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[MetalSlimeHunt]

As far as I know that's just a movie thing. I've never even eaten liver before, and I only barely recall ever seeing it up for sale.

[Bauglir]

It depends on how it's prepared, for me, and what it's the liver of. Beef liver usually has a very strong flavor to it that I don't like very much, unless it's covered up. I can stomach it, but onions help a goddamn lot. On the other hand, I frickin' loved it a few years back when I had a bit of a vitamin A deficiency or something, but that lasted about a week. Now, pork liver is pretty good, especially when converted into braunsweiger, although that can safely be blamed on the bacon involved in that.

Gotta watch out, though; unlike most vegetables, the vitamin A there is not present as a metabolite, and so your body can't just not convert it to the vitamin when it gets to toxic levels. This is why predator livers have a tendency to kill you, because they've got a far higher concentration of it than herbivore livers, IIRC. You probably won't die from eating overmuch of most livers, though, even on a regular basis; likelier that you'll just get symptoms of chronic hypervitaminosis or whatever it's called (all I remember is that A's involves bone spurs, among other things).

[Virex]

It's also the sewage processing plant of the body you're eating so it contains all kinds of thinks you don't want in your body. Eating it once won't hurt, but don't make it a daily meal

[Bauglir]

Generally not true, unless the people who raised the animal were poisoning it. Yeah, it's where a lot of toxins are cleared up, so you don't want to eat the liver of something that died of poisoning, but otherwise I don't see what the problem is really going to be. Generally, your own liver will be able to handle any reactions that didn't get carried out in the original animal.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If you're worrying about contaminates, I'd be more cautious of the kidneys. They're basically blood scrubbers, and there's all sorts of bad stuff in your blood that needs to be scrubbed.

[Virex]

Generally not true, unless the people who raised the animal were poisoning it. Yeah, it's where a lot of toxins are cleared up, so you don't want to eat the liver of something that died of poisoning, but otherwise I don't see what the problem is really going to be. Generally, your own liver will be able to handle any reactions that didn't get carried out in the original animal.

IIRC, the problem is mostly with heavy metals. Mercury tends to build up in the livers of animals that are regularly fed with fish-based products, and animals that were held in some areas may have elevated amounts of cadmium in their liver. In both cases the concentration in the liver will be quite a bit higher then the concentration in the rest of the meat, although it won't be much anymore as a lot has been done to clean up heavy metals. As I said it's nothing to worry about unless you eat loads of it.


Edit: And yeah, same goes for kidneys though IIRC they don't store heavy metals to the same extent that the liver does, as the liver is specialized in storing stuff your body can't get rid off.

[Bauglir]

Oh, that's true, I hadn't considered metals. My bad.

[SalmonGod]

Brains are another thing I get squeamish about.  I could probably get myself to try it, but it's a little unsettling.

The torture practices involving eating still-living animals are nightmare fuel.  I thought boiling them alive was bad.  Had never heard of that live-lobster sashimi thing before... ugh...

[Trapezohedron]

In china, there's this baby mouse wine, a drink that I wouldn't try to drink at all. Seriously, it's gross. I mean, it's baby mice, in a bottle of wine.

Century Egg... I wouldn't mind trying it.  I probably wouldn't like it.  I've heard it tastes like pure salt.  The idea of it doesn't really bother me, though.

Century egg's not all that bad, especially when you dip it in soy sauce, and eat it with jellyfish. It is also a good ingredient for soups.

Although, it doesn't mean that the ancient myth of using horse urine to prepare the eggs is an appetizing one.

EDIT: Also, fugu. While it's not bad, it's really bizarre, and it tastes just like fish too, not what you'd expect from a highly poisonous, highly prized fish.

[Neonivek]

it doesn't mean that the ancient myth of using horse urine to prepare the eggs is an appetizing one

With what I know about Horse urine (and certain other animals) this makes total sense.

I mean... Horse urine is practically a drug!

[counting]

As a Chinese and half Hakka myself, (Hakka people lived in the same region as Cantonese, and we have similar recipes). I DO admit that we ate some bizarre foods.

For stinky tofu, that it is so common in the society that you are meant to find 1 or more food stamps in every street block, which sell them along with other "animal parts" as standard street food in southeast China and in Taiwan. And I personally do not feel anything disgusting about them at all. So its really just a culture thing as far as I concerned.

The usual animal parts like the liver, kidney, heart, intestine and stomach, and one of a Hakka special the tongue(yep, you eat tongue with tongue), and many others. If you visit the food stamps here, they most likely sell above all. It's a philosophy that nothing is wasted as food. And everything can be eaten, there must be a recipe for it. This is mostly due to the poverty of the region where my ancestors lived. You either accept them of die in hunger. The same as dog meat. We even has a sequence of what kind of dogs taste better. (black > yellow > spot > white color dogs 一黑二黃三花四白). And the animals used are not just dogs, there are also frogs (french are not alone), which we give them a pretty name as "chicken in the crop field" (田雞); snakes, which believed to have aphrodisiac properties, as the genitalia organs of other animals; less common and expensive one as monkey, rare as mice and cats (they don't have much meat in them), and many kinds of insects and worms, from centipedes, to snails and earthworm (Again we beat the French). Also every other kinds of sea food that can be caught. (And every part of a fish), also we tend to meshup different foods with others, like 蚵仔煎 as oysters mixed with eggs and making them into an omelette.

The most differences of Hakka and Cantonese recipes are mostly we used more vegetable and salts and oils. And we used molded and pickling vegetables/fruits (Yes, molded and than cooked 梅干) for a somewhat trademark flavor.

P.S. Century egg is common as a additive of flavors in congee (粥) as breakfast or meals. And another common way of eating century egg is mixed with tofu. (皮蛋豆腐). Personally I like them very much, and it doesn't taste like salt at all. That's another kind of salted egg 鹹蛋 which also very common as additive in congee. (But not with tofu). We Taiwanese also create a new kind of "prepared" egg - 鐵蛋 (Iron-hard egg). It's a kind of dried and pickled egg. We even sell them as packaged snack food.

[Trapezohedron]

Speaking of salty eggs, The Philippines has 'Itlog Maalat', a very salty egg. It is creamier than the usual boiled egg, and it is usually used in salads and appetizers. It isn't disgusting though, unlike Balut.

It still makes me wonder though, why they have to go and paint the whole egg's shell into red.

To keep my post relevant to the topic, The Cebuanos (Philippines) have a condiment called ginamos. It is very salty and it has a repulsive smell. It has a variety of colors, but is usually gray. It is made out of fermented fish, and is usually used to replace salt.

Personally, I think that it's disgusting, as it's rotten (it is left out in room temperature to be fermented, after all), it's stinky and it's just salty (and maybe a bit sour).

[RedKing]

Oh yeah....I remember an episode of Iron Chef (the original NHK one) where the secret ingredient was live giant lobsters. I think one of the dishes was basically "cleave lobster in half, place both halves on plate with some rice in the middle". That whole episode was Nightmare Fuel.

As far as liver goes, it's not nearly as popular in the US as it used to be. It's not so much a distaste as a general ignorance by most people that you can eat livers. And a generalized distaste for organ meats in general, which are seen as "poor" or "immigrant" food. I have a strong distaste for beef liver which goes beyond just the food itself (long story), and never cared for chicken livers although I enjoyed chicken gizzards and chicken hearts as a child. But I love, love, LOVE me some Neese's Liver Pudding (pork liver mixed with scrap cuts and seasoned with black pepper and some other spices and ground fine). Even my kids like Liver Pudding, mostly because they're too young to understand that they're "supposed" to be grossed out. It's only my Yankee-born wife who recoils in horror.

[DJ]

I was gonna ask if there's leberkase in USA, but apparently it doesn't contain any liver

Generally I don't get the hate for internal organs, they can be better than meat if prepared right. My aunt makes an absolutely amazing dish with lamb liver and lungs and rice.

[counting]

Speaking of salty eggs, The Philippines has 'Itlog Maalat', a very salty egg. It is creamier than the usual boiled egg, and it is usually used in salads and appetizers. It isn't disgusting though, unlike Balut.

It still makes me wonder though, why they have to go and paint the whole egg's shell into red.

I think its for the purpose of distinguish salted one with other kinds. And red is considered a bliss in Eastern culture (We decorated may other food with red color for that purpose as well). And sometime we painted other marks on the shell to distinguish them as well.

And I do eat Balut once in a Vietnamese restaurant. And it not that bad as you think. Taste like very tendered chicken meat with eggs. The closest meat I can think of is its like frogs. Although not everyone can accept that. My families who are not Hakka origins felt it a little bit disgusting.

And another kind of common egg recipe is tea egg 茶葉蛋, which is just eggs boiled using tea, instead of water. And fairly common in China. Although I don't think it considered bizarre at any rate.

As far as liver goes, it's not nearly as popular in the US as it used to be. It's not so much a distaste as a general ignorance by most people that you can eat livers. And a generalized distaste for organ meats in general,
...
Even my kids like Liver Pudding, mostly because they're too young to understand that they're "supposed" to be grossed out. It's only my Yankee-born wife who recoils in horror.

As I'm from a culture that eat organ meats often, I do think that if people ate them from childhood, then it will be common and not disgusted when you grow up. And it's the culture that define which food is taboo.