I know liver is not a particularly healthy meat to eat, and I think I'm not supposed to eat liver frequently with one of my medications, so I only eat it a couple times a year at most, but I love it. I love pates and liver sausages too. Nueski's, a mail order and brick and mortar store has an amazing liver sausage, I've tasted nothing like. It's not like a braunschweiger, it's more like a course-grind ring balogna (which tastes nothing like deli meat bologna), with not just liver, but meat in the sausage also.

By the way, I wasn't feeling great today, so hubby ran errands without me, and stopped at the thai/hmong restaurant. Apparently the meatloaf was a HUGE hit, and they were really happy that I had included the recipe. Hubby brought me home a chicken and noodle dish, so I wouldn't have to cook, and OMG there's four meals worth of noodles in the box. I carefully spooned out my portion, because this stuff was amazing. It wasn't their usual pad thai, it tasted more like "drunken noodles" I'd had in a thai restaurant many years before, except there wasn't broccoli in the dish, but the more typical pad thai ingredients, but the sauce had a touch of coconut milk in it, but only a really small trace (it took me forever to realize what it was). It wasn fairly light (not oily), but with noodles I've got to be really, really careful, because part of me wants to just eat that whole boxful and not make it last several days (it's too spicy for hubby, so it's all mine).

Wait Colleen - I'l be right there to help you! Love spicy noodles

Nelie - thanks for the info, but I don't think that's the fruit I meant. I'll ask DH when I get home. He really liked it with the yogurt.

Liver - ewwww! My mom cooked it a couple times a month and always invited my grandparents, as my grandfather liked it and my grandmother refused to have anything to do with it. She and I had something else while everyone else ate liver. My grandmother always claimed she'd eat anything except liver and tripe!

And whoever - Lori? - didn't eat some fruit because of sickness related memory - I have the same problem - cannot face watermelon for the same reason. I don't like most melons except cantalope anyway, but I won't eat anything watermelon flavored. Funny how we are, eh?

It is funny about likes and dislikes though. As I will try almost anything, and dislike very few things, one of the things I can't stand at all is - applesauce. Eww, it just gives me the willies. It's a texture thing, I'm sure, but I have such a violent reaction to it (looking at it and smelling it can make me feel like barfing) that I wonder if it isn't related to an illness-memory, even though I can't remember ever getting ill on applesauce (although I would have had to have been very small, because I can remember that even in kindergarten I was already applesauce phobic. I would cry if some got spilled on me (which you can imagine made me a target in the lunchroom once the other kids found out I was AFRAID of applesauce).

ooh, save some of those noodles for me too!

I never met a fruit or vegetable I didn't like. There are maybe a few that I don't like prepared certain ways. For example, I don't like plain peas, but I love split pea soup and I have recipe for sweet pea cream sauce (for fish or chicken) that I adore. I've never tried the durian stuff, so maybe that will be first vegetable I try that I don't like.

I made my own pickled plums this year. Our neighbor has a plum tree that dumped a bunch of plums in our yard. They were pretty bland but my SO (who won't eat a plum pickled, fresh, or otherwise to save his life) is loath to throw out any food (it's a real conundrum--he won't eat it but hates to throw it out), so I pickled them. They weren't bad, but also weren't my favorite pickles. I've never had umeboshi, so I have no idea if they were anything like it. But the pickling liquid was awesome (it has star anise in it), so I am saving it to pickle eggs in.

Which brings me to another food most people consider strange but I love--pickled eggs. Any other pickled eggs fans out there?

Liver, tripe, organ meat, frogs legs, beef tongue--all I can say is ewww. Not for me.

But I am a big fan of raw meat. I love raw fish--sushi, just seared tuna, etc. And I'm also a fan of steak tartar, not that I get to have it very often. I even had pork in a restaurant recently that was served very rare (on purpose) and I liked that too. But I wasn't adventurous enough to try any of the raw beef dishes at the Ethiopian restaurant I went to a few weeks ago.

The noodles are awesome, so it's a bit of a guilty pleasure that they're too spicy for hubby (he's more of a noodle addict than I am).


Re: raw meat and fish. I love sushi, but I never ate meat cooked less than medium well until after I met hubby. Now, I like medium rare best. But, when I first tried the laab at the thai/hmong restaurant, the owners told us that it's better when the meat is raw. Cooked and raw are both traditional, but she said that if the beef is a high quality fresh beef, raw is better. At home, they usually would serve it raw, and any leftovers would be cooked on the second day (the beef is raw, the skin and tripe are still cooked). The beef they use is from the center back of the animal, and is extremely lean and cryo-frozen like sushi-grade tuna). She couldn't serve it raw in the restaurant, but we could buy it to take home, if we wanted to try it. We did, and I was absolutely shocked at how good it was. I was excited about trying it, as an adventure, but to be honest, I didn't think I'd actually like it. I figured I'd take a bite, and then sautee the rest, but I really liked it raw. As the owner instructed, I cooked the leftovers the next day.

My husband wants me to try "wildcat" which is a local variant of steak tartar (made with beef, not any type of feline - he laughed his butt off when I was confused). To me, the ingredients sound like raw meatloaf to me (ground filet mignon, minced onion, egg yolk, worcesteshire and fresh garlic, mixed and allowed to marinate about 12 hours). I guess it's an old Christmas Eve or New Years eve tradition that is dying out (you can't buy it premade in stores anymore, but some people still make it at home).

My mom went through a steak tartar phase. She would serve it as an appetizer to dinner guests. The Estonians all liked to drink in those days so, after a couple of shots of vodka, most people at the table would eat it.

My dog did very well on those occasions as some of the guests just couldn't face it. From what I know now I wouldn't eat it either - raw meat and raw eggs - and the raw onions she put in it would now give me monster heartburn. I guess the shots of vodka killed off any bacteria in it as no one every got sick. Most of her friends were very relieved when that phase in mom's cooking career ended.

Dagmar

After watching a lot of travel shows and reading alot about world travel, I'm convinced that north americans are irrationally paranoid about food born illness. I know that I was raised with the idea that undercooked pork or chicken would just about kill you instantly.

My parents made eggnog frequently when I was a kid (and nobody got ill) and now they won't even make eggs over easy because of the "salmonella risk."

You really can build up a tolerance to bacteria like e.coli and salmonella. In fact, we're usually immune to the effects of local e.coli strains - which is the real reason "the water" often makes us sick when traveling. It isn't only that the US has water that is so much cleaner than everywhere else, because people visiting from other countries often get sick drinking our water. Thefore, the US water is not bacteria free - we're just all used to "our" own bacteria.

I have noticed that the more adventurous I've gotten with food, the less trouble I have with my IBS. I was reading a few years ago, that one of the treatments that some doctors are advocating for autoimmune disease is treatment with minor bacterial infections. The theory is that the immune system is an army with "nothing to do." The soliders get bored, having no "foe" to fight, and begin fighting friends instead. By giving the immune system some "real" work to do (the theory suggests), it fight invaders and stops fighting itself.

The theory is unproven, but the research results seemed promising enough that it made me wonder if I needed to be as paranoid about "germs" as I was.

My autoimmune disease does seem to be in remission, and I can't say it's because I now eat a lot more "risky" food (but that could be a part of it). Another key player might have been resolving the sleep apnea (which is also thought to play a role in autoimmune disease), and "curing" the COPD and asthma (that it turns out were being caused by a sensitivity to NSAIDs). Or it could have been the weight loss itself. Or maybe the vitamin D I take in the winter (I found out I had a deficiency last winter. This winter I've been starting to have some of the symptoms I had before the deficiency was found so I started taking the vitamin D again, and the symptoms disappeared - vitamin D deficiency apparently is also correlated with autoimmune disorders).

I'm not saying that Montezuma's revenge is a cure for autoimmune disease, but I have learned that there are advantages to developing a cast-iron stomach. Since my food experiments have gotten wilder and wilder, my digestive system seems to be getting healthier and healthier. At first I did have frequent "oops, I think it was something I ate" symptoms - you know the ones sung about in the Pepto-Bismol commercials.

I'm not ready to eat Balut (the baby chicks still in the egg), but I'm not worried about a bit of raw beef or egg.

Balut by the way, may actually be something I may eventually try. Our town has a large hmong population, and balut is quite popular, so you can buy them in any asian grocery or deli and even a couple of the "regular" grocery stores. The idea is just very disturbing.

kaplods ... you're singing my song!

Having grown up overseas, I KNOW this to be true. We are the only nation I've ever lived in where food is thrown out if the due date on the package is reached - no matter whether the food smells/tastes/looks ok or not. It's the only place I've lived where people freak out if you don't refrigerate your butter and eggs or flip out if you leave something out overnight.

Americans are freakishly paranoid about food and germs.

And studies have shown that Americans are SO obsessed with making things 100% germ free, that we're killing off good bacteria by the millions and in the process creating drug-resistant and anti-bacterial-resistant monster bacteria.

Americans should be exposing their kids to healthy levels of bacteria that help them build immunities. Instead they are lotioning, soaping, spraying, and wiping their kids right into having compromised immune systems.

There's quite a bit of research that links kids with extreme allergies with environments where they've been "anti-biotic-ed" to the point that they have no resistance.

This is a huge rant of mine - the whole food/bacteria paranoia that Americans have.

It drives me insane, as you can probably see from my rant on the other board about turkeys and salmonella.

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It's one of my hot topics too. My MIL made me use anti-bacterial lotion while apartment hunting after we looked at a "filthy" house. The house was not filthy, it was spotless - it even smelled of bleach - but it was very old, and the kitchen, except for the refrigerator and stove (which were still at least 30 years old) hadn't been updated since the 1930's. That she couldn't distinguish between dirty and old, just made me shake my head.

A few years ago, I gave my father a book on dumpster diving for his birthday as a practical joke. He's known in the family for his trash-picking habits. For as long as I can remember, if he sees something cool on the side of the road, he brings it home. Now that's usually stuff like lamps or bookcases...

The book included more extreme dumpster diving - and it got me interested in the topic of "freeganism" (eating exclusively or primarily from food discarded by others). It began an absolute morbid fasciniation with the concept.

Now there are many books on the subject, and while I haven't considered it for myself, it's been a fascinating topic to study. But one of the topics covered by many of these articles is that most expiration dates are there only because people expect them to be there. Canned products and other shelf-stable foodstuffs are good indefinitely, as long as they're stored properly, and the container remainds intact. But since we can't trust people to "throw it out, if it doesn't smell good" (and people would be upset to read that on a package), the use by dates are there for psychological more than practical reasons. Anything with a use by date that is two years down the road, is probably good indefinitely.

One thing this has changed is our view of stores like Big Lots. We start our monthly shopping at a store called Don Smith's that is a warehouse style liquidator store. The food is very rarely anywhere near it's use by date, but the impression of the store is that it sells "outdated" stuff. When we tell people locally that we shop there, there is always one of two reactions "Isn't that place cool," or "Eww, that's gross."

I love it, because I get jarred artichokes ($4 a jar in the grocery store) for 49 cents, and other gourmet products. They may not be past their use by dates when we buy them, but we've definitely eaten some of them long past their use by dates (an unopened bottle of vinegar - how can that go bad?)

The issue of bubble-wrapping our children is an even bigger issue, because even in the 80's (back when the only anti-bacterial soap available was dial and hand sanitizer was something you only saw in hospitals) there were articles on how eliminating childhood illnesses was causing much more serious illnesses later in life, and not just specifically, but generically. The fewer childhood illnesses children had, the weaker their immune system as adults.

It's still fairly common in this area (North central WI) for families to have "chicken pox parties." When a child has the chickenpox, parents bring their kids over to try to get their kids to catch it. I know one local doctor will give the chicken pox vaccine, but does recommend against it. He feels that it hasn't been around long enough to know whether it provides lifelong protection. Since chicken pox is usually much more serious when caught as an adult, he thinks that having chicken pox as a child is a better protection against the adult chicken pox than the vaccine. He doesn't out and out recommend intentionally exposing children to the chicken pox, but it's still fairly popular.

It's funny though that when a "chicken pox party" mom starts talking to a germaphobic mom (you know, the mom who has a special holster for her Purel and rubs her kids down with it at least twice a day) - it's like the Star Trek theory of what happens when matter and antimatter meet (at best a serious explosion, and at worst possibly the end of existance).

Both germaphobe mom and pox party mom are ready to call social services on the other.

Oh dear! I just nearly spit white wine all over my laptop! This is sooooo accurate. I have a friend who this could describe and I'm just giggling like a fool.

My MIL once said that every child needs to eat a pound of dirt as they grow up - and I think it's so true. Kids need to get DIRTY. They need to be allowed to play in the dirt and eat things that would make an adult gag and not be followed around with a bottle of Purell and a Wet-wipe.

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kaplods and photochick as usually I agree with both you.

kaplods - I totally remember my mom throwing a chicken pox party when my brother caught it. My mom litterally threw a party with pizza and ice cream and all the neighbourhood kids came over for a sleep over. Only time we EVER had a co-ed sleepover!

I remember a study that we looked at in university. It found that kids who grew up on farms where they were exposed to dirt, dust and germs had much lower incidences of allergies and other immune disorders when compared to sheltered city kids.

When I think of some of the crazy stuff we did as kids (that our parents DIDN'T know about), I'm surprised we made it to adulthood. However, as adults, we were also surprised to learn how much of it they DID know about (or had done worse as kids, themselves).

I mean, we never washed fruit from the trees. Our version of washing a piece of fruit (that is, if we bothered to do it at all) was to spit on it and shine it in our shirt. I wouldn't spit wash it if it had bird poop on it (but my brother would). If it had bird poop on it, I'd take it over to the outdoor hose and wash it off and then dry it in my shirt. Heck, my brother once washed an apple in the dog's bowl (I don't know what was on it that he decided it needed more than a spit wash).

We'd eat rhubarb straight from the garden (I know we never washed that at all). Sometimes we'd eat it, as is (never more than a stalk that way) or we'd each take out a few tablespoons of sugar in a bowl (but we never shared the bowl - boy and girl cooties you know? We'd share a bottle of soda, but never our dipping sugar - I'm not sure it was cooties as much as - you're not getting my sugar). We'd dip the rhubarb in the sugar and chew on the end of the rhubarb. Many times my parents would guess that we'd been eating rhubarb by our trips to the potty (more than one stalk of rhubarb tends to give a person diarrhea - I keep that in mind even as an adult - I still like raw rhubarb, though now I dip in Splenda - but I do wash it first).

I just think of the things we ate overseas, especially when we were in Asia. My mom loved walking us through the markets where meat was hanging, veggies out in the open, and who knew from cross-contamination.

You'd order something to eat and they'd reach over and chop a bit here or a bit there from something that had been sitting out all day and throw it into a wok with hot oil. Maybe some things came off of a block of ice or out of a rickety freezer, but not often.

Duck that had been hanging out in the open for days was a delicacy. Dried fish, the same. Fruits and veg were handed to you - you rubbed it off with a napkin maybe and ate it.

Eggs, butter, cheese - most of them sat out on the counter all the time. We had limited fridge space, so you saved it for the things that really needed to be refrigerated.

And even coming back to the states to some degree - my grandparents owned a farm in East TX. I can remember picking pears and eating them right off the tree. Or walking through my Meemaw's garden and eating snap peas as I went (mind you, we could get spanked for eating all the snap peas! ). Nowadays parents would make jr bring those things in and wash them with soap and anti-bacterial cleaner before they could eat them.

And yet when I was a kid, I rarely got sick.

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I worked with a woman who was obsessed with bleach and anti-bacterial cleaners. She washed her dishes with soap and added bleach to the mix. She put bleach in her dishwasher and always when she washed her clothes (just a little in the darks, she said). She used bleach for cleaning everything and sanitized anything that came close to her kids.

I had kids who crawled on the floor with the dogs and a dropped pacifier was "clean" after running under a little water. This doesn't mean I had a dirty house, but I think you get the picture.

Her kids were constantly sick. Mine? Well, suffice it to say that my DD is in college now and missed only about 5 days of school (K-12) for illness. So far my son in the 8th grade is pretty much following her footsteps.

But is this a matter of good genes or cleanliness? I don't know. I certainly had my fair share of illnesses while growing up and so did my DH. I really can't explain why my kids seem to be so healthy.

Love this thread. I was compelled to look up durian fruit and became fascinated. Somehow lost 30 minutes of my life. Husband and I searched high and low today for one so I could try it - but no luck!