I love oysters too -- but have given up on raw ones since I now live in the midwest and don't trust the freshness of the ones I can get here -- and then there's the situation of some parasite or germ or whatever that's supposed to be in the raw ones. I now stick to cooked, but would love to go back East to a really good oyster bar and have the real thing raw... YUM!

No DeaconBlues I Don't wont old road kill! Now fresh road kill would be something else. Paolo I love oysters fried or stew mum mum good!;) Buzz1221 If you get to Boston Mass go to The Union House in Government Square only the best oyster there! Ernie

DeaconBlues (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:47 pm I so so soooooo envy you! I wish like the dickens I could go to Rio for a while to do some research for a story I want to write. When you return from Rio, would you mind telling me about the place?

After going to North Africa for research during our summer months, I decided to use trips like that during our winter months.

Rio is mostly going to be for fun in January. I hear good and bad things about what I will find there.

Nude beaches supposed to be good.

Lots of pick-pockets supposed to be bad.

Can't pick my pocket on the nude beach though.

Probably find some gross foods to try also.

I have about 10 EA stories I am working on. Seem to get writer's block a lot on fictional writing so they are not finished. I'll take my laptop to the nude beach to finish them -- imagine a laptop-shaped tanline...

Maybe there should be vacation thread on this site so I can relate my adventures when I return. There and back again first.

-NN

A-1 (imported) wrote: Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:16 am "DEAR LORD, Father, did you know that there was only 7 Capitalistas left in the whole country of Brazil and you ate 6 of them!

Substitute Democrat for Capitalist and you would have Alfred G. Packer, the 19th century Colorado cannibal from tiny Hinsdale county, for whom the U of Colo students named their student cafeteria. The student grill motto: Have a friend for lunch.

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:06 am Substitute Democrat for Capitalist and you would have Alfred G. Packer, the 19th century Colorado cannibal from tiny Hinsdale county, for whom the U of Colo students named their student cafeteria. The student grill motto: Have a friend for lunch.

So, are you saying Packer Picked A Peck Of Pickled Peckers?

Yoli,

Who prefers to just suck the juice out and leave it to enjoy again later.

FianceeUvBigGuy (imported) wrote: Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:30 am So, are you saying Packer Picked A Peck Of Pickled Peckers?

Actually, the historical record is quite clear. He shook, salted and otherwise seasoned and then sauteed a sack of severed scrotums for sustenance. Unfortunately, being Democrats, suffering and starvation succeeded.

Just had raw clams and oysters last night, several plates of the oysters (not all that many, since, of course, they were still in the shell.) The place also had Manhattan clam chowder, something you don't see often any more. I prefer it to New England style.

As to snails--well, abalone is actually a large form of snail, and there are plenty of folks who consider abalone the tastiest seafood you can get. Red abalone is the best, but for a long time you couldn't get it, because populations of the creature were decimated by people and sea otters. Green abalone is also quite good, though not nearly as good as the red, but it was also unavailable for a long time. May still be. For years, if you got abalone, it was pink abalone, which is to red abalone something like a plantain is to a banana. Not bad, but not much of the abalone flavor.

The red and green abalone are coming back in the wild, and red abalone is farmed, so you can get the stuff whenever you want. Because of what the animal looks like on a rock, and also because of the flavor, red abalone is sometimes called "mushroom of the sea." The flavor isn't really like anything else, but it resembles lobster or monkfish. Good fried or grilled, maybe with a little lemon juice.

http://www.redabalone.com/kinds-of-abalone.html

As to experiences in which I discovered something I was eating, wasn't what I expected--once, a few years ago, I was eating in a Vietnamese buffet off Westminster, in Orange County. I was eating fish that was in a kind of crusty fried batter--the fish were very small, maybe three eighths of an inch thick. Happened to look down, and slowly realized that the fish in the batter still had their heads on. And I had already eaten maybe a third of the ones I had taken. Didn't eat any more of them. The buffet was okay otherwise.

Then there was the time at the Silver Dragon in Calgary, when I lifted the lid on a pot, and inside were chicken's feet. I didn't even consider trying them.

Then there is cuy in the Andes. Fried guinea pig that looks back.

Ah, as I lived in SoCA for years I often met with Vietnamese friends in Little Saigon (Westminster, CA) we would check out the markets and go for Dim Sum.

The markets had odd food objects (to my way of thinking) to include Pork Penis (relatively tasty but tad bit chewy) Pork bungs (could not quite come to eat pork assholes and think I'll stick to humans) vats of coagulated blood and more. As for the Dim Sum restaurant I tried a tasty soup that included whole Chicken feet. My friend thought these to be delicious and later when we went for beers the bartender served us a plate of salty roasted/ broiled Chicken feet almost like the American bars serve peanuts. Nibbling the meat off of these and downing some beer wasn't too bad. Of course, the more beer we had, the less unappetizing these feet became..Not really too bad but little meat and a bit chewy skin.

Ron