Why yes I have all the answers

[AccountingDrone]

Check your PMs!

/squee can't wait to try it =)

Am hoping to get a couple different cookie molds this year, an edelweise one for valentines day and a set of 4 springerle on a single placque mold for my birthday ... they are great for shortbread =)

[dalesys]

Am hoping to get a couple different cookie molds this year...

I eat my cookies before that happens.
But then, I'm not into home microbiology.

[lobo65]

I was born and raised, and still live in the South (Mississippi). I grew up eating grits, and love them to this day. Especially with cheese thrown in.

[lobo65]

There's not enough money on the planet to get me to eat scrapple.

Then there's the hang-over cure from this part of the country - MENUDO! It falls in the category of meat I won't eat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menudo_%28soup%29

And Dalesys - Tongue falls into the same category as menudo. I refuse to eat anything that can taste me!

You couldn't pay me enough to try Haggis, Blood Pudding, Kidney Pie, or Kimchee.

[Andara Bledin]

Am hoping to get a couple different cookie molds this year, an edelweise one for valentines day and a set of 4 springerle on a single placque mold for my birthday ... they are great for shortbread =)

My mom has an awesome set of sun and moon molds she uses when she does shortbread.

^-.-^

[Shalom]

Explain Vegemite.

Pterry did just that in "The Last Continent". Apparently it was invented by Rincewind, by accident:

Beer! It was only water, really, with stuff in it. Wasn't it? And most of what was in it was yeast, which was practically a medicine and definitely a food. In fact, when you thought about it beer was only a kind of runny bread, in fact, it 'd be better to use some of the beer in the soup! Beer soup! A few brain cells registered their doubt, but the rest of them grabbed them by the collar and said hoarsely, people cooked chicken in wine, didn't they?

And the next morning:

His gummed-up gaze fell upon last night's magnificent experiment in cookery. Yeasty vegetable soup, what a wonderful idea. Exactly the sort of idea that sounds really good around one o'clock in the morning when you've had too much to drink. ( . . . ) Still, he'd have to eat something and the dark brown goo that half filled the tin was the only available food in this vicinity that didn't have at least six legs. ( . . .)

He poked the goo with the stick. It gripped the wood like glue.

'Gerroff!'

A blob eventually came loose. Rincewind tasted it, gingerly. It was just possible that if you mixed yeasty beer and vegetables together you'd get—

No, what you got was salty-tasting beery brown gunk.

Odd, though . . . It was kind of horrible, but nevertheless Rincewind found himself having another taste.

Oh, gods. Now he was really thirsty. . . .

I'm still trying to deceive persuade my daughter into trying a beef tongue sandwich.

Oh my God.

Beef tongue. Heaven.

Stuff costs about $13/lb here, uncooked, and who knows how much of that is the pickling brine. Still worth it.

My brother in law is too squeamish to try it. More for me, that's all I can say. We usually tell people that it's corned beef, which it really is, just not from the part of the cow they're expecting it to come from.

(Although I like to get the fresh ones, not pickled, and just cook them with spices like dill, bay leaf, coriander, allspice/cloves etc. You get more for your money as you're not paying for water, plus the lack of nitrites is probably more healthful to eat.)

[Pagan]

Pagan, the things I could say if I weren't raised a lady. Where's Sheldon when you need him?

We're all family here, go right ahead!

and the original "what is grts" ... anyone else reminded of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_mMMKKxTxo

I keep thinking this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftbm8EZZDqI

You couldn't pay me enough to try Haggis, Blood Pudding, Kidney Pie, or Kimchee.

I got tricked my first Burns' Night dinner. There were bowls of haggis sitting on the table, but I was told they were actually made with hamburger. Found out later it was the actual thing.

Then there was the Clan Lamont dinner at the Overseas Club in Edinburgh during the Gathering. Lovely, tasty, moist chicken breast stuffed....with black pudding. My mom, me, and several other people ate around it. (If only I could have had some more of the first course. Hot-smoked honey-glazed Scottish salmon. I still have dreams about it!)

[dalesys]

Pterry also introduces "Rat fruit"... small black things, pierced with a cocktail stick ...

Best eat those in pairs, to prevent a rat living the life of Riley... One **** Riley, that is.

[Geek King]

I used to work with a Korean guy when I was with the printshop. His wife ruined me for Kimchee, as she made the best stuff ever (and yes, she made it traditionally). Any kimchee I've tried since just doesn't hold a candle to hers. One of my few regrets of leaving that job.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Ok, peeps. Grits aren't gross. It's coarsely ground corn.

Or, an acronym meaning Girls Raised In The South.

I eat the former, I am the latter, which is why I know the former.

True that.

Apparently grits aren't available in all areas of the country. But then I've not been out of the South (furthest north I've ever been was to Washington DC for a school field trip years ago) so I really wouldn't know.

But I do agree. . . they are GOOOD

[pzychobitch]

I'll be honest. I've never had grits. I'm not sure what they are, and I don't really care to find out. I wouldn't bug a desk clerk about it. I'd ask my waiter, or Google. In fact, I'll go do that now....Yay! now I'm informed! (still not eating them though.)

You won't want to. They are the most vile disgusting "food" ever.

[Argabarga]

You won't want to. They are the most vile disgusting "food" ever.

Oooh, that jogged my memory a bit.

Back in college, the dining hall had a suggestion/comment box. Someone kept incessantly dropping demands for grits to be added to the menu in it until the staff finally posted a message on the bulletin board behind the box saying "Please stop, you're the only person who's asking for them and we simply can't accommodate everyone's tastes" This must've made the person very angry, because they kept submitting demands now laced with critical comments towards the staff that they were stupid because "Everyone eats them where I come from!" and they "need to learn something about southern hospitality"

How do I know?

Because the staff starting posting the notes ON the board so all could see and mock the person who couldn't stand life without grits

[EricKei]

Because the staff starting posting the notes ON the board so all could see and mock the person who couldn't stand life without grits

Wow o_O OK, suck on both ends, but there's an easy solution, which the student could have done -- buy some damn instant grits from the grocery and use the nearly boiling-hot water from the tea/coffee station to make them (assuming that they offer it) >_> Look, I'm in the deeeep South and our groceries carry oatmeal and even the "Irish" oats that come in a metal canister, I'm fairly certain that grits are just as readily available up north.

PS - I don't think I would want to live somewhere where grits were simply not available at all, but I'd just pick them up when traveling, if so >_> I love that stuff, but I can make do.

[Ironclad Alibi]

All this talk of English food and no one has mentioned spotted dick?

My mother was southern (Florida, US) born and raised, while my father was from the north (Ohio). They lived in Ohio briefly after they were married. My mother was very upset when the northern relatives would cook the turnip roots, and throw away the greens, which are a favorite food in the south.

As for beef tongue, when Mrs. IA was but a tot, her mother told her not to mess with the pots on the stove. One day she reached up and opened the lid on a pot to see what was cooking. The beef tongue in the pot unfolded and flopped over the edge of the pot. Mrs. IA screamed, dropped the lid, and ran into her mother yelling, "The pot stuck its tongue out at me."

[fireheart]

All this talk of English food and no one has mentioned spotted dick?

As for beef tongue, when Mrs. IA was but a tot, her mother told her not to mess with the pots on the stove. One day she reached up and opened the lid on a pot to see what was cooking. The beef tongue in the pot unfolded and flopped over the edge of the pot. Mrs. IA screamed, dropped the lid, and ran into her mother yelling, "The pot stuck its tongue out at me."

First of all: at the mental imagery of the second and at the first. What exactly is Spotted Dick? (aside from a penis covered in poison ivy)

All this talk has now made me want to go and search for damper.