Tasting Something New Challenge
If you post here, I'd like you to commit to tasting the food you're assigned to try.
Name 3 easy to procure food items that you've never tasted.
The poster, below you chooses one of the items and you have 3 weeks to taste it and to post a photo of the item with a review of the food.
a. Potted meat
b. Goat
c. Beets
I've avoided these foods my whole life, but I promise to try whichever one is chosen.
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
I command you to try ... BEETS.
Because I cannot stand them myself, and wonder how anyone thinks of them as food. So it will be interesting to hear your opinion. Also, it's fairly easy and not such a big deal if you don't like them. I'd hate to see you stuck with a bunch of unwanted mutton on your hands.
If you elect to sample canned beets, let me know and I will post a recipe for pickled beet eggs that is pretty and delicious (even for beet-haters like me) so that you can use up the beets even if you don't like them. Fresh beets, and you are on your own.
I'm having trouble coming up with 3 foods for myself because I'll generally try most any food and have been known to buy things I can't even identify just to taste them. However, here are my three options (based on what things are easy for me to get here in Jakarta):
1) A weird Asian green. I can't even identify several of the leafy things on sale at our local market, and that's saying something.
2) Tape (pronounced top-ay). It's fermented taro paste, a specialty from the town of Bandung, and it smells like feet. Most people find it rather repugnant.
3) A mystery food that I find at the market. Without going to the store to look, I can't think of anything else that I haven't at least tasted, but there are bound to be products at my local supermarket that I haven't tried. I will pick something at random if so instructed. You can even specify whether it should be from the refrigerated section or the canned section. (Produce, I think I've tried everything except the above-mentioned greens.)
Since no one else will play, I'll ask you to eat a mystery item.
Photos and report due within 2 weeks.
(forgot about this lonely thread)
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
Hah! Done, except for the photo. I shall submit my report as soon as I have a chance.
C
I was in the grocery store today and still forgot about the %#@&ing beets.
I'll try at lunch tomorrow.
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
At last, I return with a photo.
Well, almost. This is not actually the wrapper from the exact new item I ate, as it got thrown away. For the new-taste challenge, I ate the product above, but flavored with a spice which they have translated as "long pepper." I forget the Balinese word for this spice, as I rarely encounter it. It looks like a dessicated mulberry and has an unusual taste that hasn't caught on outside of Bali, as far as I know.
The chips themselves (sorry they aren't pictured; I ate them all) look like quarter-sized, very wrinkly potato chips. They are made by taking the seed of the melinjo fruit, smashing it, and frying it. The taste is very distinctive and faintly bitter. They are called "emping" in Indonesia and are very popular here.
So, how are emping with long pepper? Well...bearable. Kind of like eating a peppered potato chip while standing next to person wearing far too much cheap cologne.
However, the plain ones are yummy. The brand above is apparently being marketed in the US as a sustainable product that helps poor people. The company is new (or at least their products have only recently appeared on our shelves here in Jakarta) and everything they produce is mouth-watering (well, except for the long-pepper-flavored emping) and of very high quality. If by some miracle you see these in the store, I recommend trying them.
Good idea, jali. I completely missed this thread until now. Yeah, be glad you've never eaten potted meat. It's kinda like cat food. (I love how the Armor brand lists "natural flavorings" as one of it's ingredients)
Here's three things I hear about often but have never tried:
1) mascarpone
2) lamb
3) flan
Taumpy, you must try mascarpone. (Which until just now I always believed was spelled marscapone. Huh. Live and learn.)
And jali ... about those beets?
::taps foot::
I thought it was spelled like that too. Everyone pronounces it like that around here.
Last edited by Taumpy; 08 Nov 2009 at 11:07 AM.
Taumpy: Oh noes, you aren't a super powerful wave of destruction.
Panther Squad: It's true! My scythe does not shorn the biomonsters in great swaths like it ought!
I still haven't tasted the beets. I'm going to make an appointment on my phone to go to the supermarket tomorrow. I WILL have beets tomorrow. (sigh)
I'm impressed that you tried something new, Hatshesut!
Welcome to the taste tester group Taumpy!
I thought it was marscapone too. Wow.
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
Et 'em all. All good, if they're good of their kind.
Sophmoric Existentialist
vision,
What did you eat?
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
Beets. Both pickled and non-pickled. Prefer 'em pickled. They are yummy. In Australia, you get them on hamburgers. Have raised goats for meat, and young goat is nice, much like veal. Potted meat? Made it myself from recipes in old English cookbooks.
Sophmoric Existentialist
Okay vison, now it's your turn ... give us a list of three foods you HAVEN'T tried and we'll assign you one of them.
Pickling helps beets a lot, so although you are far more beet-tolerant than I, we are in agreement that pickled is better.
Going to buy beets during my lunch hour.
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
I dislike the texture of beets. The flavor isn't bad (I tried the pickled kind), but I think this will be my last beets purchase.
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
Jali - try this - it's divine.
Cut up the beetroots into tiny pieces. Yeah it's messy but it's worth it.
Now cut a peeled orange into the same sized pieces.
Mix with baby spinach leaves and drop in a few slices of baby boconccini.
Add some dressing if you wish and consume and die of happiness.
Beets and oranges go REALLY WELL together.
OR simply slice one thinly and put it on your hamburger. MMMmmm over here a hamburger isn't a real hamburger without a slice of beetroot on it.
Australians are like those little island tribes from logic puzzles where everyone lies all the time ~ Exy.
I can't imagine what I tasted last night on a burger.Originally posted by threnody
What's the texture like if the beet isn't pickled?
I can't bear to eat cooked carrots, but I like them raw. Does the beet change as drastically? It took me over a month to buy the jar of pickled beets, but I'm game to try a raw beet at some point... not today. (smile)
threnody,
What 3 things haven't you tasted?
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
Is it even possible to eat raw beets? I thought they were like potatoes and yams - not really edible until cooked.
I wouldn't eat them rawI can't imagine what I tasted last night on a burger.
What's the texture like if the beet isn't pickled?
I can't bear to eat cooked carrots, but I like them raw. Does the beet change as drastically? It took me over a month to buy the jar of pickled beets, but I'm game to try a raw beet at some point... not today. (smile)
threnody,
What 3 things haven't you tasted?I know they can make horses sick but I don't know about making people sick.
Do you know, I can't think of anything I have access to but haven't tried? I'm an absolute foodie - I love good healthy yummy food, and spend a lot of time shopping and preparing it. But seriously I can't think of anything. Throw a few things out there and I'll yay or nae them.
Australians are like those little island tribes from logic puzzles where everyone lies all the time ~ Exy.
Hah, this could be a fun game: find a food thren has not tasted. Something reasonable, of course - turtle blood jelly, for example, wouldn't be fair.
I'll toss out a few possibilities that I think would be available in most reasonably cosmopolitan areas of the US and Canada:
tempe
Marmite or Vegemite
Halwa
parsnips
fennel
kumquats
Or maybe some of those are too obscure, I don't know. Thren, do you have access to any ethnic groceries where you live - perhaps Vietnamese or Indian? That would expand the possibilities a lot. As would a really good health food store.
tempe - lived on it when I was a vegetarian
Marmite or Vegemite - I'm an aussie so
Halwa - we call it halva here but it's the same thing and drool
parsnips - i prefer roasted and then mashed.
fennel - love me some fennel and orange - they go well together like fennel and beetroot
kumquats - we call them cumqats here- and yes I'm familiar with them.
I live in multicultural Sydney so have many Asian and Indian influences around me.
Wish we had a good Mexican population. I would love to be able to get authentic tamales yuum. Believe it or not, Mexican food would be the kind of food I would say I have experienced least of.
Australians are like those little island tribes from logic puzzles where everyone lies all the time ~ Exy.
I should have remembered you were in Australia!
Oh boy, this is going to be fun. I'm not expecting success with any of these options, but let me keep trying:
quail eggs
jambu (a.k.a. rose apple or water apple)
wine jelly
jalepeno (or other spicy capsicum) jelly
I don't think it counts until we find something threnody hasn't eaten that she actually has access too, but just out of curiosity, thren, have you had any of the following:
scrapple
haggis
chitterlings
Padang style lung or hoof (you may be able to get this if you have a sufficiently authentic Padang restaurant in Sydney, but it wouldn't count for this challenge unless you are willing to go out to eat to get it)
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