The unusual and the familiar

How many of you love Top Chef?  Ok, no surprise, I'm a Top Chef junkie.  I LOVE watching the Masters probably more than the regular competition because all of the chefs there are arrogant enough that they basically disagree with the judges' criticism every time and say they were "misunderstood."  Raise your hand if you can tell your boss that he/she just "misunderstood" you when you screw up.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Their challenge this week was the exotic food.  That got me perusing the ol' cookbook shelf for some unusual fare and thinking about the things that I love to eat others might find absolutely disgusting.  My cookbook collection is pretty varied, but pedestrian in many cases, so I had a bit of digging to do.  I hit pay dirt in the cookbook, "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian."  If you want to embrace your inner Chris Cosentino (I'd like to embrace the outer Chris Cosentino), there is a chapter for you!  It's everything offal ("awful") that you can imagine - recipes for brains, pancreas, etc., etc.  Deciding that even my cats probably wouldn't want to partake in that type of feast, I abandoned the plan for Offal Fest 2010 and decided that I could just as easily head about 2 miles away to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican taqueria and have some menudo.  Did it ever strike any of you who know what menudo is that they named an 80's boy band after that dish??

Moving on... I have a confession to make - I love liverwurst and pate.  .  I've never found a 12-step program or support group to help me, but it's something that I will, on occasion, buy some from the deli and eat on white bread.  Yes, my husband married me anyway.  Here's the funny thing - I will NOT touch liver and onions.  Something about that liver on the plate in front of me just becomes unappetizing. 

Second confession - as a child I would eat sardines on white bread.  We would open the tin, put some of those little fishies on white bread, then sop up the oil in the tin with more bread.  I blame Gramma for that since I never once saw my mother touch a sardine.  I have to say, now I won't consider that as a good meal because it's just that unappetizing to me.  Are there any sardine lovers out there? 

Third and final confession - I love steak tartare (minus the egg) and carpaccio.  Carpaccio (thinly sliced raw beef with olive oil and parmesan and sometimes some arugula) is more mainstream now, but at one time pretty unusual.  Growing up, at Christmas we always would have freshly ground raw beef served on rye with pepper and onions.  Definitely not a lot of mistletoe around out house that night! 

So, what did you eat (or still eat) that others might find disgusting?  Tell me, tell me! :)