Who else, I ask you, is going to give you elegant recipes for lamb piccata, roast leg of lamb, and . . . Spam sushi?! (See comments to the post for that one.) Apparently it's something called "musubi." I had to look it up on account of this is kind of a Spam-free household I've got going on here.
Oh, you nutty Hawaiians.
But actually everyone has something they eat that other people might think is kind of lowbrow. I have some Jamie Oliver cookbook that includes a recipe for a "Fish Stick Buttie." This is a disgusting concoction, favored by Brits as a low rent comfort food, in which frozen fish sticks are cooked and then mushed between bread slices with too much ketchup. I suppose it's no different from a fast-food fish sandwich in this country, really. Maybe it's the ketchup I balk at. And somehow, to me, a breaded fish patty is okay but the sticks are like, wrong somehow.
So what's the most potentially-disgusting-to-others thing you eat? I'll go first, but I have to warn you: it's truly disgusting.
Yes, it's Fritos and cottage cheese! (Or, as my boyfriend refers to it, "curds and whey." Yeah, he thinks he's funny.) Because it's my very most favorite disgusting snack, there are lots and lots of rules about how to make it, too.
1. The cottage cheese should be Breakstone's. All other cottage cheeses are inferior.
2. The cottage cheese should not be nonfat. It should be 2%, small curd.
3. The Fritos must be plain. Old. Regular. Fritos. Not "Scoops." I swear to you that I can pass a blind taste test between the two, so don't try to play me like that. No chili flavor, either. Plain. Old. Regular. Fritos.
4. Now having met requirements 1-3 above, you open up the cottage cheese container and drain off the excess liquid. Overly-wet cottage cheese is sad cottage cheese.
5. Put one heeeeeeaaaping tablespoon of the cottage cheese into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
6. Sprinkle enough Fritos (regular!) over the cottage cheese to attain a 60/40 ratio of Fritos to cheese and, no, I'm not kidding about this and yes, your margin of error in this matter is relatively small.
7. You will want to be mixing these in with a fork and adding more Fritos, if necessary. Use a light touch so as not to break too many of the Fritos. Be thorough enough so that all Fritos are coated equally.
8. Place in serving bowl and watch boyfriend flee from room screaming, "And you bitch at me for eating sunflower seeds?!?"
9. To hell with him anyway. Let's eat!
I told you it was disgusting.
By the way, this remains the only way in which I will consume cottage cheese at all, and if you were going to say "cottage cheese is, like, to vomit," well, I agree with you . . . unless you marry it to the Fritos first. A 60/40 ratio, please.
Posted by Ilyka at April 1, 2004 04:41 AM in were you going to finish that?That cottage cheese thing doesn't sound too bad. My wife eats vanilla ice cream with fritos. Of course, we like spam too, so... :)
Posted by: Ted at April 1, 2004 01:44 PMI used to room with a guy who dipped graham crackers in his beer. I still have nightmares about that. At least I'll be able to move on to cottage-frito night terrors now.
Thanks.
Posted by: Jim at April 1, 2004 01:54 PMI eat hogshead cheese on crackers. That's really not all that disgusting if you're from around here.
I eat beanie-weenie for days on end. I usually make a large batch of it and bring it to lunch every day until it runs out.
Posted by: Rob at April 1, 2004 02:33 PMThat sounds delicious, actually! I am a fritoaholic, though usually I can restrict myself to the occasional small bag mixed with canned turkey chili. Since the Fritos make canned chili palatable, I'm sure they would do wonders for cottage cheese!
Posted by: Susie at April 1, 2004 06:28 PMMy mother used to insist on buying large curd cottage cheese, and maintained that there was no difference between the two.
If you think Spam sushi noteworthy, consider the fact that I recently encountered faux crab stick sushi.
As for what I eat which might disgust others, I suppose that including okra in my stewed green tomatoes, or adding black beans to my menudo might fall into that category. I call one of my favorite snacks a chilled grease sandwich, but that is merely my way of saying grilled cheese. Three slices of bread, one torn in half so I can lay them out in a square on a sheet of lumnum. One 8 ounce packet of shredded cheese, and maybe some black pepper or herb seasoning. Broil till it just starts getting crusty brown.
Posted by: triticale at April 2, 2004 01:25 PM