Pickles in tuna salad

[maggiethecat]

I prefer lemon juice myself, so there's hope for you yet. 

Now what do you drink with your oysters? That's less of a problem. I'm tolerant of quite a few white wines as well as beer. I draw the line well before Coca-Cola though. 

Hate to raise your hopes!

Well, now, if I can't come up with the spare change for a bottle of Blue Nun...

A muscadet maybe. Or hard dry cider. Or champagne.

BTW, Bux, we gotta talk. Coca Cola? Never, mon connaisseur! Anways, always Pepsi.

[Katherine]

My recipe came from a "great hotel" kitchen that I worked in as a teen...

Some of the worst food I have ever eaten in my life came from the kitchens of great hotels.

Works for me. Less I have to make if I don't have to share with you.

[ruthcooks]

Here are a few of the things I don't get:

Apple Pie with Cinnamon Ice Cream...the ice cream is supposed to contrast

Lemon and sugar in Iced Tea...if I wanted lemonade, I would have ordered it. And don't even think about mint.

Serving broiled fish, steamed veggies and rice pilaf, a popular menu suggestion. Dry and boring. Where's the sauce?

Food that hurts...hot chili peppers, especially when there's no warning

Cilantro...smells like unwashed underarms

Garlic powder...nasty, nasty. How difficult is it to use the real thing?

[hjshorter]

Lemon and sugar in Iced Tea...if I wanted lemonade, I would have ordered it.  And don't even think about mint.

I could not have said this any better myself.

Things I don't get:

Ketchup on hot dogs. Mustard, always mustard.

Ice cream on pie. Why make a good pie soggy? Ditto cake.

[Bux]

Here are a few of the things I don't get:

Apple Pie with Cinnamon Ice Cream...the ice cream is supposed to contrast

Whaddymean, supposed to contrast. I love ice cream. I spoil my ice cream. It can do anything it wants to do.

[fifi]

I just got back from a great lunch. I had a pasta dish with a great sauce and some wonderful grilled jumbo shrimp on top.

What I don't get is leaving the tail shells on shrimp. I KNOW everyone does it. I just don't get it. Either you try to maneuver it off with your knife and fork, which never works. Or, at some point you have to actually pick it up, a messy proposition when a sauce is present. An even more annoying result is when you just can't get that little bit of meat out.

What idiot ever thought this was a good idea?! They must be shot!

Edited July 31, 2003 by fifi (log)

[Dave the Cook]

. . . What I don't get is leaving the tail shells on shrimp. . .

This one's easy. Bite off most of the meat and give the tails to Bux. He likes the shells.

[Varmint]

Strangely, I get all of these things. There has been hardly anything mentioned in this thread that makes me want to puke or gag or even go, "Ick." Call me weird. Or lacking any type of sophisticated palate.

Remember, I was the kid who put sugar on his Cocoa Puffs as a child. Don't worry -- essay about breakfast cereals forthcoming!

I do, however, agree about leaving the tails on the shrimp. It looks nice, but it's a pain in the ass.

[Dave the Cook]

I do, however, agree about leaving the tails on the shrimp. It looks nice, but it's a pain in the ass.

It's stupid and lazy, too, because the tail shells are easy to remove without losing the meat. All it takes is a little squeeze.

Why go to the trouble of P&D and leave the tail on (except for a shrimp cocktail, where the tail is a handle)?

I would add that puking and gagging is not the line in the sand here. It's just stuff that doesn't make sense to us.

For sure, I've eaten lots of tuna salad with pickles in it (if nothing else, this thread has proven that if I'm served tuna salad, odds are I'm gonna have to contend with something pickled). I don't spit it out. I just don't think it's very good. And I don't get why one would want to make or consume something that doesn't taste as good as it could.

[slkinsey]

And while we're at it...what's the deal with PBJ?  I've always found it nauseating, in fact inedible.  Peanut butter tastes too sweet on white bread, and grape jelly is a non-starter however you look at it.  Not grapey, not flavourful, sweet, thin....yucky jelly consistency. 

I don't get it.

Thank you! I also do not get PBJ.

Frankly, there are certain things I simply refuse to eat now that I am out of grade school: PBJ, boloney sandwiches, and mac 'n' cheese from the box.

Now, on the other hand... a nice peanut butter and bacon sandwich can be extremely tasty (especially if you fry it in the leftover bacon fat) -- although it's probably been 15 years since I had one.

[maggiethecat]

Cilantro...smells like unwashed underarms

I love you, Ruth. That is exactly what cilantro smells like!

But, I like it anyway.

[slkinsey]

Now what do you drink with your oysters? That's less of a problem. I'm tolerant of quite a few white wines as well as beer. I draw the line well before Coca-Cola though. 

A good pint of draught Guinness alongside a dozen raw oysters is a match made in heaven.

[slkinsey]

What I don't get is leaving the tail shells on shrimp. I KNOW everyone does it. I just don't get it.

It's just like the way the Italians leave the vongole, etc. in their shells in pasta dishes. It is a sign to the customers that they are fresh and don't come from a can.

[Dave the Cook]

What I don't get is leaving the tail shells on shrimp. I KNOW everyone does it. I just don't get it.

It's just like the way the Italians leave the vongole, etc. in their shells in pasta dishes. It is a sign to the customers that they are fresh and don't come from a can.

Correct! Peeled and deveined shrimp come from frozen five-pound bags, instead!

[slkinsey]

What I don't get is leaving the tail shells on shrimp. I KNOW everyone does it. I just don't get it.

It's just like the way the Italians leave the vongole, etc. in their shells in pasta dishes. It is a sign to the customers that they are fresh and don't come from a can.

Correct! Peeled and deveined shrimp come from frozen five-pound bags, instead!

With the tails still on?

[Dave the Cook]

What I don't get is leaving the tail shells on shrimp. I KNOW everyone does it. I just don't get it.

It's just like the way the Italians leave the vongole, etc. in their shells in pasta dishes. It is a sign to the customers that they are fresh and don't come from a can.

Correct! Peeled and deveined shrimp come from frozen five-pound bags, instead!

With the tails still on?

Absolutely.

Edit: looky here.

Edited July 31, 2003 by Dave the Cook (log)

[slkinsey]

Peeled and deveined shrimp come from frozen five-pound bags, instead!

With the tails still on?

Absolutely.

Interesting. They have to be doing the peeling/deveining by machine, right?

I wonder how the tradition arose? I still think it is probably related to the Italian tradition of keeping the seafood as whole as possible to show that it is fresh (the same reason most vegetables in the markets still have flowers and vines and stems attached). What culinary tradition to you suppose originated this practice?

[Dave the Cook]

Peeled and deveined shrimp come from frozen five-pound bags, instead!

With the tails still on?

Absolutely.

Interesting. They have to be doing the peeling/deveining by machine, right?

I wonder how the tradition arose? I still think it is probably related to the Italian tradition of keeping the seafood as whole as possible to show that it is fresh (the same reason most vegetables in the markets still have flowers and vines and stems attached). What culinary tradition to you suppose originated this practice?

I'd bet that most shrimp in the range from 26/30 to 16/20 are sold for shrimp cocktails, where the tail makes sense. Restauranteurs are by turns: lazy, ignorant or following the tradition you denote when they decline to de-tail. Certainly in high-end restaurants, where shrimp are brought in fresh, there's some reason other than lack of care. But everywhere else, if they leave the tail on as a promise of freshness, they're lying.

Smaller shrimp are sold tailless, and larger shrimp are usually sold in the shell.

I don't know if it's mechanical or not; I'd love to see the machine, if that's what's used. But most crab picking is still done by hand, so you never know.

The shelling that really amazes me is done on these teeny-tiny, little-fingernail-sized shrimp they have in Scandinavia called Fjord Shrimp. I couldn't figure out any way to shell them economically.

[maggiethecat]

boloney sandwiches

I tried a bite of one when I was five. Baloney has never touched my lips since. Ever.

[Dave the Cook]

boloney sandwiches

I tried a bite of one when I was five. Baloney has never touched my lips since. Ever.

Again, toast is the key.

Plus, you have to fry the baloney. In butter. And spread on a good brown mustard.

As we say down here, "it's a lot of sugar for a dime."

Most processors use the same recipe for baloney as they do hot dogs. Just a different extruder.

[maggiethecat]

Most processors use the same recipe for baloney as they do hot dogs. Just a different extruder.

I rest my case.

[slkinsey]

boloney sandwiches

I tried a bite of one when I was five. Baloney has never touched my lips since. Ever.

Now, mortadella on the other hand...

[KNorthrup]

Don't they also say you get more shrimpy flavour when you leave the shells on? So maybe leaving the tails at least helps in that direction. Kind of like bone-in meat.

[Dave the Cook]

Mortadella I get. No problem.

[Bux]

Cilantro...smells like unwashed underarms

I love you, Ruth. That is exactly what cilantro smells like!

But, I like it anyway.

I take back all the nasty things I've said about you.