Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page
Categories
QuicksearchLinks
Blog Administration |
Saturday, August 16. 2014Food Quirks, reposted
This will be one of those famous "user participation" posts you read so much about in Blogger's Digress. As we did in Bag O' Links, I'll add any additions left in the comments to the list ASAP. The rule is, two of the foods have to evoke a "Yuck!" when mentioned together, but go perfectly well when a third food is introduced. Another oddity is pepper on bananas. You never see anyone peppering a banana, just because it would look too weird. In secret, or in the confidence of a mate, perhaps. I wouldn't know, I've never tried. It would just look too weird. And here's one I bet you've never tried. How about munching on some barbecue potato chips... then washing them down with chocolate milk? Doesn't sound very appealing, I admit. We're back to that salt-sugar clash. But, assuming you like egg salad sandwiches, the next time you have one, buy a bag of BBQ chips and your favorite brand of chocolate milk. It's just amazing how well the three go together. How about garlic bread and soy sauce? "Yuckypoo!" Exactly. But there I was the other night, eating some garlic 'Texas Toast' with some Chinese eggrolls, dunking the garlic bread in the soy sauce on the plate. Somehow the eggrolls magically tied everything together.
Reader Suggestions And we have our first entry. Due to the horrid, repugnant food combo this person mentions, I'm going to shield him with anonymity so that he might retain what shred of self-decency he has left.
I sure wish I'd eaten breakfast before reading that. I may never eat again.
Or vote.
Fanta orange soda? "Yuck!" I didn't say this post would be pretty.
And yogurt. Say, Bird Dog, are we breaking any "endangering the public health" laws with this post? But Big D's not through horrifying us. Say, you know what makes for a tasty breakfast cereal? Some Quaker Oats with a dash of cinnamon. That cinnamon really makes the dish, doesn't it? Oh, and don't forget to add the apple juice the night before so it turns into a thick, pulpy mass by morning. Bon app�tit!
Oh, wait. You were! Our own Cap'n Tom describes what he calls "Heaven on earth":
For those of you scoring at home, boat people are a little different than regular people.
Ay, chihuahua!
Caramba! Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
I always have liked ketchup on a pile of cottage cheese, on a bed of iceberg lettuce. I read someplace that Nixon did too.
Well, funny you should mention this today, Doc. Last night I made one of the all-time great food anomaly dishes for my mom who is in from out of town. She stuffed her face like I've never seen in all my 50 years. I hope this meets your criteria. (The hook? Shrimp and Fanta, the orange soda. Believe me, it works.)
Mexican Shrimp Cocktail (My Mexican wife verifies the authenticity of this. Cut and pasted below with my modifications, hat tip to Guy Fieri for the main recipe.) Ingredients Shrimp: · 3 teaspoons dried oregano · 3 tablespoons ground cumin · 3 tablespoons crushed garlic · 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt · 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper · 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil · 3 teaspoon hot sauce (recommended: Tapatio) · 2 dozen 21/25 count shrimp, shelled, deveined, and butterflied Cocktail Sauce: · 1 1/2 cups ketchup · 1 1/2 cups orange soda (recommended: Fanta) · 1 cucumber, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes · 2 avocados, peeled, pitted, cut into 1/2-inch cubes · 1 red onion, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes · 6 ounces water (add sparingly, 2 ounces at a time, to get desired consistency) · 3 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves · 2 limes, juiced · 3 tablespoons hot sauce (recommended: Tapatio) · Lime slices, for serving · Saltines Directions For the shrimp: Prepare a grill to medium-high heat. Mix all the ingredients except for the shrimp in a 1-gallon zip lock bag. Add the shrimp and marinate in the refrigerator for up to 6 hours. Remove the shrimp from the marinade and place on the grill. Cook until the meat is opaque. Remove from heat and cool immediately. Cut each shrimp into 4 pieces. For the cocktail sauce: Mix all the ingredients together. Add the shrimp to the sauce. Mix together and serve in martini glasses with slices of lime and saltine crackers. Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Thu Dec 10 2009 © 2009 Scripps Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved Alan’s modifications: 1 lb. cooked peeled/deveined shrimp, sliced if large (In other words, skip the whole marinating/grilling shrimp process) Make sauce as above, using Valentina salsa Add shrimp, and (in lesser amounts than the above marinade calls for, as in that case it is mostly removed after marinating): Oregano Cumin Garlic powder Salt Pepper Hot sauce (homemade arbol chili salsa is great. I use a Rick Bayless recipe, and you can’t go wrong there.) Let marinate maybe 1 hour Serve with tortilla chips (I don’t agree with the saltines recommendation above, and neither does my Mexican wife. Tostitos Restaurant Style are awesome). I don't know that I have my own personal entry but I can offer a recipe that I read in Eating Well Magazine a few months ago that called for tossing hot pasta with garlic and yogurt.
Presumably, this lent a Middle-Eastern influence and was lighter than a sauce made with regular cream. It sounded gross to me, but it might just be one of those miracle combinations if anyone wants to give it a try ..... They're all getting added to the list!
(as painful as that might be) Here's another one; I think I got this one about 20 years ago from the Pritikin Diet cookbook .....
You mix regular rolled oats with a little cinnamon and ...... apple juice. You put in enough juice so that in a few hours or overnight the texture is like regular cooked outmeal. You eat it cold. I confess I ate this frequently back in my twenties and thought it was pretty good. It's been a while ... The first time I heard of those little smoke sausages in the grape jelly and BBQ sauce made me look a little cross eyed at it... but then I tried it.
Whenever we're invited to a pot luck affair I offer to bring my sardine and anchovy casserole. No one's ever taken me up on it. Instead they want me to bring my meatballs cooked in red currant jelly, which are actually pretty good.
You guys are killing me here...
"Smoke sausages" in grape jelly and BBQ sauce?! I'd rather smoke a sausage. Instead I'm going to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette and have a craft beer. It IS after 8 a.m., so that's legit, right? Here's one I saw on the menu of a local Italian restaurant (a very highly-regarded one) about five years ago: A bed of angel hair pasta topped grilled scallops and spicy tomato sauce mixed with a touch of .... mascarpone cheese?
I didn't order it. Big Al - All I know is that "it's 5 o'clock somewhere", and that's good enough for us here in the islands. Bottoms up! (clink!)
D - I've never even heard of mascarpone cheese before, so this one's a bit of a dud. Can I use limburger? It's somewhat like cream cheese only softer and sweeter. It is usually used in desserts, not against spicy tomato sauce. Yuck.
Gotcha, although I still think I'll let it slide. The Yuck Factor just isn't high enough to satisy the rigorous yuck standards here at Maggie's Farm. Only yuck with the highest pedigree need apply. Thats just the way we are.
Remember those round cardboard individual containers of vanilla ice cream from grade school? Scoop up the slightly melted ice cream with salty potato chips. Yum! Plus you got the added bonus of horrified stares from your classmates.
The whole sweet-plus-meat thing is a Medieval Europe specialty, and continues to the present in some cuisines (e.g., Belgium). Baste that pork roast with apricot jam near the end of the cooking, or make a sandwich of toasted bread, mayo, sliced pork or lamb, hard-boiled egg (optional), salt, and apricot jam. What about fresh strawberries and balsamic vinegar? It's wonderful. Or my favorite summer breakfast dish: cottage cheese with fresh tomato (marinate pieces in olive oil, salt, and oregano for 5 minutes first to intensify the tomato taste.)
Sweet and hot or salty makes a food "savory." Any spicy dish with sweet elements in it, like dried fruit, is usually great. Mascarpone cheese is a soft cheese and the main ingredient of tarimisu. And the only reason I know that is the Mrs. makes one wicked pissa' tarimisu.
It ain't too bad tasting - kind of like a very soft farmer's cheese. Disgusting eats? Dehydrated eggs on dehydrated mashed potatos smothered in dehydrated gravy mixed with Red River water strained through a sock, salted the hell out of and cooked over a can of Sterno. YUMMMMYYYYY.......... We should start a "Tales of Battlefield Rations" thread. :>) Poontang, Bird Dog?! I thought more than Canadians ate it...
I wasn't exactly sure what poutine is so I did a Google search for it. This was the first line displayed:
"Poutine is a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curd." Pardon my asking, but isn't "fresh curd" an oxymoron? Cheese and apricot jelly.
Oatmeal w juice of limes, powdered milk, sugar. Eat it unheated. Key lime pie for breakfast. Peanut butter with anything. In case anybody's wondering why their suggestion didn't get posted, the operative word here is "quirks", not "grossness". :)
G - Why powdered milk? The juice of the limes provides the liquid. It would make the dish too "liquidy" to add milk instead of powdered milk. OK , I may add a touch of water at times - milk would do- if it is too solid. Need just enough liquid to soften the oatmeal a bit, but not to turn into a mush.
Yeah ... a little "D" would've helped my Philadelphia Eagles last year!
The first time I tried habanero peppers it was a habanero jelly on sliced bananas.
They go together like you wouldn't believe. Fruit with hot peppers: yes indeed! This year's bumper crop of peaches is combining quite well with jalapenos marinated in vinegar. Add to anything. Any fruit, dried or fresh, will do.
But fruit with hot peppers isn't wierd or eccentric, but simply good cooking. I ran across it in a cookbook over 20 years ago. Sweet and salty? Absolutely -- any chocolate-and-peanut-butter candy qualifies, as does caramel popcorn.
Sweet and meat is not uncommon either. My husband makes a terrific Mexican stew with pork, plantains, green olives, almonds, raisins, tomatoes, and peppers. Or for something more common, sweet-and-sour chicken or pork. Or duck a l'orange. My mother used to serve us the strangest 50s-style salad with bananas, peanut butter, and mayonnaise with a maraschino cherry on top. I know, I know, but it actually was pretty good. Best sandwich ever! Rye Bread, Mayo, bologna & peanut butter.
Bologna and...peanut butter?? On rye bread??
My first thought when reading that was, 'You win!" Hmm... with some mayonnaise and a touch of pickle, the ketchup would become Thousand Island dressing, and cottage cheese on a salad isn't all that odd. (even though that fact makes me slightly queasy - maybe some ricotta instead?)
Peanut butter with mer/whip on white or wheat
Tartar sauce on corn-on-the-cob Peanut butter on white toast, spread on some mustard, then add 6 or 7 small pimento olives (one per bite)
I cook meatballs in a sauce made of hot salsa [my own mix] and blackberry jam. Tastes great.
Also, I pick fresh tomatoes, cut them in chinks, cut sweet onions into separated rounds and cover them both with a heated mixture of bacon fat and malt vinegar [you can add spice as you like]. Practically everyone I serve this ti goes "Yuck" followed by "Yum". Peanut butter and lettuce sandwiches.
Must be iceberg lettuce--the crunchiest pieces only. Everyone thinks I'm strange in the family, but I believe I came up with this combo as a kid because it was similar to celery-and-peanut-butter. It works for me because it is less sweet than PB and J and the lettuce provides a kind of moisture that is needed with the PB. Remember those individual size cardboard tubs of vanilla ice cream you would get for school lunches? Dip your warm (heat lamp) potato chips in the slightly runny melting edges of the ice cream.
Yum! Salty/crunchy/warm with cool/creamy. No weird food here; just appreciating having a little of Doc M back!
|