Food

[Black Tulip]

Feeding flan to someone else?

Jeez, you really are something else.



What do you mean, collide with something Atkins? You can't collide with Atkins, you only bounce off.

 

[jeanne_d_artois]

French Cheese

I am going on a day trip to France, starting early so that I can go to a farmers' market.

The local Pas de Calais cheeses are described as "puyant" = pongy. This time I will remember the Tupperware containers so that we don't have to drive with all the car windows open in February.

It is easy to find the market - just follow your nose. Some of the cheeses smell dreadful but the taste - merveilleux!

Jeanne

 

[shereads]

Re: Shipboard

The Willem Ruys became the Achille Lauro and eventually sunk.

I was building quite an appetite from this post until the sinking.



What an awful thing to have happen to a lovely memory.

 

[shereads]

I was just reminded that Persian food is a favorite. I have Iranian friends, sisters, who make the most exquisitely exotic rice dishes I've ever had. Persian rice is very light with long kernals. There is one made with a dried fruit that only comes from Iran.

Perdita, have you ever had this dessert? I'm not sure what nationality invented it; it's just called "Middle Eastern Cheese Dessert" at a local Lebanese restaurant. It's as if flan and warm bread pudding and egg custard and canollis and creme brulee and sweet ricotta had all interbred and produced a mutant super-breed of creamy dessert, that dances around on your tongue for a little while and then attaches itself directly to your thighs and tummy.

I can't describe it, so I googled a recipe:



KADAYIF (MIDDLE EASTERN CHEESE DESSERT)

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
2 c Sugar
1 1/2 c Water
2 tb Fresh Lemon Juice
3/4 c Golden Raisins
1 tb Grated Lemon Zest
3/4 c Water Or White Wine
1 1/2 lb Whole Milk Ricotta
1/2 lb Light Cream Cheese <<Or>>
1/2 lb Fresh Goat Cheese
1 lb Kataifi (Shredded Filo)
1 c Butter (2 Sticks), melted

Add the sugar, water and lemon juice to a saucepan and
bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10
minutes, washing down any sugar crystals on sides of
pan with a brush dipped in cold water. Set syrup aside
to cool.

In a separate small saucepan, warm the raisins and
lemon zest in the water or wine and allow to sit for a
few minutes for raisins to plump. Drain and coarsely
chop raisins and set aside. Reserve liquid.

Drain the ricotta of any excess liquid and beat it
together with the cream cheese. Stir in raisins.
Mixture should be soft and easily spreadable. If not,
beat in some of raisin poaching liquid.

Remove kataifi from box and loosen shreds in a large
bowl. Toss shreds with melted butter to coat. Arrange
half of the coated shreds in the bottom of a 9 x13
baking dish or pan and top with cheese mixture. Place
remaining kataifi evenly over top pressing them
lightly into cheese mixture. Bake covered with foil in
a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Uncover
and bake for another 30 minutes or until kataifi is
crisp and golden. Serve warm or at room temperature
drizzled with lemon syrup.

Yield: 12-16 servings

Copyright, 1996, TV FOOD NETWORK, G.P., All Rights

---------------

Sometimes I think butterfat is intelligent life and the rest of us are just a means to an end.

 

[Guest]

ella, I haven't had that but my Persian friends introduced me to some Iranian creme-fraiche stuff to put on bread and fruit but I just eat it out of the bowl.

There is a Greek dessert called (spelling phonetically here) galaktaboorrikoh. It's like a pudding between filo dough and honey. My ex mom-in-law made it and I try it in restaurants but it's nothing like hers.

Perdita

p.s. recipes do me no good. I make a few things really well, otherwise hate to cook or bake.

 

[shereads]

It's like a pudding between filo dough and honey.

Aiiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!! Make it stop!!!!!!!!!!

p.s. recipes do me no good. I make a few things really well, otherwise hate to cook or bake.

I don't bake either; I just used the recipe to describe the dessert because "Cheese Dessert" sounds awful.

My sibling got the gene for cooking. I am the queen of take-out.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The only ethnic cuisine I’ve ever had that I didn’t really care for was in a Guatamalan restaurant. They seem to be fond of some spice that makes everything taste like dirt. I mean, earthy tastes are one thing, but this actually tasted like loam.

I also wasn’t very impressed with Vietnamese, which seemed a pale reflection of Chinese, but maybe I didn’t order right. The spring rolls were okay, but the main dish was a deep bowl with rice at the bottom and vegetables and meat on top and tasted an awful lot like American chop suey. However, the best place I know to get baguettes is a Vietnamese bakery. They seem to do French better than they do Vietnamese.

---dr.M.

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Re: Shipboard

I was building quite an appetite from this post until the sinking.



What an awful thing to have happen to a lovely memory.

But in my memory the Willem Ruys still sails, pride of her company, staffed by intelligent, young, enthusiastic Dutch men and women, and still serves wonderful food.

She visits exotic places as they were. I can still eat curry in Kandy, Sri Lanka. I can still ride bareback on a wet elephant in a Sri Lankan river. I can visit the Crater district in Aden in the back of a heavily armed Land Rover and buy a duty-free camera from an open fronted shop.

I can swim in the Willem Ruys' first class swimming pool, chat to Dutch rubber planters returning to Indonesia, and know that if I eat a piece of fruit from the basket in my cabin it will be replaced within the hour.

If I leave a wet towel to dry in the shower room it will be whisked away and replaced by a fresh one wrapped in cellophane.

When my memory arrives in Sydney the major landmark will be the harbour bridge. The Opera House has yet to be built.

I can still taste the food. The chocolate cake with the morning coffee is still too rich for my young taste. The pastries with 4 o'clock tea are better.

Whenever I think of the Willem Ruys I shed forty plus years and am thankful for the people who looked after me and seemed to enjoy doing it. I danced a waltz with my cabin stewardess one evening. Why not? In her formal dress she outshone the elderly lady passengers. I had only one dance before the adult male passengers claimed her but I can still feel her body against mine. She practised her English with me. I tried to learn Dutch but learned other things instead.

Og

 

[destinie21]

well after reading this thread I'm off to work out

 

[shereads]

The only ethnic cuisine I’ve ever had that I didn’t really care for was in a Guatamalan restaurant.

I've heard that Irish cuisine sucks. Can anyone confirm this? A friend ordered chicken soup on a cold foggy day in a cozy Irish pub, and received a bowl of clear broth containing a small yellow boiled chicken, wings on.

What's the most vile and disgusting thing anyone has been served in the guise of cuisine?

BTW, Dr. Mabeuse: I happen to be taking some classes in Guatemalan cooking. That was dirt.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Shipboard

Whenever I think of the Willem Ruys I shed forty plus years and am thankful for the people who looked after me and seemed to enjoy doing it. I danced a waltz with my cabin stewardess one evening. Why not? In her formal dress she outshone the elderly lady passengers. I had only one dance before the adult male passengers claimed her but I can still feel her body against mine. She practised her English with me. I tried to learn Dutch but learned other things instead.

Your stories never fail to charm.

 

[NoJo]

What's the most vile and disgusting thing anyone has been served in the guise of cuisine?

I'm pretty good at trying new food: In recent memory one of the only things I couldn't handle was Uni - Sea Urchin Roe. It was warm, slightly salty and slimy: It tasted like I was eating someone else's phlegm.

 

[Guest]

Mab., it's not surprising that you can find good French bread (or anything French) from the Vietnamese (just recall the country's history).

Judging by Mexican and Chinese food, in the states ethnic food is generally tailored to American tastes, i.e., these people do want to earn a living, even if at the expense of their cuisine. In SF there are enough of the natives to insure that most cuisine is authentic. However, we often assess what foreign establishment to try out by whether the 'natives' go there. If there is a Vietnamese restaurant full of Vietnamese then I'll try it. Plus one knows so many people from all over the globe it is easy to ask where to find the best of their cuisine. I received recommendations recently about Indonesian restaurants from an Indonesian workmate.

As for awful food experience: In Vienna my ex-sis-in-law, a native, took me to her fave restaurant for lunch. I told her to order for me, anything typically Viennese. The main course was a specialty. It was two pieces of toast with what looked like four little squares of gelatin-like fat on each. Supposedly they were flavored with beef marrow. They tasted only like fat.

Perdita

 

[oggbashan]

Disgusting Food ...

Australian Bush ?cuisine.

Roast Goanna Lizard and Witchedy Grubs.

In Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan holds up a Goanna and says "You can eat it but it tastes like shit." It does.

Witchedy Grubs - I think the spelling is wrong - you dig them out of rotten trees, bite the head off, spit the head out and suck out the innards. Tastes like mouldy bread and wriggles as it goes down.

Fried ants and fried locusts. The legs are crunchy and tickle like fish bones. The wrong ants burn your throat.

Australian beer has to be strong to wash down that muck. After a few cans of Fosters' XXXX you'd eat anything, fuck anything, and wrestle crocodiles for a dollar bet.

Og

PS. Fucking the crocodiles is not recommended.

 

[shereads]

Re: Disgusting Food ...

After a few cans of Fosters' XXXX you'd eat anything, fuck anything, and wrestle crocodiles for a dollar bet.

Og

PS. Fucking the crocodiles is not recommended.

It's good that you added that last part. We Americans take things rather literally.

 

[NoJo]

Re: Disgusting Food ...

PS. Fucking the crocodiles is not recommended.

Ahh, I misunderstood my green ozzie friend when he said "There's no fuckin crocs in Australia any more". Turns out he was telling me about the new law.

 

[shereads]

Uni - Sea Urchin Roe. It was warm, slightly salty and slimy: It tasted like I was eating someone else's phlegm.

In fact, you were, and you were being broadcast on Japanese television along with thousands of other westerners who fell for the "Sea Urchin Roe" scam. Sorry.

I love sushi provided it doesn't look very much like the animal when it was alive. Nothing with suction cups on its skin, for example.

My worst and most vivid food memory: I was four years old. My mom and sister and I had just arrived in Germany to be reuinited with my dad who was stationed there in the military. To celebrate, he took the family to what I'm told was a fine restaurant in Wiesbaden. I do remember being impressed that there were gold ceilings and cherubs. He read to me from the menu and when I heard "fish," I thought of the fried fish my Florida grandfather always cooked in a big outdoor kettle for family reunions. So I asked for fish.

I can still remember how my stomach felt doing backflips when my plate was set before me. There was a raw-looking poached pink creature with enormous, fleshy white lips and astonished dead eyes. Then my mom cut into it for me with her fork; it looked like surgery.

I was instantly sick. I'm sure the other diners remember that evening too.

Sorry to take the thread in this direction, but it's been making me too hungry.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Disgusting Food ...

Ahh, I misunderstood my green ozzie friend when he said "There's no fuckin crocs in Australia any more". Turns out he was telling me about the new law.

Yes, initiated by outraged crocodile mothers.

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Re: Re: Disgusting Food ...

Yes, initiated by outraged crocodile mothers.

Shedding crocodile tears. If their daughters got fucked at least they weren't made into handbags and shoes.

Now the unfucked crocodiles are in trouble. Real trouble because an Aussie with a gun who has drunk XXXX will shoot anything.

Og

 

[NoJo]

I love sushi provided it doesn't look very much like the animal when it was alive. Nothing with suction cups on its skin, for example.

So I guess you won't be taking my fellatio offer up then...

 

[Guest]

So I guess you won't be taking my fellatio offer up then...

Joe, I adore you for making me laugh more times a day than anyone else.

Well, except for my Eddie Izzard screensaver. He's in a dress, heels, wings and a wand, and starts flitting about my screen after a minute of downtime. Every so often I forget about him, then return to my PC and always smile when I see his little high-heeled feet moving daintily to and fro.

Perdita

 

[Black Tulip]

The absolutely most disgusting meal ever?

A plate of polenta with black splotched lettuce leaves and dubious meat in Rumania. Everybody in the holiday complex got very, very sick. As in needing a doctor. Except me.

I counted myself very lucky till I got back at Schiphol. Never knew there were that many restrooms there! I have been sick for a week.

Never touched polenta again, but it probably was the lettuce. Or was it the sauteed rat?

 

[NoJo]

Hold on: Are you saying Eddie Izzard is a he???

 

[Guest]

Hold on: Are you saying Eddie Izzard is a he???

He's one of the sexiest men I've ever seen, even in full makeup and dress. I'd fuck him on a dime.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

The absolutely most disgusting meal ever?

A plate of polenta with black splotched lettuce leaves and dubious meat in Rumania. Everybody in the holiday complex got very, very sick. As in needing a doctor. Except me.

I counted myself very lucky till I got back at Schiphol. Never knew there were that many restrooms there! I have been sick for a week.

Never touched polenta again, but it probably was the lettuce. Or was it the sauteed rat?

Sounds like your meal was cooked by Baldrick. His speciallity was sauteed rat, which had been marinated in a puddle overnight. I hope you didn't have cream or sugar in your coffee to accompany that.

Lou