Kitchen

[retiredatlast]

I grew up eating pickled cow's tongue.  My father was a kosher butcher and he would brine his own corned beef and beef tongue that he sold in his shop.  It made delicious deli sandwiches on rye bread. 

The most disgusting thing anyone I knew ate was beef lung.  My best friend's mother would braise it for hours.  I never tasted it.  It looked totally gross.  My friend said it was kind of spongy.......ugh!

Another gross thing that my parent's made was a Jewish dish called pitsha, not sure of the spelling.  It was a broth made from a lot of beef bones with cartilage that would jell.  The cartilage was taken off the bones and chopped up and put into the broth.  A lot of garlic, onions and chopped hard boiled eggs were folded in and it was put in a casserole dish and allow to chill.  It set up like a totally disgusting pan of jello and you cut pieces to eat cold.  I would never even try it and the house smelled awful when it was cooking.  I never knew anyone outside of my family that ever made or heard of this. No wonder!

[SandySparkles]

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@ECBG wrote:

@jlkz @Travone @SandySparkles 

Girls, just thought I'd mention that if you have never had beef tongue, you haven't lived!  It's horrible!!!!!  I've tasted it!

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@ECBG I have had it ONE time!😁 My dear mother would cook it for herself and my uncles, and served it to my siblings and me a few times!🤢 We just COULD NOT eat it, but after viewing this video, I understand more of why they ate EVERYTHING!🥰 It was one of a few dishes she did not force us to eat-THANK GOODNESS!😁 It is one dish I NEVER asked to be shown how to prepare it!😂

~~~All we need is LOVE💖

~~~All we need is LOVE💖

[ECBG]

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@PA Mom-mom wrote:

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@ECBG wrote:

@jlkz @Travone @SandySparkles 

Girls, just thought I'd mention that if you have never had beef tongue, you haven't lived!  It's horrible!!!!!  I've tasted it!

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@ECBG  Cow tongue is delicious! It tastes like the most tender beef you ever had. You must have had tongue that wasn't cooked properly. It needs to be peeled, and I usually simmer it low and slow with some onions, garlic and bay leaves. You could throw in carrots and celery as well.

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@PA Mom-mom 

At that time, my younger sister and I were living with my grandparents on a mountain farm with 100 beef cattle.

  My grandmother was a wonderful baker but could cook many items including the game my grandfather shot.

From time to time we had "mean" rabbits or squrrel for breakfast or dinner.  I know they were mean because 10 year old me asked!

A man couldn't possibly parent a child, ask any judge!!!

[MalibuFox]

@retiredatlast  well I had to look this one up! And guess what it's on the menu at the 2nd Ave Deli in Manhattan 😀 

[PA Mom-mom]

@ECBG  I would take wild rabbit, floured and fried in butter, over the best lobster or steak any day! Second would be pheasant and then squirrel. I miss those days of watching for my dad and brothers trudging home from hours of hunting with their coats bulging with game.

[Othereeeen]

"Great Depression Cooking with Clara" is a YT video series that popped up in my feed....

Clara died in 2013 at 96, so she lived during the Depression and her nephew made videos of her cooking Depression meals  before she died....She used very simple ingredients, and she cooks with her old pans and a paring knife in her old kitchen...

NO fancy appliances and gew gahs or any of the stuff we're told we MUST have today to make a peanut butter sandwich!!!

I LOVE Clara!!!

When they show her hands as she peels potatoes of pares an apple, they look like my Mom's hands. She died in 2015 at 95. She had great recipes too, and taught us kids how to cook with simple ingredients. She was a little lady like Clara.

Check her out!

[Othereeeen]

@retiredatlast 

That jellied meal sound a bit like "head cheese".....made from boiling the fat and meat scraps off the skinned head of a pig, then adding chopped carrots, garlic and peas and allowing it to gel in a glass roasting pan....

I actually like it!

BuT....I've only eaten store bought from a NYC delicatessen...(not the stuff you can sometimes find today in a grocery store.......bleeechhhhh..!! Home made is delicious....)

I guess in hard times EVERYTHING on the animal was put to use.....which is a good thing and a respect for the animal's life.

Dandelion greens for salad. I read about this, and tried to find enough "good" leaves to try it since I had 180,000 dandelions in my lawn....but thoses had tiny useless leaves.....you actually have to use the long larger leaves of those that grow up big in your garden. Yes they are bitter, but they were free!!!

I just noticed there is chicory growing along the roadside across the road from my rural home....it's roots are used as a coffee substitute. It has gorgeous blue flowers for a weed, and the darn deer don't appear to eat it. I'm going to save some seeds and see if I can plant it on my property for next year....

[retiredatlast]

@MalibuFox  Wow!  Thanks for that information.  I have never seen this anywhere before.  I guess it was not just my crazy family that made it. Can't believe people would pay to eat this!!!!

[Othereeeen]

@retiredatlast 

My local TOPS and Shurfine sell pigs' feet ( not pickled, just feet)....and they also sell packages of chicken feet!!!

I asked the butcher at TOPS what people do with chicken feet....he said they boil them down for the collagen ( or what we called aspic I guess)....

The pig feet I don't know what they're used for....

I LIKE to try any unusual foods that many others won't eat. We did have beef tongue when we were kids(I'm 68), and as I recall, it was OK....My mom was a great cook and I don't think she really TOLD us what we were eating...but she DID often say ...

"This is dinner. There will be nothing else tonight....so if you're hungry....." You know the rest!

I like chicken livers, calves liver ( but NOT beef liver), head cheese, lamb shanks, Raw oysters and raw clams, and will try almost anything once ( if it's TOO bizarre, someone else has to eat a portion FIRST to prove it's not poisoned or spoiled!!!!).

You never know what you might be missing! Think of gorgonzola, Leiderkarnz or Limburger cheese for instance....YUM!!!

I could NOT eat dog or cat or even horsemeat ( some cultures do) for obvious reasons.It's a cultural taboo ...I'm sure it's good or millions wouldn't eat it. Flesh is flesh.

I WOULD try insects. IF they're hidden in something else!

There was  nutty guy I worked with who was a prepper always getting ready for the end of the world...he was practicing eating earthworms to prepare right before he retired....raw, not cooked. Sheeesh. Crackpottery on display for all to see....

He was not a  popular co worker to the others....!!!! And no one went to his funeral. 

It was not his only quirk. He didn't beleive in dentists and used fast hardening epoxy and crushed bathroom tile to make "fillings"....in his mouthful of black teeth from constant tobacco chewing.

Takes all kinds!

[blinksmom]

Othereeen, I love watching Cooking with Clara. I actually have her little cook book.