nakji

Now I want to search this out just to smell it. Does that make me sick? I'll eat almost anything, but caraway, in my opinion, ruins everything it touches. I used to hate cilantro, but I love it now - unfortunately, I now live in a place where it's almost impossible to find! My mother hates cumin. She says it reminds her of sweaty heads and dirty hats.

I had my first ever taste of Indian food here. I was visiting a friend in the city, and he took us to Khyber Pass, somewhere in the Mansions. It was incredible! I've had lots of curries since, but nothing compares to what I had there. (Granted, I've never been to India, so....grain of salt)The funniest part, however, was when we were all seated, the waiter suggested their specialty - Lamb Rogan Josh. The table - full of New Zealanders - shouted, "No Lamb!" It's great to see all the pictures of the food..I must admit, I'm always overwhelmed with the choice of restaurants, and can never get up the nerve just to wander into some place. I'll definitely take your recommendations the next time I go.

I bow down before the heavenly deliciousness of (as we say here in Korea) Don-casse! On New Year's Day at roughly 3 am, I rang in the new year and soaked up the soju with a Family Mart egg salad and curry-casse sandwich. It was exactly the right balance of horrible and delicious that I expect from all of my Family Mart snacks. Family Mart also has taken to stuffing gimbap (Korean maki-type rolls) with cold strips of this. When you get doncasse at a gimbap restaurant here, it's usually served in a whole piece, swimming in a hot (temperature) and much more ketchuppy sauce, and you're expected to eat it with a fork and knife. Also, the cabbage comes dressed in ketchupaise (mayochup?), and, if you're really lucky, cold canned corn. This is a favourite post drinking snack for me. If you go to a Doncasse specialist, you can get Hire-cass, and the salad is usually much more upscale - a citrus dressing on the cabbage and halved cherry tomatoes. Is the cabbage like this in Japan? And if so, any idea on what goes into the dressing? As mentioned upthread, these places often serve cheese-casse, chicken-casse, and fish-casse. My husband loves cheese-casse, but I think it's too much of a good thing.

Here in Korea, I'm hoping to wrangle an invite to my boss's place. Along with the requisite kimchi, there will be ddeok-guk (beef or fish soup with thick rice cake slices in it - my boss's wife always uses ddeok flavoured with squash, spinach, or sometimes red bean, to make it really colourful), buchingae (?) (various fried pancake thingies, such as pajeon and kimchi jeon) and loads of homemade mandu (steamed pork and tofu dumplings). Last year I went over to his house for an epic mandu-making session with the whole extended family and gorged myself. Nothing like a dumpling fresh out of the steamer! Maybe this year I'll convince them to teach me how to play gostop. As for foods to be avoided - I'm not sure, but I'll ask some of my students. I'm always looking for fun cultural questions for my free talking classes.

Ah yes...well, I thought there may have been an alternative use for the starch, that's all. Did the one you try taste like...potato jelly? I wasn't sure if was the Rappie pie itself that was strange, or if I was eating a poorly executed one. Perhaps ours was straight out of the oven...everything improves when it's fried in butter.

I live in fear of encountering a meal I've served described here! Okay, first post, and I hate to make it complaining about other cooks, but I must make an offering to everyone else who shared their stories. Names and situations have been changed to protect the innocent.....not really. One of the most disturbing things I've ever been served was Rappie Pie, an Acadian specialty. I'm sure it was cooked correctly, but the look and texture were unlike anything I'd ever encountered previously. My best friend from university is a great cook - especially comfort foods like meatloaf, meatballs, etc. So I was happy when he invited me over to try a family tradition- Rappie Pie. This pie is made by taking mashed potato and squeezing the starch out (only God and my friend know how), mixing with various "meats", in this case, salt pork (in strips, uncooked) chicken, and (I think) cod. All of this was suspended? pressed? into a pan, covered with margarine, and baked. Is this an authentic version of Rappie pie? I know not. I just remember the queer, gelatinous taste of the potato in my mouth. My friend offered ketchup as a suggested condiment, but all the Heinz in the world couldn't make this go down. Why would it ever occur to anyone to do this to potato? What did they do with the starch that came out? Was it needed for anything else? I've always wondered this - any Acadian food historians out there? It was with more trepidation that I approached a Christmas Dinner cooked by my brother's (then) girlfriend. Since she seemed to survive off of boiled eggs and cigarettes, I wasn't optimistic about what was to come. Sure enough, when we got there, all that was on the stove was a giant pot (what we'd use to boil lobsters in - I'm not sure of the exact dimensions, but it was the size of a small garbage can). Inside? A whole picnic ham, potatoes for 10 people, and - wait for it - a whole head of cabbage, bobbing listlessly in brown greasy water. The cabbage looked like a brain. She'd put it on to cook the night before, and left it boiling all night. All colour and flavour had fled the original ingredients, and they had to be lifted out of the pot with a slotted spoon. The water may have had some flavour, but the massive amounts of salt from the ham obscured everything else. Just....dire. In her defense, I don't think she had any malicious intent, and her side of the family seemed to enjoy it a lot.