The Food thread

[cheebacheeba]

English breakfast/Earl Grey tea.
Toast.
Scrambled eggs w/spicy soy.

The End.

[Morningriser]

I have an interesting ramen noodle concoction I make. After I drain the water and put the seasoning in, I also put in a little bit of mayonnaise for a little extra creamy texture and some sriracha sauce. It makes for some really good spicy noodles.

[cheebacheeba]

When I make spicy noodles like the ones pictured...
(they're quite hot, there's even people on youtube "challenging" them)
...I'll cook them and only retain about 1/3 of the water suggested in the cooking instructions, as I like them more coated than soupy.

While I can eat them as is, if I've had a lot of acidic food that day or don't quite want the horse kick to the stomach they can give you sometimes, I'll usually add some cream which lessens the hit. Still great though.

Sometimes I'll just chuck a bit of whatever is around in. Chicken. Onion. Green herbs. Even a few frozen vegetables. Noodles are an easy base "meal" to make a lot better with a few additions.

[Morningriser]

I'm not sure if this is a thing in Australia or not, but have you ever tried chili mac? It's basically spaghetti noodles with chili and topped with shredded cheese. It's really good and If you make the chili yourself you can obviously put whatever you want in it. I personally think chopped-up onions goes really well in it and Worcestershire sauce gives the chili a nice kick.

[cheebacheeba]

I mean I don't recognise it by name, but I've made things similar by definition.
So like noodles, cheese, and a mixture of minced beef and spices? Like what you guys call chili?
Sounds alright. If it came all together I'm not sure I'd buy it though.

[Morningriser]

You guys don't have chili over there? It's a mix of beef, beans, spices and tomato juice. I'm sure there's versions of it all over the world that vary in ingredients, but it's still some good shit.

[cheebacheeba]

Yeah I know, I've made it from scratch before.
I mean there's a couple of brands that have "chili" but it's not really a thing over here from what I can tell.

There's "chilli con carne" which is *kind of* similar but usually just ground beef, dried chillies (as in hot peppers) cumin & garlic, oregano and onion cooked down.
Beans can be added, as can capsicum (bell peppers), and there's usually tomatoes added during cooking. It's kinda got a basic mexican spice/flavour profile, though I believe it's a very "UK" recipe.
Popular dish over here is to have it on a baked potato with sour cream.

[Morningriser]

I'm curious, what's some of the most exotic meats you have over there? I'm not sure about places like New York or other port cities here in the States, but in Vegas, the most exotic meat I have came across so far has been squid and octopus. They are both practically the same and are both served in slices, think of onion rings. It's the tentacles that are edible and they taste like a cross between shrimp and crab, or even a bit like lobster with a chewy scallop like texture. I have also had mussels and duck. I would imagine in some of the more hole in the wall meat markets over in Chinatown or perhaps some of the places ran by Indians, not Native Americans, might have more exotic land creature meat. The food of new culture intrigues me. Although it's not really considered exotic in America anymore, I did try red curry as well, and it was better than I thought it would be, but still will take a little getting used to.

[cheebacheeba]

Squid and Octopus aren't considered exotic here at all really...squid is more common though I'd say.

Even kids eat squid, as fast food, crumbed and fried with chips (er, thicker fries).

A very popular cafe/bar dish here is
salt & pepper squid
in which the outside of the squid is scored and tossed in a seasoned flour, and flash fried so it cooks just right (which is fuck all) and the outside gets crispy. Usually served in quite an uninspiring way atop a bed of roquette (arugula) under a light dressing.

We have a large asian population here, and they're big with the seafood...so I see a lot of it, and it's quite often in stirfry.

Octopus I actually love. Love. love. LOVE.
It's nowdays often served at places that have grilled/fried fish etc.
Usually baby octopus. Whole thing fits in your hand.
I love it grilled, and lends itself really well to thai seasoning, goes great on its own or in salad.
Often served on sticks at a bbq with nothing but a lemon squeeze.

Big Octopus can be rolled, tentacles out, tied into a ball, trussed and immersed in a seasoned liquid (water, white wine, peppercorn, bay leaf, lemon...that kinda thing), boiled until tender, refrigerated whereby the galatinous content adheres it all together, at which point you can untie it, and slice along the entire thing...it makes a cool white coloured slice with purple channels through it.
You can eat that on a salad, on its own, even on top of a soup or laksa.

Mussels and Duck are pretty commonplace too, usually used in italian and Chinese/malaysian cuisine respectively.

Exotic?
So we're not talking beef and chicken, or turkey right?

Well, here you can get Lamb a lot which I understand is not super-available in a
lot of parts in the world.

Pretty much all seafood you can think of, we can get.

What else...these are commonplace:
Goat.
Camel.
Crocodile.
Moreton Bay Bugs (this is a shellfish here)
Kangaroo.
Eel.
Venison.
Of course there's a whole bunch of smaller birds that we can access to eat here too, cornish hen, pheasant, pigeon, quail. Ones like that.

Little less common:
Snake
Emu
Wild Boar
Goose
Razor Clams.
Asian restaurants serve jellyfish, and bullfrog.

...and you may have heard of our Aboriginal people and their "bush tucker", which includes the witchetty grub, which is like a large hairless caterpillar type thing that lives in, and feeds on the insides of trees.
They're served various ways, some are eaten raw.
A popular way seems to just be to cook the things on fire/roast them...They get crispy, and from what I've heard the inside (mainly processed wood I guess) is similar to eating potato.
I have not myself tried these, and I'm not entirely sure if there's any farms or suppliers, or if it's a "harvest yourself" type thing.

That's all I can really think of.

You should try a thai green curry next time.

[Morningriser]

I forgot about alligator jerky. I had that when I went to Florida once. The muscles I had at a Thai restaurant here. As for the squid and red curry with duck, I got that one night and then I got the octopus another night. I'm trying new things when I can. The only new food I have found so far that I would not be willing to try is turkey head cheese. There's just something about it that makes me feel uncomfortable, and it has nothing to do with the scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre either

Back when I was a small fry and lived in St Louis, Missouri, there was a bar my way Mom and Dad and a bunch of their buddies frequent it often after local baseball games. My father played in a local minor league, being as how baseball is Church in St Louis, and they served food at this bar, really damn good food from what I can remember actually, and I remember one time they had written on their chalkboard menu, "yes we have cow brains". That freaks me the fuck out! I mean I understood a lot about animal Anatomy for someone my age because my father, grandfather and Uncle were all hardcore Hunters. I don't know how many times I watched my father's skin animals and butcher them. Even with all of that I had seen and experienced though, something about that just creeped me the fuck out.

I remember there was a phase in elementary school where a bunch of us boys for some reason became obsessed with sardines and all of us started bringing them to school everyday in our lunch and grossed the hell out of all the girls. I thought they were all right but overall they were kind of nasty and once The Fad was over, I don't recall anyone actually ever saying they like sardines again haha. With that said, the first time I ever got drunk in my life I was about 12 or 13 years old with my best friend and we were out fishing with my mother and her boyfriend at the time who were with some of their friends and all drunk and fucked up to death which is how my friend and I got away with getting drunk as well. My friend dared me to eat a live minnow, and being a weird kid as is but fueled by a Michelob tall boy, I ate it. My friend, also drunk and not knowing how to properly skin a fish before cooking it, cooked the whole thing and ate it.