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Hello!

I always want to try the food I read about in books. I think it is because I can't go to the places.

Am I alone here?

I read Playing For Pizza and made a huge Italian supper. I read Scarlett (sequel to GWTW) and ran out and bought an Irish cookbook. I read The One Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan and had to go get a Chinese cookbook.
We had to try and make Butter Beer from Harry Potter.

I once read a story by Mark Twain, I dont remember which one, where he describes a country farm dinner which covered almost a full page. After reading it I wanted to eat the table. I ate a similar breakfast at the Beehive House in Salt Lake, it was Brigham Young's house where his wives lived. It was converted into a reception center for weddings, etc. It consisted of all home-made food, piles of it. Best I ever ate.

The Miami mystery writer Lawrence Saunders whom i read just as much for his stunning sandwich concoctions as i did for the " whodunnits "...some killer ingredients, always interesting breads, condiments.... strange combos that always worked....it's been years but i do recall wonderful versions of ham and cheese and sprats w/lime and green onion etc...

Carpe Diem!

Suzy....great thread!

Thanks!

Now I am reading The First Man in Rome and some of the treats sound nice, but oddly enough we just had mushrooms a few days ago and today someone died in the book from eating the wrong mushrooms.

I just remembered Like Water for Chocolate, another book that is wrapped up in food and recipes.

I read a Roman cookbook once, some of the recipes are kind of far-out, bird tongues, fish heads, etc, but some of them looked pretty good.

Boudin ( Louisiana sausage mixed w/rice )..........read about it in a book on new orleans...difficult to get until a butcher opened here and started making his own....( and i'm not even particularly a sausage person ) but this is " to die for "...

I read a cookbook a while back, Plain Food For the Working Class or something like that. It was mainly for poor families with a bunch of kids. Most of the recipes were potatoes, cheap cuts of meat, turnips stuff like that. But most of the meals looked quite tasty. This book was written in the 1800's and said if you live near a kindly Lord or Gentleman in a manor house, he might give give you cast-off scraps of meat. Sadly, no one like that lives near me here on Poverty Flats.

Some of my fave foods are " cheap as dirt "....( tripe, kidneys, chicken feet, heart, etc.)

in other countries they eat every part of the animal...i think that the meat managers of the Supermarkets are almost giving it away cause they think that the customers are buying it to feed their cats and dogs...

the only exception to this is " veal sweetbreads "a real delicacy in France.... the thymus/pancreas of the animal at $35 bucks a lb. OUCH!

" Tongue " one of my faves used to be very inexpensive until we had a great influx of Mexicans here, as a result the price skyrocketed...( my fave taco in Mexico was the very popular " taco de lengua "

nothing wrong w/ " taters " i can't live w/o them....a bit of Cardoman on mashed turnips is sensational!

( funny about the " manor house "

I like menudo and tripe tacos. Never tried chicken feet, altho its popular here and supposed to be very healthy. I like baked beef heart, its popular in Canada, almost every resturant serves it.

In Acapulco, one of the places i lived in, there were " Menudo " and " Pozole " houses w/a menu solely dedicated to those 2 soups ...they were open all night and were thought to be a cure for hangovers...Sooo after we danced the whole night away ( it was the era of "Disco " ) skip the Alka Seltzer, and go for the Zuppa!

At the risk of sounding like Hannibal Lecter, nothing like a " hearty heart stew " on a snowy winter day...

Pls. forgive pun!

Thats what they say here, too that menudo is good for hangovers. But I dont care, my wild party days are over, Im too old to handle a hangover anymore.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa, true it is! that's why i stopped drinking! and smoking too...i should be living in a nunnery and save myself some dough on rent, utilities, etc...BUT i doubt whether i'd like the food............

Same here. I dont do any of the fun dissapating things any more. Cigareets and whuskey and willd, wild, women are a thing of the past.

Cracking up here... do ya ever wonder how you're still alive after partaking of all that S--t?

the " resilience " of youth was my savior...but ya know what?, i wouldn't trade it for the world, especially my life in Mexico during that era...( well at least i have sumpin to tell my grandkids about )

True. At that age you think you are 10 feet tall and bulletproof. But I wouldnt trade those days for anything.

When I was a kid I read the Bugs Bunny comics, and wanted to try some carrot juice. I bought a can of it and found that canned carrot juice should be on the hazardous waste list. Yuck.