So has anyone noticed any really bizzare foods in the grocery store? Tonite I saw chocolate raspberry cheese. Not cheese cake, not cream cheese - cheese!

It looked as gross as it sounds - !!!

Dagmar

I love trying unusual foods. I've found most are very surprising. One of the reasons I always found it so difficult to stay on a weight loss plan in the past is the feeling of deprivation. "Splurging" on foods that may have a decadent price tag, or just the excitement of trying something unexpected, but without a decadent calorie or carb count has been a very useful tool for me. Feeling that I am "pampering" myself with healthy, but exotic and unusual foods helps me feel like I'm not in "food jail."

I never understood the cheese/fruit combination until my sweet tooth diminished (even though I didn't think I had a very big sweet tooth, as I rarely chose desserts, but I did like savory/sweet combos like sweet and sour chicken and barbecue sauced meats).

I've always loved fruit cheesecake though, and as my tastebuds become more sensitive to the taste of sugars, cheese and fruit taste amazing together (and the fat and protein in the cheese reduce the insulin response so I find the combination more satisfying than the fruit alone).

We have some wonderful local cheesemakers, and one makes blueberry and cranberry cheeses. Dried blueberries or cranberries are stirred into a mild white cheddar. I was hesitant to try it (I probably wouldn't have bought it if there weren't free samples), but it was so good. The clerk suggested drizzling a bit of honey over the cheese to make it taste like cheesecake, but I like it very much without any added sweetener. She also said it's very popular to pair with turkey in a sandwhich.

I always used to go to the grocery store (when dieting) feeling depressed about what I couldn't eat. It seemed like I had so few choices. Now that formerly "exotic" foods are becoming common place, I feel like there's so MUCH to choose from there's no reason to feel deprived.

I'm not saying that all of the exotics are healthy, or don't require portion control, but eating can still be an adventure without adding to the waistline.

Another of my weird favorites is wakame - it's a seaweed salad. You do have to read labels (or in restaurants ask how it is prepared), because the sugar and/or oil content in the salad can vary. It looks crazy (sort of like the shredded neon green plastic easter grass they put in children's easter baskets). It's texture is kind of chewy (like the thick, chewy skin that forms on the bottom of jello that wasn't dissolved properly), yet with some crunch to it like coleslaw too. Looks really weird, but tastes really good.

Oooh ... I love fruit cheeses. They're actually really good. But then I like apples with cheese, too.

Hm. The problem for me is that I grew up overseas, living both in Asia and in Europe ... so things that most people in the US think are "weird" are things that I used to eat regularly.

That and I love to cruise the local farmers/Asian market and the Whole Foods and find odd things I've never tried before.

One of my favorite snacks (and my guy thinks they're beyond gross) are dried salted plums.

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The local supermarkets often have cranberry cheddar cheese in the deli section, but it's imported (from the UK I think) and costs the earth for a fairly small amount. If any American cheesemakers make it (Wisconsin, I'm lookin' at you) I wouldn't mind giving it a try on a turkey sandwich

Amazon carries Wensleydale w/ cranberries for about $10.

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Yes the cheese here in WI is ridiculously cheap. There's a shop in Rudolph, WI (people actually ship mail to be postmarked from Rudolph around Christmas) and even their imports are cheap. I'm wondering if they don't have a trade agreement with some of the cheesemakers in Europe. Or if they just have to sell it for very little profit because Wisconsonites just aren't willing to spend much more than $10 a pound for anything (whereas when we were in IL, good cheeses STARTED at $10 a pound).

I love fruity cheese! Cranberry white cheddar.... yum!

I love pears and cheese, and apples and cheese.
I think the chocolate part would be very interesting, a more sugary sweetness with tart raspberry and pungent cheese. Yum!

Now bizzare foods for me in the store are the whole beef tongues (you can even see the tastebuds... barf).

A roommate in college worked in a Chicago deli during breaks and one year, she brought back this amazing thin sliced beef. It tasted absolutely amazing and just melted in the mouth, and just as we were all exclaiming how absolutely marvelous it was, she informed us it was beef tongue. I guess it was a little too late (for me at least) to be grossed out. Although I'm not sure I'd try to cook one by myself, I'd definitely order it in a deli or restaurant (as long as it came pre-sliced).

I had the best tongue sandwich at the Stage Door Deli in Manhattan. Wow that was good stuff. But yeah, it's not something I want to cook myself. Same with liver. I adore beef liver, properly cooked, but I can't stand the way it smells *while* it's cooking ... so I refuse to make it.

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I am completely squeamish when it comes to any meat that is the slightest bit out of the ordinary, but I'm game for just about anything else. I love exotic combinations of fruits, veggies, cheese, carbs, and spices. I must confess that chocolate raspberry cheese sounds good to me (of course, there are very few things with chocolate in them that don't sound good to me ).

kaplods--I just tried seaweed salad for the first time this year and I love it! It's now a staple for me whenever I have sushi. I just had some tonight, in fact, and was wondering if I could find it at an Asian grocery store (and how many calories it would be per serving).

Barbara,

The wakame itself (the seaweed) is only 25 calories per 1/2 cup, but the prepared salad I've seen listed from 150 - 200 per 1/2 cup.

Our health food store sells it frozen (the prepared salad, I think), in a 3 to 5 lb box for $20. They also sell it on their salad bar for $6.50 per pound. I've been considering buying a box (even though it probably means wakame for a year), and if I do I'll let you know the brand, and the calorie count if it's listed on the box.

I love squid or octopus salad too, which has the same seasoning/salad dressing but tiny, tiny rings of red pepper and green onion and the squid or octopus, which isn't fishy - it's very sweet like crabmeat, but a bit chewy (if it's overcooked, it's VERY chewy). But if they don't slice it thin enough you can tell it's a critter with tentacles, so that's a bit freaky.

I love those plums! We have whole malls of Asian businesses now in one suburb of Toronto and I got the plums at one once on a whim. Haven't been able to locate them closer to home and didn't ask the name of them as the lady selling them to me spoke no English.

Dagmar

Beef tongue with mustard sauce is delish! My parents were European and my mom liked to try all sorts of different cuisines. I think I've eaten every part of the pig and cow in one form or another. Feet, ears, tongues (hope no one's eating while reading this ).

So after starting this thread with the chocolate/raspberry cheese combo you know I'm gonna have to go back to the store and see if they'll let me have a sample taste.

Dagmar (how about ham and chocolate Barbara?)

I had chocolate goat cheese once. Honestly, it was pretty gross. OTOH I've had other chocolate cheeses that were delicious! I love fruit cheeses too.

I think the weirdest foods are the ones made out of fake stuff. The one that always gets me is the grapple (pronounced grape-ll). It's an apple with grape flavoring injected into it. Why not just eat grapes? I don't get it!

I used to eat tongue when I was a kid, until I saw a whole one in the store and realized that it wasn't just a meat called "tongue," it was an ACTUAL tongue. I have tried some pretty strange foods while traveling in Asia. Probably the weirdest were chicken sternums and chicken trachea, followed by snake and pig's blood soup. I also had durian pudding -- for those who don't know, the durian is a fruit that smells like rotten meat.

Speaking of the fake foods that weird me out -- flavored chips. They're not really unusual, since they've been around a long time, but really, ranch-flavored potato chips? BBQ-flavored? SO WEIRD. Yuck. I can't stand them.

LOL on the tongue stories. It was a staple in our house when I was a kid. I made on ONCE and dh and kids went out for dinner. He had tongue growing up, but it came out of a can and in no way resembled the real thing.

The ONLY food I've ever found that I don't like is okra, except fried and I don't do fried anymore. Oh. SOS (aka creamed chipped beef) and dried salt cod- not real fond of those either.

I keep seeing fruits appearing in the grocery stores that look like something from Star Trek. I have no idea what to do with them but would love to try them.

Mel