I have to be a bit conservative with Ethiopian -- burning-hot spiciness = bad -- but I have definitely enjoyed the whole "your plate is also dinner" setting and the various flavors. Asmara is pretty good -- and a lot cheaper for lunch than they are for dinner!
The secret to the chicken-eyeballs issue is not to ask. You see something vaguely eyebally swimming in your soup, you just don't ask. You don't ask what's in a hot dog, do you??
N.B. This approach does not work for chicken feet. They just look exactly like what they are.
How do you eat chicken feet? Do you just chew them up? Aren't they mostly bone?
Chicken feet are mostly bone, and you do not eat the bones. You chew on the skin and tendons, and spit the bones out.
I ate them on a dare, at dum sum one day, and while it was not an unpleasant experience (they taste like cooking oil, basically), it was also like, "If I'm not actively starving, why would I go to avian feet, which have very little muscle in them, for my animal-eating experience?"
The best part of the experience was the look on the poor dim sum waiter's face when I said, "Yes, I know they're feet." She didn't want to believe me that I really wanted them. (Like I said, it was a dare.)
My impression is that Ethiopian food is somewhat similar to Indian food, and that I wouldn't like it.
How do you eat chicken feet? Do you just chew them up? Aren't they mostly bone?
The feet have lots of cartilage, which you can chew. Then you spit out little bits of bone.
Do you just chew them up? Aren't they mostly bone?
DH loves the chicken feet. I think they're nasty -- not just because they look like feet, but because they're nothing but skin and gristle. You kind of just gnaw on them.
I find Ethiopian food to be very strongly
spicy
but generally not
hot-spicy,
except the reddish 'wot' sauce which must have hot peppers in it somewhere. But compared to Indian, there's practically no milk products and lots of easily-identifiable beef. It's worth a try, especially as the meals are generally "family style" so that you have a variety of dishes to take a bite each of and decide what you favor. (Mostly they're all delicious, though I can't testify as to the beef ones.)
I'm super non-adventurous when it comes to food.
I'm willing to try just about anything once, although I tend to draw the line at things like feet and brains, or when the thing I'm meant to eat still has its eyeballs.
A man accused of robbing a Belfast lingerie shop at knifepoint has fallen back on a time honoured defence – namely, his claim that he believed he was a female elf at the time.
Hmm, and Victoria Bitter resurfaced only days ago.
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...
The one time I tried Ethiopian food, I thought the salmon goulash was pretty good, but the injera was like eating a dirty gray sponge.
I kinda don't like my meal looking at me when I'm eating. When I used to get river trout, I'd hide the head and it was ok. And if it is snack sized and not shrimp whole, nu-uh. Just...no.
So I imagine pig's feet actually have meat on them? Still, I'm not sure it's something I could eat.
I'm pretty adventuresome when it comes to food. I once had a job interview where the recruitment people took me out to dinner the night before. I had calamari - they had never heard of it and were impressed. I like to think that's the main reason I got a job offer....
I do generally draw the line at things with eyeballs. And getting stuff like a whole red snapper is just too much work to get the meat off.
