphemy in the production of real sauerkraut. If you want a genuine taste then all you need is cabbage, salt, stoneware to make it in, about an hour of work and 4 to 6 weeks of wait time. Some recipes suggest adding a handful of grated carrots, apples (my choice is Egremont Russet), or wine. Never add vinegar! That's what they do around here to speedup the fermentation process.

If you're not into making food yourself you can try to locate the nearest Polish or German store - same difference when it comes to food. I'm not sure about German brands as our local German store carried Polish made sauerkraut. Look for labels such as Krakus, Pinczow (where I was born), Pudliszki, S&F (they import from Europe). Do not buy food with a prefix "German Style..." or"Polish Style..." since these are equivalent to "Kinda, sorta...".

I know there are over 100 recipes based on sauerkraut but back at home we used only about a dozen or so.

[george wilson]

The Spam mention reminds me of a WWII story: The officers from an Aussie group who never got anything to eat but corned beef(bully beef to them) were invited to dinner with American officers. The Americans apologized for the Spam,but the Aussies loved it,having not had it before. Thereafter,a trade of canned corned beef for Spam was arranged.

I'll tell you what I think is bad: Quaker packaged red eye gravy flavored grits!!!! It ISN'T the real thing!!! Not that I am crazy about salt cured ham either,but the grits taste rancid to me.

[Curt Harms]

George's thread reminds me of something sorely lacking in the Northern larder--Country Ham!!!! I love the stuff for breakfast with eggs and haven't been where it's sold for quite a while. At least some Cracker Barrels will sell it by the pound so I may have to stop in to one of those. When I was growing up I had a distant relative that had a "locker plant". Does that ring a bell with anyone? This was before home freezers were common. It was a butcher shop with a freezer room and a bunch of big drawers in it. You'd have the owner process a critter and store it in one or more of these lockers. Then you brought it home a few pieces at a time to store in the refrigerator/freezer. He processed ham that tasted like country ham although it had to be frozen and the process was not as long as real country ham.

[Belinda Barfield]

You non Southerners got no grits . . . you got no country ham . . . you got no sweet tea . . . how DO you survive?

Do y'all have "Pig Pickins" or "Pasture Parties"? If so that would at least make life almost tolerable. Oh, and 'maters . . . do y'all get good fresh 'maters?

[Curt Harms]

You non Southerners got no grits . . . you got no country ham . . . you got no sweet tea . . . how DO you survive?

Do y'all have "Pig Pickins" or "Pasture Parties"? If so that would at least make life almost tolerable. Oh, and 'maters . . . do y'all get good fresh 'maters?

T'aint easy, Belinda. We do get 'maters though not as early as I'd like. Somehow I just can't envision "Pig Pickins" or "Pasture Parties" in "Upper Buckingbury" as my realtor wife refers to an area near us with way too many McMansions.

[John Sanford]

Another defender of Spam here. I like it grilled up nice and crispy with breakfast, and Spam Musubi is a joy, plus Spam is a good ingredient in Hawaiian Saimin (noodle soup.)

I also like grits, courtesy of the US Army Military Police School, formerly located at Fort McClellan, Alabama. Grits with butter and maybe sugar. (depends on mood and availability of the sugar.)

Good corned beef hash is a joy, lousy is a change from other breakfast meats.

Macaroni and Cheese: the bizarre thing about Mac and Cheese is that the Kraft Mac and Cheese is so much better than the store brands and knock offs. It's scary how dreadful the knockoffs are, because classic Kraft Mac and Cheese is merely tolerable. It can be dressed up by adding some Velveeta (started doing it before Kraft figured it out), or even some real cheddar, just not too much. Lots of pepper helps.

And then I went to Smith and Wollinsky here, and one of the side dishes was Macaroni and Cheese. Ohhhhhh my, it was heavenly. It was a close thing between what was better, the prime rib, or the Mac and Cheese.

Now, here are two foods for which there simply are no tasty versions:

Poi. If it has taste (other than perhaps a little bitterness), it's not poi. Poi has the texture of the paste we ate in gradeschool, and less taste.

Camp pie. The only way to describe it is "tinned sheep", because that's what it is. It sounded interesting, and it was "interesting", but then, so is a root canal. Not fun, not pleasant, but definitely interesting.... The cat wouldn't touch it, and even the dog was hesitant. If anybody can think of a tasty version of it, I'd like to hear it.

Btw, frying okra does nothing to improve it. Boiled okra is slime covered slimey core. Fried okra is crunchy covered slimy core. Notice the commonality?

Beef tongue is actually quite tasty, as is beef heart. Both are simply muscle, and both have fairly strong beefiness.

[John Sanford]

Ohhh, ohh, I missed one, related to the grits.

There's one other way I like my grits. With butter and syrup. And that brings up a horrible food, "pancake syrup", and the wonderful real thing, maple syrup. Real maple syrup.

[Jim Matthews]

Spam is pork shoulder.

It's shelf-stable for AGES.

Roasted, or cooked in a toaster oven, sliced to 1/4" thick it's excellent.

Straight out of the can, it's a consistency repellant to most white people (we don't seem to like jellied things, other than fruit cups).

As someone who has lived and worked on four continents, let me say this about food:
Lower on the food chain is cheaper, and often safer.
Closer to the bone for better flavor.
If you're going to kill it, you should eat it all.

I can only imagine what posters on this thread think about raw oysters. (Or durian, for that matter.)
More for me!

[Stephen Tashiro]

Btw, frying okra does nothing to improve it. Boiled okra is slime covered slimey core. Fried okra is crunchy covered slimy core.

If you slice it and fry well enough, it isn't slimy. Sliced and breaded okra can be excellent. Unfortunately the fried breaded okra at most restaurants doesn't taste much like okra. It usually has too much bread on it.

I prefer a modest amount of okra slime as a thickening agent over thickening with corn starch. Corn starch doesn't have a bad taste but it gives things the feel of sauces at inexpensive Chinese restaurants.

[Chris Fournier]

So far I haven't really seen anything truly horrible but I confess that I do have a bit of a "Circus Geek Streak" in me. I can offer up my experience of a horrible version of a tasty food as a twist.

My wife taught in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. I came up to visit her in the winter for a couple of years running. She had warned me of some of the peculiarities of the culture but kept her mouth shut about others. One of these others was the "Community Feast". For a week there was a buzz in the village about the feast - bring what you got they said, or don't bring anything, there'll be plenty of fresh game. "Right on I said, I'm gonna really strap on the feed bag!" The Inuit loved this attitude and gave me a great slaps on the back and said "see you there".

The evening of the feast, we gathered in the school gym with everyone sitting around the walls looking into the centre of the gym floor. "Cool" I thought, casual, I haven't overdressed. Some Inuit men then came in and spread out 6 mil poly on the centre of the floor - about 6' square. "Hmm" I thought, either we're gonna vapour barrier something before we eat or they don't have any gingham tablecloths. Work up an appetite anyways. Well not for long.

Next in came the Inuit women with all of their carefully prepared wild game: Caribou, Walrus, Seal, Whale, Ptarmigan, Arctic Char. "Well not very fancy presentation" I thought as the feast was brought in in 5 gallon buckets. Come to think of it no one had brought me a paper plate or plastic cutlery either. Everyone was getting very excited so I knew that I'd have to just hold my own in this crowd, Chinette plate or no. Well the Inuit women filed in and emptied the contents of their 5 gallon buckets one after the other on the 6 mil poly until it was piled about a footand a half high and covered almost all of the poly.

I can only tell you that what they had prepared looked like a fatal mass transit accident, the one where you're the first on the scene, the one that gives you nightmares. My dear wife had not mentioned to me during the build up to this feast that all of the food was raw, there would be no veggies and dip, scalloped potatoes, Jello salads or sharing of favourite recipes. She still laughs at me when she tells this storey and hauls out the print film photos that she took. She was kind enough to restrain me at the outset of the feast and let me know that the women were to select their food first and that the eyeballs - seal and caribou - even if there were any left when I got up to dine - were for the women only. She didn't want me to be rude.

So call me up and invite me over for fried spam and head cheese in a boiled ocra reduction carefully placed on a bed of cheese whiz infused grits and I'll likely be there. I will even eat it off of 6 mil poly and likely rub my tummy afterwards while I share pictures of the Arctic Community Feast with you.

Footnote: The Inuit were fantastic hosts, loved to "take you out on the land" and share meals with you. They could be found on weekends at the Hudson Bay Store eating really lousy fried burgers and oven baked frozen fries in the tiny "restaraunt" at all hours.

[Bill Cunningham]

Well!! On a 'one-up-manship' that may very well have brought a end to this thread..
Reminds me of the Monty Python skit of the fat guy in the dining room, saying Just mix it all up in a bucket.. Before he exploded... I'm in Canada too, but darn few Inuit in my area..

[ray hampton]

Spam straight out of the can is good on hard tack, I also like
fried Okra, I eat a number of things that other persons find
dis-tasting
how many people eat the lowly liver ?

[Leigh Betsch]

I'm not sure it fits the thread title as a tasty version of horrible food but if you ever get a chance to hunt and harvest your own meat you will hard pressed to find better meat than antelope. Most people destroy their wild game by not processing it correctly, but if you get the hide of quickly you'll not find much better than antelope. Antelope is very good but pheasant has got to be right at the top.

[Curt Fuller]

If you've ever been to any kind of gathering in Utah that involves "potluck" food then you have to know about green Jello with carrots, frog eye salad, and funeral potatoes. Utah leads the world in per capita consumption of Jello. The most common is the green (lime) jello with shredded carrots in it, sometimes they add cottage cheese too. That gives it a weird pastel green color with the chunks of cheese and the carrots. Frog eye salad is some kind of a combination of acini di pepe pasta, marshmallows, pineapple, marachino cherries, and shredded coconut. I don't know the rest of what's in it but I love the stuff. Then the funeral potoatos (I guess they got there name because someone always brings them for dinner after a funeral) is frozen hash browns mixed with cream of chicken soup and sour cream, covered with shredded cheese and corn flakes and baked. They're pretty good eating. I'm not a real world traveler but those three things seem to be pretty imbedded in Utah culture.