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Author Topic:   Brain is Food, but what isn't?
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 1 of 59 (271022)
12-20-2005 6:19 AM


This will be sort of a silly topic, but suddenly I am very curious. I was reading about the Brain at Wiki and it mentioned its edibility. Obviously I know people have eaten brains of all sorts of creatures, including humans, but I never really thought about it except "yuck".
It mentioned that brains n beans is actually a canned commodity in the south US. Is this true? Has anyone tried it? Well what I am really interested in is, has anyone ever eaten brain ever?
It said that brains are 60% fat due to myelin which made me think.. does that mean they are sweet and really tasty? Most fats are delicious!
Note: People can also discuss whatever out of the ordinary foods they may have eaten, and what they were like. I'm dull, the strangest thing I have eaten is tentacles. They were rather tasteless, slimy, and not pleasantly chewey in a fibrous sort of way.
This ought to help people generate ideas for their holiday feasts.

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 Message 9 by pink sasquatch, posted 12-20-2005 10:30 AM Silent H has replied
 Message 14 by Coragyps, posted 12-20-2005 11:27 AM Silent H has replied
 Message 18 by crashfrog, posted 12-20-2005 11:42 AM Silent H has not replied
 Message 24 by Dr Jack, posted 12-21-2005 7:29 AM Silent H has replied
 Message 32 by nator, posted 12-22-2005 12:33 PM Silent H has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 2 of 59 (271026)
12-20-2005 7:36 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
12-20-2005 6:19 AM


monkey brains are a delicacy.
but no, i've never tried it.

אָרַח

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 3 of 59 (271030)
12-20-2005 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
12-20-2005 6:19 AM


Scrambled Pig Brains & Squirrel Brain Gifts
My father thought pig brains with eggs scrambled in butter were a delicacy; he persuaded me to try them once. I threw up--can't remember any flavor, just an exceptionally objectionable texture...sort of a fatty slimy mush.
In Kentucky, and other parts south, squirrel brains are considered by some to be a delicacy, with some families following a long tradition of presenting them as gifts when they come calling. Unfortunately, they also perpetuate a disease which I believe is similar to mad cow.
A similar disease persists in the far south Pacific--IIRC, among a tribal people who ate the brains of their dead, friend and foe.
These instances suggest to me that consuming any brain tissue is probably unwise--the bacteria and virii we gain from animal husbandry are quite enough without adding prions.
Of course, the brain-eating traditions in the south do help explain their electoral patterns.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 4 of 59 (271041)
12-20-2005 9:29 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Omnivorous
12-20-2005 8:39 AM


Re: Scrambled Pig Brains & Squirrel Brain Gifts
A similar disease persists in the far south Pacific--IIRC, among a tribal people who ate the brains of their dead, friend and foe.
This disease is called Kuru.
TTFN,
WK

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 5 of 59 (271059)
12-20-2005 10:10 AM


Calf Brains
My dad loved this stuff. I remember a plastic bucket in the fridge with calf brains floating in it. Freaked the shit out of me.

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Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 59 (271062)
12-20-2005 10:18 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by arachnophilia
12-20-2005 7:36 AM


monkey brains are a delicacy.
Well... though popular in Cantonese cuisine, they are not often to be found in Washington DC.
*smacks self in skull*
Sorry. That movie commandeers my head sometimes.
Anyway. Weirdest food I ever ate was chicken feet. Fried, and being wheeled around at dim sum. Altogether unpleasant.
I also have a friend who ate pigeon. Said it was like duck, only gamier.

"I fail to comprehend your indignation, sir. I've simply made the logical deduction that you are a liar."
-Spock

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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 7 of 59 (271063)
12-20-2005 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Yaro
12-20-2005 10:10 AM


Re: Calf Brains
Thanks to everyone so far. It looks like Dads are pretty sick people.
The Wiki article I read mentioned that Calf Brain is a favorite of Jacques Chirac. You think Bush could have made use of that at some point.
Did your dad mention what it tasted like to him/why he liked it?

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 8 of 59 (271065)
12-20-2005 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Wounded King
12-20-2005 9:29 AM


Burgoo Is Bad But Better Than Brains
Thanks, WK--glad to see my aging brain managed a fair approximation.
There is more on the CJD-variant risks of eating squirrel brains here.
There is probably more recent material available, but this includes one of the best descriptions of the social environment of this practice I've seen. I am happy to report that my Kentuck clan belonged to the squirrel meat faction:
Squirrels are a popular food in rural Kentucky, where people eat either the meat or the brains but generally not both, Weisman said. Families tend to prefer one or the other depending on tradition. Those who eat only squirrel meat chop up the carcass and prepare it with vegetables in a stew called burgoo. Squirrels recently killed on the road are often thrown into the pot.
Families that eat brains follow only certain rituals. "Someone comes by the house with just the head of a squirrel," Weisman said, "and gives it to the matriarch of the family. She shaves the fur off the top of the head and fries the head whole. The skull is cracked open at the dinner table and the brains are sucked out." It is a gift-giving ritual.
The second most popular way to prepare squirrel brains is to scramble them in white gravy, he said, or to scramble them with eggs. In each case, the walnut-sized skull is cracked open and the brains are scooped out for cooking.
These practices are not related to poverty, Berger said. People of all income levels eat squirrel brains in rural Kentucky and in other parts of the South. Dr. Frank Bastian, a neuropathologist at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, said that he knew of similar cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia.

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pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6022 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 9 of 59 (271069)
12-20-2005 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
12-20-2005 6:19 AM


alternative tentacles
Never been a brain-eater myself, and don't think I ever will be given all of the scary prion diseases, known and unknown.
But I wanted to comment on the tentacles - back in my meat-eating days, I would often judge a sushi joint on its octupus sashimi. If it was, as you describe, slimy, tasteless and unpleasantly chewy (sort of like a bike-tire innertube with soy sauce), generally the quality of the rest of the sushi was also just so-so. But I have had some excellent octupus sashimi - light, not slimy, not overally chewy either - 'pithy' might be a better description, with a light but pleasant flavor. Of course, these were often at sushi joints of much higher quality, which also translates to sushi-joints-I-can't-afford.

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 10 of 59 (271070)
12-20-2005 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by pink sasquatch
12-20-2005 10:30 AM


tentacle spectacle
In East Asia port cities you can often find restaurants which specialize in preparing raw fish (I insist on calling it that) from specimens customers choose from large glass tanks.
The spectacle of tentacles gripping tongues and being waggled about playfully during dinner is something I will never forget.

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 11 of 59 (271073)
12-20-2005 10:45 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Silent H
12-20-2005 10:20 AM


Re: Calf Brains
I watched him eat it disbelief. Every two seconds I'd get a "taste it! comeon, it's good!". It looked like grayish pink scrambled eggs. As I understand it, it's like a plate full of bone marrow.

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 12 of 59 (271079)
12-20-2005 10:49 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Omnivorous
12-20-2005 10:37 AM


Re: tentacle spectacle
My friend is in Korea. She actually did the raw, live, octupus thing! Fucking cruel, nasty, and unusuall!

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 13 of 59 (271080)
12-20-2005 10:52 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Dan Carroll
12-20-2005 10:18 AM


I watched thi show once Dan. It was this lady traveling in china. She wen't to a chinese outdoor restaurant in some semi-rural town. They had all the wierd stuff, frogs, crickets, you name it. But the wierdest thing I saw was a deep fried rabbit. It was standing up on a plate. It looked like they grabbed the thing by the ears, lowerd it into the fryer, and pulled it out. It even had a crazy grimmace on it's face.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 14 of 59 (271091)
12-20-2005 11:27 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
12-20-2005 6:19 AM


Beef thymus and salivary glands, anyone? They actually put them on the ingredients statement on chorizo sausage, but I'll bet a dime that they get into bologna and hot dogs, too.

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 15 of 59 (271093)
12-20-2005 11:29 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Yaro
12-20-2005 10:52 AM


Volcano Chicken
One of our best local Thai restaurants serves Volcano Chicken: it is deep fried crisp, then set on a wire support with a small burner below. It appears to be standing on drumsticks with the wings akimbo, fire and smoke belching out the neck cavity.
I've never ordered it, but I watched someone else order it and then fail to overcome the grotesqueness barrier.
I learned in my years in East Asia that grossing out the round-eyes is a popular sport: your local host seeks out the most archaic traditional restaurant then pores over the menu for the most obscure, exotic item they themselves never eat, everything from dog slow-cooked for days to chicken embryo soup.
So I developed a defense:
"I'm sorry, I can't have that--its against my religion: I'm a Rotarian."
Worked every time.

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