Ethnic Foods

[DarkHippie]

I was talking with a friend about some of the ethnic foods that I eat (I am an eastern european jew). She thought I was insane. What are some of the ethnic foods you like that no one outside of your family would eat.

I love pickled herring, the kind you find in the kosher section of your supermarket. Its good in cream sauce, but i prefer it in wine sauce. I remember my grampa eating it right out of the jar or making a platter of it with lox and spicy cherry peppers, both of which i love (though i cant eat the cherry peppers anymore. I also remember him chewing on the neck bone of the chicken as a treat. all of this was served with a Meister Brau.

Chopped liver and chopped string beans were always served at gramma's house, along with kugel and this sweet carrot cassarole that i forget the name of.

I don't know if it is particularly jewish, but I love cottage cheese. I will put it inside an omlet, or eat it with the aforementioned pickled herring.

[weekapaugjz]

pickled herring around these parts is called sil, its a swedish thing. we always have it have it as an appetizer for christmas dinner. no one really eats it but my grandpa, uncle, and step dad. ill eat it occasionally but its not one of my favorites. we just eat it on a cracker.

[DarkHippie]

pickled herring around these parts is called sil, its a swedish thing. we always have it have it as an appetizer for christmas dinner. no one really eats it but my grandpa, uncle, and step dad. ill eat it occasionally but its not one of my favorites. we just eat it on a cracker.

It is tasty and good.

Oh I forget Horseradish!! Love that stuff. would put it on anything, maybe even eat it straight. Its really good on gefilte fish though.

[Thebazile78]

Before my brother Ger started dating a girl who is Cuban, I would have said empanadas (I'm tolerably certain that I am missing a tilde over the "n") ... but her mother makes THE BEST empanadas and my brother Ger loves them.

I think my runner-up is vegetarian samosas or maybe tikka masala, but my mom eats that, so I guess it doesn't count.

I love a lot of the Syrian foods my former roommate started to learn to make before she got married ... she's an Asheknazi Jew by birth (like you, Craig) but since her husband is Syrian (Sephardic Jew) when she married, she'd have to adopt those traditions.

I got to taste-test them, but whenever I describe them to other people in my family, they give me weird looks. Like these little meat-pie thingies, I've forgotten what they're called, but you make them with ground beef and tamarind paste or something like that ... soooo good!

And, oddly enough, when we lived together, I developed a taste for cholent. Which is hit-or-miss, depending on who makes it and what kinds of beans you use.

[DarkHippie]

Before my brother Ger started dating a girl who is Cuban, I would have said empanadas (I'm tolerably certain that I am missing a tilde over the "n") ... but her mother makes THE BEST empanadas and my brother Ger loves them.

I think my runner-up is vegetarian samosas or maybe tikka masala, but my mom eats that, so I guess it doesn't count.

I love a lot of the Syrian foods my former roommate started to learn to make before she got married ... she's an Asheknazi Jew by birth (like you, Craig) but since her husband is Syrian (Sephardic Jew) when she married, she'd have to adopt those traditions.

I got to taste-test them, but whenever I describe them to other people in my family, they give me weird looks. Like these little meat-pie thingies, I've forgotten what they're called, but you make them with ground beef and tamarind paste or something like that ... soooo good!

And, oddly enough, when we lived together, I developed a taste for cholent. Which is hit-or-miss, depending on who makes it and what kinds of beans you use.

Yeah, sephardic jews really dig the chick pea. Fuckin savages, eating hummas and halva all day. They're not cool like us Ashkenazi :)

[Thebazile78]

Yeah, sephardic jews really dig the chick pea. Fuckin savages, eating hummas and halva all day. They're not cool like us Ashkenazi :)

Hey, if it weren't for all of my Orthodox friends, I wouldn't have been introduced to the deliciousness that is babagannouj. Or hummus. (I like hummus. Especially with carrots.)

Also, my roomie taught me how to make hamentashen at Purim.

And latkes at Hannukah.

To be fair, she helped me paint gingerbread Nativity scenes after I went on a baking binge in 2001. Since she'd actually seen camels in Israel, having her paint the camels made them very very very pretty.

[weekapaugjz]

It is tasty and good.

Oh I forget Horseradish!! Love that stuff. would put it on anything, maybe even eat it straight. Its really good on gefilte fish though.

i love horseradish as well. the spicier the better. nothing like getting that bite that completely clears out the sinuses. im just about to make a roast beef sandwich and load it up with some.

[Chigworthy]

I ventured into the local Middle Eastern/Indian market to get some Jaggery palm sugar for a batch of Belgian Tripel I brewed. That shit is like candy. Anyway, since my wife and I drop hundreds of dollars in any asian market we go to, I thought I would find all kinds of cool shit in the Indian store. Nope, just the sugar. They had a lot of Bollywood DVDs on the wall, and lots of insense. The Sikh gentleman wasn't very friendly. Oh well, I'm perfectly content to get spicy squid candy and pickled mackerel at the asian market down the street.

[EddieMoscone]

I'm pretty much white bread american, whith so many nationalities that I didn't eat much ethnic food growing up. I do however pride myself on trying anything once, so there are some food from other ethnicities that I eat that others may think are nuts:

Chicken Feet, Tripe, Whale, Monkfish Liver...

[Freakshow]

Every time we went to visit my grandmother, she always had lunch meat for sandwiches and she always had Head Cheese. I was not bold enough to try it when I was little, but I would try it now. Can't be any worse than scrapple...

[DarkHippie]

Every time we went to visit my grandmother, she always had lunch meat for sandwiches and she always had Head Cheese. I was not bold enough to try it when I was little, but I would try it now. Can't be any worse than scrapple...

i dont have any Head Cheese cause i am circumscised

[Chigworthy]

i dont have any Head Cheese cause i am circumscised

Are you Popeye, too?

[weekapaugjz]

Every time we went to visit my grandmother, she always had lunch meat for sandwiches and she always had Head Cheese. I was not bold enough to try it when I was little, but I would try it now. Can't be any worse than scrapple...

head cheese could be one of the most vile things i have ever had. i tried it once and will never have it again. yech.

[Thebazile78]

Head Cheese is Dad's favorite cold cut, but he says you have to order it from the German deli or else you get weird looks.

I would venture a guess that it's a lot like scrapple, which we saw in the WaWa the other day, except sliced thin.

It's also like this thing that my grandmother makes for my grandfather at Christmas, but she calls it some Slovak name that I can't remember ... it's basically a savory Jell-O mold, sliced however thin or thick you want it. (Assuming you like it, that is.)

[Freakshow]

head cheese could be one of the most vile things i have ever had. i tried it once and will never have it again. yech.

Clearly you are not familiar with scrapple (which I eat regularly)


Head cheese (AmE) or brawn (BrE) is in fact not a cheese, but rather a terrine of meat from the head of a calf or pig (sometimes a sheep or cow). It may also include meat from the feet and heart.


Scrapple is typically made of hog offal, such as the head, heart, liver, and other scraps, which are boiled with any bones attached (often the entire head), to make a broth. Once cooked, bones and fat are discarded, the meat is reserved, and (dry) cornmeal is boiled in the broth to make a mush. The meat, finely minced, is returned, and seasonings, typically sage, thyme, savory, and others are added. The mush is cast into loaves and allowed to cool thoroughly until gelled. The proportions and seasoning are very much a matter of the region and the cook's taste.

[Chigworthy]

I don't see how a decent head cheese could taste bad. The facial meat of most animals is prized as the best, and with all that gelatinous goodness on top of it, it must taste fantastic. I know I've seen some that looked like it had bits of tongue in it.

[Thebazile78]

Clearly you are not familiar with scrapple (which I eat regularly).....

Looks like you quoted the wrong poster. (it should have been me.)

I didn't know what scrapple was until I moved further south in NJ. My dad's family never had it ... and my mom's family is mostly from the same part of NJ (Dad's family is Union City; Mom's is Guttenberg) ... so I couldn't learn what it was until I moved somewhere that had a strong Philly influence.

However, I've always known what head cheese is. And I can't bring myself to try it.

[Alice S. Fuzzybutt]

My parents LOVED head cheese and blood wurst (basically head cheese with blood added to the gelatin). My mother also LOVED pickled pigs feet. And olive loaf.

My dad used to get the FRESHEST horseradish from a polish butcher in Glen Cove, LI. One day he said, "Here, try this" so I did. I swear to God I thought I had been struck by lightening. I could feel the three cracks on top of my skull. He thought it was hysterical.

[jonyrotn]

I don't participate in ethnic foods..
Even that god forsaken Irish breakfast every one of my drunk friends wants to go for when the bar closes..
Fuckin bangers and mash! Ooof.

[Jughead]

Im growing horseradish this year for the first time..I guess i will just put in a food processor with some recipe i get on the net .....Right now its just big leaves sticking out of the ground..I have no idea how big the roots are or when I should pull it???I planted the root's on May 3rd...:smile:.

[Friday]

head cheese and scrapple are definitely NOT the foods i was expecting to read about in this thread.

http://www.wackbag.com/images/smilies/yuck.gif

[EddieMoscone]

head cheese and scrapple are definitely NOT the foods i was expecting to read about in this thread.

http://www.wackbag.com/images/smilies/yuck.gif

Besides the questionable contents of the food themselves, I would say scrapple is more of a regional food than an ethnic food.

[Freakshow]

Scrapple is a german dish. It's regional to Eastern Pennsylvania/South Jersey/North and Central Maryland because those areas were settled by predominantly German settlers. They brought it over with them from Germany, which is not suprising considering a German's love for pig parts in all their forms. So unless you want to say German is not an ethnicity, I would have to disagree.

:)

[ANC]

Scrapple is a german dish.

I have to disagree, this is a German dish:

http://www.hogwild.net/images/Misc/oktoberfest-girls.jpg

Could I be any more of a Vaudvillian douchebag?

[EddieMoscone]

I have to disagree, this is a German dish:

http://www.hogwild.net/images/Misc/oktoberfest-girls.jpg

Could I be any more of a Vaudvillian douchebag?

Blonde on the right may be the cutest German in History.

And thank you Freakshow for the information. I stand corrected.

[Hottub]

.
Even that god forsaken Irish breakfast every one of my drunk friends wants to go for when the bar closes..
Fuckin bangers and mash! Ooof.


You are dead to me.

[DarkHippie]

You are dead to me.

what are bangers and mash anyway?

[Thebazile78]

what are bangers and mash anyway?

The bestest fried li'l sausages and mashed potatoes.

Oh so good, but total belly-bombs, much like Hillshire Farms' smoked kielbasa.

(I hate that shit, though. If I want kielbasa, I will buy it fresh from the Polish butcher in Garfield where my grandma goes to get hers. Best kielbasa EVER.)

[Hottub]

There's a spot in Clifton that's better than Garfield. I'll find you the address. I don't know it, just drive there.

*edit* It's on Van Houten.

[Thebazile78]

There's a spot in Clifton that's better than Garfield. I'll find you the address. I don't know it, just drive there.

*edit* It's on Van Houten.

Either way, I have to go straight from work ... can you get me directions from Rte. 20?

[Hottub]

Try this

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=polish+market+van+houten&sll=40.867315,-74.117031&sspn=0.057508,0.109863&ie=UTF8&ll=40.874584,-74.127502&spn=0.057502,0.109863&z=13&iwloc=A

[Thebazile78]

Try this

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=polish+market+van+houten&sll=40.867315,-74.117031&sspn=0.057508,0.109863&ie=UTF8&ll=40.874584,-74.127502&spn=0.057502,0.109863&z=13&iwloc=A

Addresses are good, too.

Thanks.

[Hottub]

Ask them to double bag it. The aroma will drive you nuts going home.

[Thebazile78]

Ask them to double bag it. The aroma will drive you nuts going home.

I know. Even in the 20 or so minutes from Grandma's to/from the butcher she goes to it was crazy.

In the event that I actually go, I would be bringing a cooler and ice packs as well. Can't drive an hour home without it!!!