Adventurous Eating

[albiston]

As Kevin kindly reminded me, I had, some time ago, promised to tell the story of how I got to taste the infamous Sardinian worm cheese casu marzu. I thought it might be a good idea to use this as an excuse to start a somewhat wider topic about “extreme” eating adventures in Italy, and also to add a little new experience I had.

It’s funny how Italian cooking is usually seen as home/comfort food, reassuring, convivial, heart opening, but not exactly what one would call extreme. Yet there are a few Italian foods, which can result extreme to many. Apart the aforementioned casu marzu, (the same cheese exists in Abbruzzo as marcetto and Friuli as saltarello), some might feel shaken at the thought of eating horsemeat or offal, tuna sperm sacks (lattume). How many would go for a taste of fox or hedgehog, not uncommon in some mountainous areas? Extreme food is a very personal definition: Anthony Bourdain’s oyster story in Kitchen Confidential might sound brave to many, but it left me thinking “so what?”, after all I used to pick and eat raw cockles on the beach rocks each summer as a kid.

I’m curious. Is there any Italian experience that you would define as “Eating adventure”. If yes, why not share it here? A very stinky Gorgonzola maybe? Frog legs in a classy restaurant? Tuna entrails on a boat off the Sicilian coast? Whatever it is, spill the beans .

I’ll start with two of mine.

- Casu Marzu. About twenty years ago, in one of the hottest Italian summers of the last fifty years, I was traveling to Sardinia with my parents and two brothers. A slightly spotty and introvert teenager, I hated the idea of still spending my holidays with my parents. My secret hope was to get to new people a few people of my age, especially, for reasons still slightly confused in my head at that time, girls. Regrettably the only real “adventure” I had that summer was this food related one, which maybe explains why I’m writing on eGullet and not on the Playboy, or lacking that, Sensible New Age Partner forum. After an 18-hour ferry ride and a few hours on the sunny and dusty Sardinian roads we had arrived in Cala Gonone, about midway on Sardinia’s eastern coast. Tired, slightly dehydrated and in bad need of a shower we slumped on our beds while our landlord told us he would be very happy to have us as guests after dinner for a special treat. When the time came we moved, slightly less tired and now clean, to our landlord’s dark cellar lit only by two flickering 40W light bulbs. That should have probably made us suspicious. Everyone except my four year old brother Claudio was offered a little of the potent almost sherry like home made wine and soon after that we were invited to sample some local nibble. Taking a piece of Sardinian parchment bread, carta musica or pane carasau, our landlord would quickly dip it in water to soften it, smear some creamy cheese inside and wrap the bread in a pocket. The cheese was nice, maybe just a tad powerful as far as smell goes, yet tasty. After a little while, and at least one or two cheese pockets more, my little brother walked to my mother holding something in his hand, a little white worm. After some very quiet interrogation she found out the source of the worm, clearly the cheese. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible my mother walked to each of us to stop us eating the cheese. I have to admit I felt rather disgusted by the idea of worms in my cheese, but not so my little brother: while we were intent in carefully disposing of the bread, he rushed to the landowner, asked for another piece of bread and cheese and happily finished every single crumb. I’m still convinced that our landlord had organized the whole thing as a practical joke for the city family , and he probably had to repress a good laugh once he saw our expression as we noticed the worms.

- Some peculiar game. This is, if you wish, my latest extreme food experience, though by far more extreme on the mind than on my taste buds. I’ll keep the location and names vague on purpose, since what happened it borders on the illegal and I’d much prefer not to put anyone into any kind of trouble. While on my recent trip to Italy I happened to spend a few days at a friend’s place. This friend, an avid consumer of all sort of game meats, had just received a butchered istrice (I believe that would be spiny porcupine in English) from some friends in Umbria. Istrice is not common as a food item in Italy, but in some of the more forest covered parts of Tuscany and Umbria it is considered a delicacy. After finishing to butcher the prime cuts, deboning leg and shoulder, preparing little rack roasts and the like, to be served on a later date and therefore frozen, we had a little taste of the shoulder meat. I did have second thoughts on eating the meat and was expecting something extremely gamey and tough: instead I had an incredibly tender, delicate tasting taste of meat, cooked only till still pink in the center. What can I say, porcupine tastes really good.

[kellytree]

ma che schifo !!

I use to make cheese in my last life and occasionally it would get worms in it (damn flies)

Nasty.

I also use to make "coppa" which is really disgusting- Take a pigs head or two and boil the crap out of it with herbs.

Chop up the meat (and dont you dare forget the snout and ears)

add spices and some other things if you want ( like orange peel, pistachios,olives,salt)

and then you put it all in a big casing, hang and let it drip dry for the night.

I felt so evil serving it to my friends and neighbors. They thought I was so kind to be giving it away when the fact was I just wanted it OUT of my house.

The other night I ate fried intestines.

[Kevin72]

Well, what a good idea to turn this into a thread where we can all share!

I think a good starting point for eating adventerous is, conveniently, Rome, home of the fifth cut. When we went there I was determined to try at least some of the delicacies tripe and sweetbreads at the least. As I said on my Top 5 thread, I did make a beeline for tripe the first time I saw it on the menu, and it was a long, doubt-filled wait for them to bring it out. Tripe is of such quality here in Dallas that the entire restaurant smells of it if it's offered. But I was relieved to find it pretty enjoyable. I didn't see sweetbreads on any of the menus. I am morbidly curious about pajata, a Roman dish of calves' intestines and rigatoni in a spicy sauce.

Maybe with enough wine in me I'd try horse.

Over on Adam's thread they talk about porcupine being a regional delicacy, as well as nutria salami.

[divina]

ok.. ex vegetarian..

I have eaten almost all of the 5th quarters.. all 4 of the tripe from the cow,cow face, fallopian tubes and uterus.. udder!!!

beef testicles in a pate',

pajata in Rome,

fried tripe which I made for a party at Macelleria Cecchini was really good!

Horse Carpaccio... sfilaccini also which is a cured and shredded horsemeat, one of my favorites..

donkey ragu on polenta.

blood sausage,biroldo or burischio, with pinenuts and orange zest

blood crepes.. against the law now

that's off the top of my head...

[DaleJ]

You win, Judy.

[Eden]

My adventures in the meat department are not so wide, cetainly not compared to Divina - Wow! just some blood sausage, tripe (amazingly well prepared, but I just can't abide the texture) and snails - bleh!

I think, however, that I can top almost anybody in the just-not-natural scary dessert from italy department:

on our last trip we spent a night in La Spezia. Unfortunately we had to waste a few hours there doing laundry, and. since someone was smoking in the laundromat. Nicole & I guarded the dirty socks while the husbands went off to fetch Gelato. (Bill is highly allergic to smoke, but has an instinct for finding gelaterie that is quite impressive) They returned some while later and Bill offered me a cup with the most scary shade of electric blue sorbetto you could ever hope to find. The flavor? AQUA VELVA!!!! (and yes that's what it tasted like )

Now bear in mind that on a previous trip we actually reached a goal of tasting 100 different flavors between us, which as you can imagine took some work and meant trying literally every new flavor we came across, so we are NOT gelato wusses, but this was without a doubt the weirdest, scariest gelato flavor I have ever tasted

[pete ganz]

ok.. ex vegetarian..

I have eaten almost all of the 5th quarters.. all 4 of the tripe from the cow,cow face, fallopian tubes and uterus.. udder!!!

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We were served udder at Boccondivino in Milan. It was actually pretty good..more subtle than I thought it would be.

[Pan]

Why are blood crepes illegal? Was that raw blood?

[Mayhaw Man]

ok.. ex vegetarian..

I have eaten almost all of the 5th quarters.. all 4 of the tripe from the cow,cow face, fallopian tubes and uterus.. udder!!!

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We were served udder at Boccondivino in Milan. It was actually pretty good..more subtle than I thought it would be.

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I am sure that it was udderly delicious.

[divina]

the Blood pancakes ( really more crepe like) are made with the fresh raw pigs blood after the slaughter.

the blood is mixed with a little flour, and in certain regions grated orange zest and cinnamon is added ( as for head cheese, soprasatta)

It is served with grated parmesan cheese on tope and rolled up!

Mostly was street food for festivals.

Edited March 26, 2005 by divina (log)

[Pan]

Wow, raw pig's blood. I consider myself a fairly adventurous eater, but I don't know if I'd want to have raw blood.

[marlena spieler]

well, mule salami last week in umbria, two different kinds, both delicious, and while i don't think it too weird, someone else might.

the weirdest thing i ate was sheeps head soup in greece, though, mostly because i got the bowl with the eye! (soup was delicious!). (eye, I"ve blocked out all memory of eating).

i can't bring myself to the worms cheese, and also the blood pancakes, call me a wimp.

i'm still on a cloud of truffles and lenticche, umbria's delicious contribution to gastonomy as far as i'm concerned. and the strangozzi.

x m

[divina]

OK.. the worst was when I was much younger.. being taken out to a way out of the way place by a new boyfriend in Greece,.... for the specialty..

whole roasted Sheeps head!!!

the only thing for dinner!

I tried it.. eyeballs, brain, etc.. not one of my favorites..and then I was 20 something!

the really worst thing was a sushi in SF.. where a tiny fresh ( alive) fish was fileted and still twitching.. NOT AGAIN..

[Pan]

I've eaten heads of animals, but not in Italy. When I was living in a Malay village, there was a big kenduri (feast) in connection with a ritual attempt to exorcise evil spirits that were presumed to be causing a lot of work accidents at the local sawmill (the ritual didn't work in the end). A goat was slaughtered for the ceremony, and I was given the head. It was delicious!

In Italy, I don't think I've been more adventurous than eating Tripa alla Romana and such-like, but I don't think more unusual stuff has come into my path so far while in Italy.

[hathor]

Roasted little birdies. I'm not sure of the legality of this dish either, some people here in Umbria say its OK, others say it is certainly illegal. But, a local restaurant that shall go un-named served tiny, roasted song birds. We didn't know what they were until they came to the table, our premises being any meat on stick should be tried (spiedini). They were absolutely delicious. I didn't eat the heads, but my dining partners did with relish.

[touaregsand]

I've tried most parts of animals. I just can't do the head or balls though (maybe if they were fried or heavily spiced or topped with fistfulls of parmigiano reggiano) I enjoy raw meat and blood sausages, but just raw blood I don't think so.

[kellytree]

When I had animals a lot of people didnt want the lambs head so we would put them in the freezer and every so often this man would come around and pick them up. He was always so happy to get 5 or 6 free lambs heads.

Another big person pleaser was sometimes I would collect the blood and bring a fresh bowl of blood over to my neighbor. Kinda gross to me but my neighbor was always so excited and happy about it.

I still can't figure out why I will eat a piece of meat but brains, and innards, eyeballs, snouts and blood make me go ick (I will eat all those parts too - if I have to.)

[Adam Balic]

During the pig killing season a congealed blood clot thing and sugar is eaten in Chinati. Tastes like blood.

In Syracuse I ate wild artichokes (= very damn spikey thistles) that a chap was selling cold and cooked from the back of his Ape. Tasty, but ultimately not worth the pain.

Oh yeh, raw sausage are spread on bread in Chinati and eaten with new oil. Trichinella yummy.

[calimero]

Traditionally for Easter lunch in Rome we eat coratella con carciofi (artichokes with coratella: kidneys, lungs, heart, intestine), baked lamb's head, fried lamb's brain.

With the pig's blood we make sanguinaccio

[balex]

Panino con milza -- street food in Palermo. You get a sesame seed bun (I think this is actually the origin of the sesame seed bun for fast food, but I digress) with a stew of pancreas and lung, served with two sorts of cheese (ricotta and caciocavallo), squeeze of lemon, bit of salt. Sometimes it has some crunchy bits that are a bit like toenail cilippings. Best just to spit them out without looking too closely.

Fabulicious.

[chefzadi]

When I had animals a lot of people didnt want the lambs head so we would put them in the freezer and every so often this man would come around and pick them up. He was always so happy to get 5 or 6 free lambs heads.

Another big person pleaser was sometimes I would collect the blood and bring a fresh bowl of blood over to my neighbor.  Kinda gross to me but my neighbor was always so excited and happy about it.

I still can't figure out why I will eat a piece of meat but brains, and innards, eyeballs, snouts and blood make me go ick (I will eat all those parts too - if I have to.)

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I'd be happy with one of those heads. You don't know what your missing! I'll pass on the blood though.

[Andrew Fenton]

Panino con milza -- street food in Palermo. You get a sesame seed bun (I think this is actually the origin of the sesame seed bun for fast food, but I digress) with a stew of pancreas and lung, served with two sorts of cheese (ricotta and caciocavallo), squeeze of lemon, bit of salt. Sometimes it has some crunchy bits that are a bit like toenail cilippings.  Best just to spit them out without looking too closely.

Fabulicious.

I haven't tried this, but it sounds very similar to another Sicilian sandwich, vestedda (made with spleen, not lung, but with the two cheeses). I've tried one (in New York). Pretty good, but the organ tastes oddly... functional, somehow.