Mmm--mm! Turkey necks!

Back in the Eisenhower administration, when my family was clawing its way into the middle class, Dad had a second job working nights cleaning up at a turkey processing plant. The night crew had "carrying privileges," so he brought home entire flocks of turkey necks that somehow didn't make the cut for the supermarkets. Saturdays Mom would cook a huge pot of necks, then set me to stripping the meat off when they'd cooled. It all got packaged up for turkey casserole, turkey soup, and turkey salad, which I recall eating an inordinate amount of. It was much tastier than the loss leader 10-cent-a-can potted meat that haunted the back of the cupboard. (white bread + potted meat + yellow mustard = one sad sandwich)

Camelot and JFK introduced me to Spam, but it wasn't until the Johnson administration that I was initiated into the mysteries of Vienna sausage.

These days, I avoid turkey salad sandwiches and other mystery meats, but those necks still make some great soup!

It's pretty much a photo montage of food banned by Sharia law.

I'm not a Southron Man, I'm a New Mexican, but my neighbor and physician is. The farthest North anyone in his family has ever been is the High-Water Mark at Gettysburg.

He makes souse. It is delicious. I recommend it with a little vinegar, saltines and beer.

When he visits his Grampa in Tennessee, he brings back Neese's hot sausage and liver pudding. I like a liver pudding!

The British called potted meat "Bully Beef", but the Germans called it "Mussolini's Ass".

Chipotle Mayonesa is gooood on burgers and those sardines are a staple in my house.

Try the souse!

(Now I want something fucked-up for supper)

Potted meat is full of lips and peckers. Just so's you know.

As for the other stuff... I grew up just a hundred miles or so from Asheville, and I have eaten most of the things you pictured. I like me some liver cheese - it's pate for people who have never heard of pate. I don't know liver pudding, but I wouldn't want to live in a world without country sausage.

And there are always exactly six Viennies in a can.

Gosh Gerard, you're digging into my past here.
When I was a young lad (1945 to 1953) I did a lot of backpacking in the mountains of Colorado. My backpacking buddy, John, and I found potted meat product, Vienna sausages, Spam, and Campbell's baked beans were ideal for our purposes. They didn't spoil, were reasonably light, easy to pack, and, probably most important, required little preparation. In those days we didn't know any better so we just discarded the cans. Eco freaks are probably still finding the evidence scattered about the vasty wilderness even today.

Not exactly haute cuisine, but we never got sick, and we covered a lot of miles powered by those calories.

Thanks for the tip toe through the tulips.

Hi Gerard, re: side lines, Abe in a turban: Sharia bucks for all!

...I like the Spam Singles...it's both Classic AND new! The vaguest of both worlds.

When my girls were very young and behaving poorly, I'd threaten to serve them Potted Meat unless they started acting better. They'd no idea what it was (I didn't either), but the name was threat enough.

I almost had a migraine just looking at all this vague food. And you just hit the tip of the iceberg, but a good tip.

I say when a food label has more than a few basic ingredients listed on the back, it's time to run, not walk away as fast as possible.

As I've eaten what I considered real food over the last few decades (and broken up with at least one man who required me to eat only vague foods on long, far away fishing extravaganzas) I've never felt better.

Last night, I took a big pot of homemade lamb stew and roasted green beans with olive oil over to one of my younger female relatives. This dear woman, ten years my junior, has just had a major heart attack, a failed triple bypass, another heart attack, and now stints in most of her recently collapsed arteries. I took enough for two nights for several people. Her husband said she had lost her appetite and could barely eat. But lo and behold, after eating a bowl of the stew, she sent back for a second helping and then a third.

Not because I am any sort of good cook---I literally throw things together----but in my opinion, it was real, not vague food. And real food heals and satisfies the body. I think she and her family lost touch with real food a long time ago.

I am probably the only person in America who thinks Whole Foods Market's prepared foods are as bad as Starbucks frappacinos. Too many indredients, too much seasonings, too much stuff. Overdone. Overpriced. Overvague. But their basic indredients are still fine. Thanks for this good, graphic message.

Think of the foods you have showcased as the random blocks and shards on the floor of DaVinci's sculpting studio.

The same part of the country that prizes liver pudding brought forth pork BBQ with Sauce and Slaw.

Splended Aray?
It's so vague it don't google.
It must be something you can only find once you go past the end of the internet.

You have to bear in mind that Food Lion is a french owned operation, selling regional and ethnic sort-of food in the south. Gives you the mental image of a managerial type in Paris looking over a report with breakdowns of products, you know, what they're selling where, and contemplating suicide.
Then he goes into finance.

Not only are Starbucks bottled drinks made of the same sad, sorry, stale, over-processed "ingredients" as the bottled drinks of every other mass merchandiser on the planet, but they are bottled for Starbucks by PEPSI, those upstart imitators.

Makes you ashamed to be from Seattle.

Don't knock souse (pronounced soos in my part of Wisconsin). Let's say it's headcheese (ya ya, don't go there, OK?) and served with a splash of vinegar and mustard. Made from only the very finest pigs heads--or hocks--or bones left after making yummy pork sausage. My father, of Bohemian descent, loved the stuff. And I have to say it does grow on you as you 'mature' (a few beers help). It's only served at New Year's Day in our house.

Heh. I descend from both an old southern family --- I discovered that one great great great grandfather was born about six miles from my office at Duke when I was a grad student --- and a family of German and Hungarian butchers. We ate all that stuff. "Liver cheese" is a variant of liverwurst: you peel of that layer of pork fat and eaty it on good bread with mustard and raw onions.

I am a little puzzled by you including sausage.

waffelbakkers isn't a terrible brand. i used to buy those in belgium. of course the idea of them already having syrup is kinda iffy.

You won't eat blue frosting? It's called food coloring, it's really not a big deal at all. And there were like 3 things on that list that were strange, I've seen the rest at nearly every grocery store I've been to.

Okay, I'll confess: I grew up on Neeses' animal byproducts, especially the Liver Pudding, which makes that pretender Scrapple fall on its back and wave its legs in the air. Sadly, I haven't been able to dine on succulent grilled slices of Liver Pudding since I moved to Virginia 27 years ago. And it's quite a loss, even to someone like me who absolutely loathes liver.

I did visit the Neeses' slaughterhouse/packing plant once. I might have been the only person in my class who didn't seriously entertain the thought of becoming a vegetarian afterwards; it's not a pleasant sight.

What is vague about "Smoked Pork Neck Bones?"

It tells you what animal it's from, what part of that animal it is and how the part was prepared.

Seems pretty damn specific to me. They are perfect for adding to a simmering pot of beans or greens.

Pretentious asses have all the time in the world to go into grocery stores, take pictures, and then report it back to the world wide web on food and culture they do not understand but instead choose to look down upon because it is not up to their health food nut, holier than thou attitude. I do not eat any of these foods myself but I do not care if others do. That's the beauty of choice. I am truly sorry i wasted this much time to respond to this vague and pointless article. Oh, and by the way, if you ever decide to take pictures in my store, i will have you prosecuted.

[You will do exactly nothing you little dweeb except return to your compulsive auto-fellatio. ]

wow!!! there is such a thing as "food prejudice" and you my friend are a food genius. this whole article just made me wonder how to get me some of that thar vague food. don't mean to be vague, but i just am... oooh, the pain, the pain....

That 99 cent Mouse-Loaf looks great!

At the Amish version of Whole Foods, otherwise known as Stauffers of Kissel Hill, they sell Heinz canned spotted dick. And treacle tart. Mmmmm.

Potted meat is where molecular gastronomy meets the snout-to-tail fashionistas.

And punches them both square in the nose.

I thought the Liver Cheese used to be marked as "Head Cheese" and I refer to the boss that way (big cheese becomes head cheese).

If ya ain't eaten Viennies, ya ain't never gone bass fishin' ina bote.

Scrapple is a must-try. Or, its North Carolina version -- livermush.

It isn't hard to make scrapple. The hard part comes in eating it.

Neese's sausage is pork (hams, shoulders, loins, tenderloins included), salt, spices, sugar, natural flavors. It's very good, genuine sausage; no preservatives and little to no junk in it. Comes in a block because there's no casing.

I'm a former Northerner who didn't like sausage until I found Neese's in NC.

How old are these pics? Did you notice the expiration date on the Mayonesa? May 12, 2008.

I tried using the "mystery meat" one time as bait, and even the fish would have none of it.

The farthest North anyone in his family has ever been is the High-Water Mark at Gettysburg.

Posted by: Gray at February 27, 2008 7:17 PM

That's a great line.

Some of them sound pretty gross, but I'm actually inclined to want to try the Mayonesa. Are the liver items just variations on liverwurst? I love liverwurst, so I might like those.

I'm with you on blue food. Also, I tend not to want any meat that comes in a can, although in the fish category, I do love canned sardines and kippered herring.

I learned about all kinds of "strange and unusual" foods (at least to this Pennsylvania-raised gal) when we were living in Charleston, SC for a couple of years.

My Mother, a Calif. gal, used to tell a funny story about being introduced to sauerkraut by my Dad for the first time. And I still remember my Dad's reaction when my Mother served artichokes for the first time.

Black pudding - one vague food I could have lived without trying. Haggis. Seriously good Southern eats: Chicken Bog, Frogmore Stew, Catfish Stew and Pecan Pie - be sure and wash it all down with over-saturated sweet tea - the kind with half an inch of undissolvable sugar collected at the bottom of the pitcher. Nothing vague - just pure soul food. Potted meat sounds like something from the Great Depression, but can't be worse than the junk currently found in hot dogs.

Smoked pork neck bones make excellent beans. I think they are better than smoked hocks, but maybe not as good as smoked shank. The shank always seems hard to get at Winco.

Sink de Mayo?

I will admit it. I will eat the hell out of some potted meat.

Potted meat and mayo on some white bread with big old slices of home grown tomatoes is a damn good sammich.

I was going to post on this thread until I saw someone already posted everything I was thinking!

Imagine my surprise to see my name, "Gray" at the end of that witty and trenchant post!

I've not changed in 3 years, but it feels a lifetime ago just now....

"Say that slowly several times: "Liver..... cheese.... liver.... cheese...." It's the kind of thought that would make a toddler contemplate suicide.

"

Livercheese (didn't know it was known by that in English) actually tastes quite good.
Sold fresh by pretty much every butcher shop and supermarket in the Netherlands and Germany at least (with local variations in recipe of course).

"Humm, Mayonesa-Mayonnaise. That's one massive train wreck of Spanish-French-American cultural concepts contained in a single jar."

Or just a package with text in 2 languages, one of them maybe misspelled a bit (as is clear from the rest of the label).

"True, the conjoined twins of "De Wafelbakkers" might give you pause,"

Which is Dutch for "the waffel bakers" (not too hard to guess, really). Could be a nice snack for on the road, nice change from a Mars bar (sounds rather dry, Mars being a rocky, sandy, place).

You seem to have stumbled into the "international foods" aisle and reacted like a typical American (or indeed typical almost any nationality), thinking everything unknown to you must be bad.

" Gives you the mental image of a managerial type in Paris looking over a report with breakdowns of products, you know, what they're selling where, and contemplating suicide."

Of course the French store will have most of it made up fresh rather than prepackaged for the export market (or for the American supermarket customer). Much more appealing that way.
Most of what's wrong with these pictures (well, most of them) is the packaging rather than the content after all.

"Some of them sound pretty gross, "

"Are the liver items just variations on liverwurst? I love liverwurst, so I might like those. "

Livercheese certainly is. Don't know liver pudding.
I love livercheese and liverwurst (as well as pate) but hate liver (fried, baked, or cooked, go figure).

A lot of what people eat, and especially delicacies, do sound gross when you read a list of the unprepared ingredients.
Which is why it's often better to not read those lists until after you've eaten it as the taste may well pleasantly surprise you :)

I like escargots myself, which are of course snails.
Mushrooms? List them as fungus buds on the packaging (which is what they are, admit it) and people are repelled by the thought of eating them.
Caviar? Fish eggs. Which sounds more pleasant a term to you? Yet both are the same.
Shrimps, those tasty little things from the oceans of the world, you'd not like so much if you knew they live on the biological waste excreted by fish (at least in part).

Here is a list of typical PA Dutch recipes...most of which I have both eaten and prepared. Except for this one:

Leber Kloese (Liver Dumplings)

Beef liver is seasoned and diced with salt, pepper, celery, parsley, and onions before being fried in butter. The meat is shaped into balls about 2 inches in diameter and wrapped inside the prepared dough to form the dumpling. The dumpling is then boiled in soup stock for about 20 minutes.

There's nothing vague about Spam. It's pork shoulder and ham. Says so right on the label.

Food prejudices are mostly a matter of one's upbringing shaping their perception of what is normal. Most people probably would not even try duck blood soup, solely based on their preconceived notion of epicurian acceptability, but if not told what it was, they might enjoy it. Unfortunately, big barnyard ducks are getting hasrd to find. (The same goes for blood pudding.)

We had fried Spam sando's for supper last night.
On hamburger buns, with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, dills, mayo.
Mmmmm.....

Last time I heard about Food Lion they were bleaching their outdated seafood to keep it looking "fresh". That's all I need to know.

Nothing much better than fried Spam — if you're real hungry.

It's those pig snouts & sphincters that give it that tasty tang...

...which makes it just like hot dog ingredients [and FYI: bologna ('baloney' in the midwest) is exactly the same as frankfurter (hot dog) meat].

those little fish in the can were wino food in New York when I was a kid.
Some literally inbred guys I worked with in Alabama ate Vienna Sausages and Potted meat. They also ate the possums that got trapped in the garbage cans eating the potted meat residue. It was a veritable hillbilly food chain.

The people who give you 'splended aray' are also voting to determine YOUR government

Those tuna medleys are very popular in Australia, as I learned when I lived there. On my first trip to the supermarket, I struck out on plain tuna and ended up with the same kind of lemon pepper tuna pictured here. This one was pretty good, but I drew the line at the tuna curry medley.

Now, you take my uncle Letsgo Lozko. He raised bantam chickens.
He could eat a whole roast chicken all by himself.

Vague-N food. Down south here we call that Boy Scout campout food. Compact. Lightweight. Friendly. Easy to open. Seems to be capable of supporting large numbers of 13 year old boys for a whole weekend!

I used to eat potted meat when I first left home and had a low-paying job. Now I can afford Spam. I make egg macmuffins with it. Also put it on homemade pizza with green peppers. And liver cheese is GOOD ! Haven't tried some of the other items mentioned, but if you like them, more power to you.

In the last year of Obama, you'll be lucky to not eat dirt.

Girard, Girard, easy boy, easy. It's a fun and funny post, but SPAM is one of the pillars of American food-dom. As my (then) young daughter noted in a brilliant ad she designed (showing a can of SPAM morphing into a tank as it roared up over an enemy trench) "It got us through World War II, it can get you through lunch." Fried, or grilled, Spam, lettuce and tomato on toast. A little butter and mayonnaise. Try it!

My wife's family is Filipino. Three summers ago I my crew stayed with my wife's brother in law, who is an engineer and makes a good living. A large family party was being put together and cooking was done outside. Started out with a VERY large wok being heated by a coconut wood fire. In went some oil, then onions and other spices. WOW! Smelled really good. Then the hog guts, heart, liver, etc. were pulled out of a bag, uncerimoniously chopped up and dropped into the wok. Still smelled good...then a plastic bag full of pig congealed pig blood was poured on top of all of this to cook down. Common Filipino food. As native as I have gone in all my time in the PI, there are some things I will not eat, and that was one of them.

We have no idea how good we have it here in the US. Even poor people are fat.

I'll try that SPAM sandwich , Ralph, and pass on the blood pig roast Snakepit.

Yeah Snakepit, that blood shit is straight out. Not black pudding either. In Britain they tried to serve me that stuff....ewww, and I am normally capable of liking most any food. Just not blood or underdeveloped birds in their shells or snails. Never ever snails.

We cannot help but to eat and drink of such goodness, although separate seatings should probably bo considered.

I like Armor Potted Meat. Whenever my sister goes stateside she picks up a dozen cans for me.