The term offal is used a lot in the UK. Mr Bingley isn't jsut talking about the bits inside a chicken, used for gravy. It refers to anything beyond the main meat of the animal such as liver, kidney, heart, the bits that become tripe (yuk), sweetbreads, etc. We need bel for this, the French love their offal.
Ohhh~hhh, so does this mean i should change my plan of offering Fois Gras and Sauternes at the upcoming birthday party?? Sorry, my dear Rapunzel, but i simply *adore* the stuff...
For offal, my dictionary gives as second meaning, "refuse, garbage". Glad to hear UK version is more palatable. I have never before heard it used to mean anything fit to eat.I can guarantee you will never see any supermarkets here advertisiing offal for sale.
My father used to be fond of pickled cow stomach, the part that looks like over sized honeycomb, called tripe. I would eat it, rather than offend him, but I have never bought any. Haggis I have been told is a variety of bits of heart, lung,liver, kidneys etc with oatmeal and other vegetables and seasonings cooked in a sheep stomach. I have never had any, and would not much care to partake of it, but the Yankee in me approves of not wasting any food. "Wilful waste brings woeful want."
At a Burns Day dinner a portion of haggis was portioned out and since I had never had it before and will try most things once, I ate some, taking my cue from more experienced eaters -- I ate just the inside, the meat, spices etc ...Delicious! Then about 30 minutes later I started to itch and small welts appeared ... I am allergic to liver and didn't realize there was any in the haggis! Minor outbreak that an antihistamine tablet and lots of water took care of. But no haggis for me anymore which I do not regret as I am not a fan of internal organ meats. wow
ooof, I also, have only heard the word offal to describe animal waste.
Most Québecois I know are not overly fond of eating beastly internal organs like tripe, kidney or heart. I do have several French (from France) friends who do love these. A lot of people do like liver though.
There is also on concoction that the older generation used to eat a lot of. It is call boudin (boo-dane). It is spiced congealed beef blood in a piece of tripe (like a sausage). It smells absolutely awful while cooking. I am usually game on tasting anything but I just can`t make myself try it. The only thing that comes to mind is a scab and (sorry, I can`t continue, yuck, yuck, yuck).
Offals Of course, the Pennsylvania Dutchman has to note that one of the famous dishes using offals is scrapple, which is basically cornmeal mush with the addition of the offals from slaughtering a hog. While there are those, including many non-Dutchmen, who love it, I can't stand the stuff. It comes in large bricks, which you slice and fry. When you're frying it, it smells like the town garbage dump is on fire.
Now on the other hand, tripe is really something else. There is a dish native to Philadelphia called Pepper Pot. It's a soup and includes small pieces of tripe. One of my favorites.
And then there is Tripes a la mode de Caen -- my mouth is watering just thinking about that.
i hadn't realized menudo was made out of tripe...thanks for ruining it for me
anyone like Korean food? there's a soup called shul-lung thang that pretty much includes the entire cow, sans the skin and bones. there's another Korean dish that is made mostly out of tripe (i can't recall the name) but at least in that case it's still 'whole' so you know what it is you're getting into as you browse the buffet. i've never been able to get past the appearance, though i've heard it's delicious. oh dear, i'm beginning to feel a bit ill...
Oh, my. How interesting that "offal" is edible across the pond. I'm thinking happy thoughts about sun-ripened tomatoes, and corn on the cob that you pick, clean on the way back from the garden, and boil as soon as you get inside.
And speaking of "corn," I know that the term once was a generic term for "grain" (I haven't tried to explain that to my three-year-old yet, although we have a book which talks about bunnies hiding in the corn but pictures them in a wheat field; very confusing for him) and I wonder whether it is still used that way outside of the US. If so, what is the term used to describe maize? Maize, I suppose. [puzzled emoticon]
Then perhaps the way to do it is through the discussion of words. US/UK differences I've noticed:
Cookie/Biscuit Cookie/Cookie Biscuit/Bun Bacon/Pork Scratchings (joking - but it seems that way) Canadian Bacon/Bacon Butter/Unsalted butter Cheese/Goo What?/Cheese Sandwich/"What do you mean no butter?" Pop/Soft drink Soda/Soft drink Club soda/Soda Rum/White Rum Poison/Salt
Shanks wrote Bacon/Pork Scratchings (joking - but it seems that way)
When in Ireland I was served Irish bacon which was like a fatty ham, more ham than fat. In US what we call bacon is called "streaky bacon" in Ireland and is cheaper than Irish bacon. wow
In US what we call bacon is called "streaky bacon" in Ireland and is cheaper than Irish bacon.
Zigackly. And Ferpick!
Not just streaky, but crispy too. Crispy bacon is the way we would describe US bacon (pork scratchings was an exaggeration).
Best bacon description I've ever read - James Herriott (I misremember the book) speaking of sharing a pan that was virtually all blubber, with a farmer, after a difficult night for the vet.
James Herriott (I misremember the book) speaking of sharing a pan that was virtually all blubber, with a farmer, after a difficult night for the vet.
Oh, yes ... and when I saw the TV version the look on the Vet's face was hilarious ... the thought of that pan of greasy fat made me gag! I'll take my bacon crisp, thank you very much. Anyone for bacon n' eggs? wow
In deference to certain members' sensibilities I shall not even begin to describe what goes into sop buntut .
what in the world is an oxtail?? i tried to googlize it and got only recipes, and atomica merely calls it 'the tail of an ox'. Tail, to me, means the hind quarters. Surely it can't be the tail itself!?!? [ewww]
Watching "Red Dwarf' a character keeps talking about curry vindaloo. HELP .. it's driving me nuts. Nutttier ... er...um....well... wow
P.S. To AnnaS This is geting rather long ... could you start another thread ... maybe Birthday, Thread Two ... that is, after someone explains vindaloo ??? Aloha
Not here in NZ. For us, maize is the type of corn used to make cornflour, corn chips, etc. No one that I know would ever dream of eating "maize on the cob." A friend of mine who died recently was largely responsible for developing and introducing several varieties of what were intially called "supersweet" corn to NZ, and he never called them maize either. One of them, honey and pearl, is actually too sweet for my taste.
OK, all ... Switch this to "Party on the FOURteenth" thread started by Jackie in this category ... by suggestion of Jackie and AnnaS, Just passin' the news along. Old reporter can't resist a "scoop." wow Oh, somebody please send via private answer to vindaloo ? Please?
Spicy, fatty pork dish from Goa, incorporating the glorious Southern Indian coconut and spices tradition with the Protuguese pork culture and coming up with a sublimely delicious (f your palate and liver can take it) dish, that goes hand in hand with other Goan classic like sorpotel (shorrpo-thell) {almost exclusively diced cubes of pork fat cooked in a deep red 'sauce' of melted fat!!) and Goa(n) sausage - not like any other suasage I've seen, been a set of approximately one inch in diameter 'beads' of meat and spices wrapped in dried crackly 'skin' all held together by string (and you throw away the skin and string when you cook it). Recommended that these dishes be eaten with rice, a glass of cashew feni on the side (remember that every bodily juice will stink of this liquor for the next week)*, and followed up by the heavy, multi-layered unleavened cake called Bebinca (usually pronounced bay-bee(n)k).
2. vin duh-loo Dish native to the UK, based upon the famous indigenous 'curry' cuisine which uses Indian names and a well-graded system of 'spiciness' to rank curries from mild through medium to hot. Vindaloo, along with Madras, is one of the hottest curries available on the standard curry scale. The curry industry is run primarily by immigrants from Bangladesh, and appears to consist of the creation of:
a. Sauce number 1 - orange, thick, mild, made primarily of tomatoes b. Meat selection - diced lamb, chicken (pork for something exotic) c. Style selection - chooped onions for 'dupiaza' dishes, melted butter for 'makhni' etc. And a 'quickspice' attachment, no doubt, to bring the dish up to strength on the scale.
Vindaloo is by way of being the national dish of Britain. Forget all you're heard of rosbif, or fish'n'chips in newspepr, recent surveys have shown that curry is without question the most popular cuisine in terms of restaurant numbers and restaurant visits/take-out orders, with vindaloo being the most popular curry strength. Now let's see the French say that English cooking has no flavour - we've got more than 7 distinct strengths of curry. So there!
cheer
the sunshine warrior
*Actually, though fenni is the native Goan liquor, it is foul. I recommend, rather, a cold bottled beer (nice, big 650 ml bottles in India), and if you're in a beach shack, do not feel ashamed to ask them to put ice in your beer. It'll hardly dilute the strength, since you'll be drinking it so quickly, but it will help keep it cool.
Vindaloo Many thanks, Shanks, for the straight dope on real Vindaloo. In this part of the world, Indian cuisine was virtually unknown 20 years ago but is now beoming quite popular, along with Thai cuisine. Vindaloo is always "lamb vindaloo". As prepared at our local Indian restaurants, it's chunks of lean lamb in a brown sauce, very hot with a complex blend of spices.
Shanks, dear heart! Thank you for clearing up The Great Vindaloo Mystery for me! It all makes sense now.
Serendipitously I have learned never to order it ... In my youth I could eat nails and spit battleships but, alas, those days are gone. Age Hath It's Privileges (AHIP) but spicey food is not one of them. Thanks again wow
Everybody now go over to the thread "Party on the FOURteenth" started by Jackie and now resting at 10th place in the Info/Announce category .... requested by Jackie and others.. because this thread is waaaaay toooo long. Respectfully submitted wow
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site.
Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to
hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.
