Stinky Food

[Ufimizm]

Salted fish fried rice, Limburger and Brick cheese.

Great Limburger story about my Grandfather. He would fry bacon, then fry onions in the bacon grease and mix the onions into a Limburger cheese omelet. It would stink so bad he would only do it when he could open all the windows and the family would be at church on Sunday. The family could smell it outside walking home from church. He made one of these and left it on the table and went to the bathroom. When he came back the small family dog had gotten up on the table and ate the whole thing. For the next 2 days the dog just laid in the middle of the living room whimpering and farting. Its gas was so bad it would clear the entire family from the house. The next time my grandfather bought some Limburger, the dog got a whiff of it, freaked out and jumped through a screen door to get outside.

[GlorifiedRice]

 

I made something with Belacan yesterday. It tastes as bad as it smells... Never again.

 

It tastes and smells like 100 wet dogs..i dont get how the first person who created it thought they should put it in their mouths.

 

A lot of times these foods smell bad but taste great, IMO its not the case with Belacan

[CatPoet]

That is NOT how  you eat surströmming!!!    And yes that brand of suströmming is nasty,  I don't like it , nor do you open it like that  you open it under water or it stinks.   I dont eat surströmming, I have  tasted it and the brand my father  prefer stinks as  much as some French cheeses and doesnt taste that bad.   

 

Also they are also missing   thin bread,  sour cream,  chives  and  a certain type of  potatoes.

 

Fermented shark is how ever beyond me eating, the smell  made it impossible for me.

[Beebs]

I had my very first taste of authentic stinky tofu in Taiwan this year and it was a revelation. We went to a popular eatery in Shenkeng Old Street, an area famous for stinky tofu - the whole area had this amazing pungency that hit us in the face as soon as we hopped off the bus.  We had two kinds - a spicy stew with pork blood cubes, and another stir-fried in sweet soy sauce.  They were both absolutely delicious, smelled much stinkier than it tasted.  Kind of earthy, mushroomy, slightly cheesy, a bit of tangyness.

 

The next day we had a deep-fried version with spicy sweet sauce and pickles - really crispy, almost a flaky-fluffy texture.  

 

I also ate durian on the same trip. Tasted great, but digesting it the next day wasn't the highlight of the trip.

[GlorifiedRice]

I had my very first taste of authentic stinky tofu in Taiwan this year and it was a revelation. We went to a popular eatery in Shenkeng Old Street, an area famous for stinky tofu - the whole area had this amazing pungency that hit us in the face as soon as we hopped off the bus.  We had two kinds - a spicy stew with pork blood cubes, and another stir-fried in sweet soy sauce.  They were both absolutely delicious, smelled much stinkier than it tasted.  Kind of earthy, mushroomy, slightly cheesy, a bit of tangyness.

 

The next day we had a deep-fried version with spicy sweet sauce and pickles - really crispy, almost a flaky-fluffy texture.  

 

I also ate durian on the same trip. Tasted great, but digesting it the next day wasn't the highlight of the trip.

 

BBM this is the one Im interested in tasting...Was it on a stick? is it stinky like Natto? I love Natto...

[Naftal]

BBM this is the one Im interested in tasting...Was it on a stick? is it stinky like Natto? I love Natto...

Hello- I also love Natto

[cakewalk]

Guavas. I think the smell is revolting. When I lived in Jerusalem and they were in season, I couldn't stand walking through the open air market because the smell was so pervasive. Never mind on the bus, where everyone had a bag of guavas festering in his basket. Revolting texture, too. Horrible little things.

[Beebs]

BBM this is the one Im interested in tasting...Was it on a stick? is it stinky like Natto? I love Natto...

 

This one wasn't on a stick, just piled in a paper container. It was super crispy, but wasn't particularly stinky, definitely not as stinky as the stewed ones.  You can tell you're eating stinky tofu, but it was very mildly pungent.  I don't believe the particular stuff we had was the norm for deep-fried stinky tofu, it was shatteringly crunchy - as in, I had tofu crumbs all over my front.  The cousins we were visiting actually picked it up, but they told us the vendor is really popular and this stinky tofu is the best, it's their favourite.   

 

The stewed stuff is stinkier than natto, but I'd say it's got a similar taste to natto - you'd probably like stinky tofu!

[CatPoet]

 

Check  at   27 min in and you see how  people truly eat  surströmming!

 

I know Sweden is mostly forgotten, I know, but  it is where I  call home.

[GlorifiedRice]

CatPoet I never forget Sweden I LOVE Kalles, and Fiskbullar etc...

[CatPoet]

Glorified Rice.  That is another stinky food, people say Kalles stink, but I cant smell it.   Fiskbullar you can keep for your self, that in my world reeks .  

[GlorifiedRice]

Kalles doesnt stink and neither does Fiskbullar...I love the Fiskbullar in lobster sauce

[CatPoet]

Oh no, I cant stand the smell of Fiskbullar in lobster sauce.

 

My mum reminded me, there is a stinky cheese here  Sweden , really hard to get hold of, vålåloffen  I think it is, stinky and yummy.

[Maedl]

Weisslacker is a cheese produced in the Allgäu, Bavaria's prime dairy region. It dates to the 1870s when two brothers played around with brick cheese, trying to create a cheese that would age well. It tastes very mild--and I like it--but it is not the kind of cheese you want to put in your rucksack before you board a train on a warm day. Or maybe it is, because then you'd have a compartment to yourself.

The stinky foods that truly repel me are mostly fish. Almost every Bavarian beer garden has a stand that roasts mackerel. I keep a safe distance from it and never sit downwind, no matter how inviting the beer and the shade of the chestnut trees.

Surströmmimg is absolutely disgusting. I came across it one year at a food history symposium in Oxford. I couldn't get the stuff close to my mouth because the odor thoroughly repelled me. However on a visit to the music museum in Stockholm, I was tickled to see musical instruments--on the order of a banjo--made from the surströmmimg tins.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned lutefisk as a candidate for the stinky foods category. It involves an aged white fish and lye. When I worked for a Congressman from Wisconsin, eating lutefisk was a sort of rite of passage that gave you the Wisconsin creds. I never could tolerate the lutefisk, but excelled at the consumption of lefse. Guess I was halfway there.

[GlorifiedRice]

Maedi? I have frozen Lutefisk in my freezer from IKEA. But still havent eaten it. Does it really stink or is it your aversion to strong fishy odors..

I love Mackerel...But I HATE Belacan. I will never eat Belacan again.

[CatPoet]

Lufisk  properly prepared at  Christmas doesn't stink at all, just doesn't taste nice. IKEA lutfisk doesn't smell that much.   BUT a friend to my father who is American but worked here in Sweden that the lufisk is different between the states and here.

[Maedl]

GlorifiedRice,

 

I am sure each person reacts differently to smells, so what is neutral to one person is a stench to another. And I suspect if you are exposed to smells when you are young and have pleasant associations to connect with them, the smell might even become pleasant.

 

Apparently the smell that lutefisk produces is related to the type of fish used. I think cod, haddock, pollock and whiting can be used and some smell worse than others. 

 

The Wisconsin lutefisk, as I recall, was made and consumed in church halls. I bet it’s made in churches to avoid filling your home with eau de lutefisk.

 

I found a few quotes from one of my favorite writers that you might appreciate;

 

"Every Advent we entered the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat. We did this in honor of Norwegian ancestors, much as if survivors of a famine might celebrate their deliverance by feasting on elm bark. I always felt the cold creeps as Advent approached, knowing that this dread delicacy would be put before me and I'd be told, "Just have a little." Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot."

 

--Garrison Keillor

 

"Lutefisk is cod that has been dried in a lye solution. It looks like the desiccated cadavers of squirrels run over by trucks, but after it is soaked and reconstituted and the lye is washed out and it's cooked, it looks more fish-related, though with lutefisk, the window of success is small. It can be tasty, but the statistics aren't on your side. It is the hereditary delicacy of Swedes and Norwegians who serve it around the holidays, in memory of their ancestors, who ate it because they were poor. Most lutefisk is not edible by normal people. It is reminiscent of the afterbirth of a dog or the world's largest chunk of phlegm."

--Garrison Keillor

[GlorifiedRice]

Maedi I LOVE fishy smells and strong fishy tastes (but Belacan is neither) I can eat anchovies out of the can...

I also like gel and slimy foods so Im sure I will love Lutefisk

[Maedl]

Go for it, then, and report back!

[CatPoet]

Gloria,  IKEAs lutfisk should be served with boiled spuds and  a  bechamel sauce  season  allspice  ( my father will disagree and say white pepper but then again  my great grand mother said black pepper).

[Maedl]

In the hope that a few readers understand German, here's a link from Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung about surstromming:

 

http://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/42451/Da-ist-doch-was-faul

[huiray]

Maedi? I have frozen Lutefisk in my freezer from IKEA. But still havent eaten it. Does it really stink or is it your aversion to strong fishy odors..

I love Mackerel...But I HATE Belacan. I will never eat Belacan again.

 

Maedi I LOVE fishy smells and strong fishy tastes (but Belacan is neither) I can eat anchovies out of the can...

I also like gel and slimy foods so Im sure I will love Lutefisk

 

Well...belacan is made from shrimp/prawns, not fish...but I suppose you are thinking of "seafood" when you say "fishy"?

 

BTW belacan is a necessary ingredient in many SE Asian dishes, including various iconic ones from, for example (but certainly not limited to), Malaysian-Chinese, Nyonya, Malay cuisines. Many curries, sambals, this-and-that preparations too.  Just wondering if you have eaten such dishes?  Belacan is used in relatively small amounts and it melds into the taste profile of the dish while giving an underlying strength and savory taste factor, after the dish is done.

 

How do you find the Thai or Vietnamese fermented shrimp pastes and sauces - same reaction, or different?

[huiray]

In the hope that a few readers understand German, here's a link from Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung about surstromming:

 

http://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/42451/Da-ist-doch-was-faul

 

I *think* I read in one part that the author says something like "no other nation" eats this sort of thing...?  If so, perhaps he has not heard of Korean hongeo, although perhaps surströmming is thought by some to be more malodorous.  :-)  A few links here, here, and here...

(also Japanese Kusaya)

[GlorifiedRice]

Well...belacan is made from shrimp/prawns, not fish...but I suppose you are thinking of "seafood" when you say "fishy"?

 

BTW belacan is a necessary ingredient in many SE Asian dishes, including various iconic ones from, for example (but certainly not limited to), Malaysian-Chinese, Nyonya, Malay cuisines. Many curries, sambals, this-and-that preparations too.  Just wondering if you have eaten such dishes?  Belacan is used in relatively small amounts and it melds into the taste profile of the dish while giving an underlying strength and savory taste factor, after the dish is done.

 

How do you find the Thai or Vietnamese fermented shrimp pastes and sauces - same reaction, or different?

 

Ive had several Malaysian dishes, including Nasi Lemak, Chicken Rendang and Laksa...  I  never had to add Belacan to any of those.

Nasi Lemak was divine, it doesnt look like much on the plate but all mixed together on the fork. omg

Havent had anything else from Malaysia except for the fruit salad with belacan, couldnt stomach it. It wasnt the Udang Petis, it was the hard belacan that made it not good for me.

 

But I love Thai and Laotian foods with their fish sauces. It took me a few tries to get over the smell though. Same with Natto, but I just cant get over the essence of Belacan.

 

My analogy on belacan is this...

Philly's Franklin Institute had the Mummies exhibit years ago. There was one part of the exhibit that spoke of people thinking since mummies lasted thousands of years that they were a youth elixir and they were actually grinding mummies up into a powder and taking them in pill form or put into beauty creams...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-of-eating-corpses-as-medicine-82360284/?no-ist

 

Belacan just puts me in the mind of eating something very very old and forbidden...

I hope this doesnt offend anyone

[huiray]

Ive had several Malaysian dishes, including Nasi Lemak, Chicken Rendang and Laksa...  I  never had to add Belacan to any of those.

Nasi Lemak was divine, it doesnt look like much on the plate but all mixed together on the fork. omg

Havent had anything else from Malaysia except for the fruit salad with belacan, couldnt stomach it. It wasnt the Udang Petis, it was the hard belacan that made it not good for me.

 

But I love Thai and Laotian foods with their fish sauces. It took me a few tries to get over the smell though. Same with Natto, but I just cant get over the essence of Belacan.

 

My analogy on belacan is this...

Philly's Franklin Institute had the Mummies exhibit years ago. There was one part of the exhibit that spoke of people thinking since mummies lasted thousands of years that they were a youth elixir and they were actually grinding mummies up into a powder and taking them in pill form or put into beauty creams...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-of-eating-corpses-as-medicine-82360284/?no-ist

 

Belacan just puts me in the mind of eating something very very old and forbidden...

I hope this doesnt offend anyone

 

But of course no offense is taken, rest assured.  

 

For clarity's sake, anyway (and for others reading this) one should not have to add belacan to the first three dishes you mentioned as served.  That would be almost unheard of.  

 

Depending on the variety of laksa you had there may or may not have been some belacan added into the rempah, the spice mix that is ground together preparatory to cooking and creating the dish.  With the chicken rendang, unlikely. Restauranteurs in the West, however, might omit the belacan when making such dishes (even if the recipe they are using would traditionally call for it) for "general Western clientele consumption", much for reasons as you have attested to.  Heh. The nasi lemak, if it was traditional nasi lemak, would almost certainly have had some accompanying sambal with it, most likely sambal ikan bilis.  Most folks in Malaysia would make this with belacan in it.  So - what's that they say - don't watch sausages being made. :-) 

Edited December 1, 2014 by huiray (log)