As I'm too busy to write anything that requires conscious thought and I am also quite peckish I think it's time to re-visit an occasional series we've not seen for a while: "Dive's Extreme Eating."
This series has seen me putting odd things into my mouth and chomping down on them both for my own curiosity and your prurient entertainment.
We've explored the stinky and sticky world of natto, eaten whalemeat, taken part in the infamous wasabi chocolate experiment and I have related the tuna cat food / dead spider / meths / cheese and pickle cautionary tale.
Today I'm breaking with tradition and actually eating something yummy.
Today I shall be launching my tastebuds at a box of sweet tamarind.
Now some of you (especially Joy, who introduced me to this gloriously addictive stuff) may already know how delicious this is, but I'd not tried it until earlier this year and now I am a registered addict.
So … Here we have a box with Sweet Tamarind written on it. If you check your local Asian store you may well come across something similar.Step one is to buy it.
Step two is to remove some of the strange, poo-shaped and poo-coloured pods from the box and look at them a little nervously.Some of you may remember how soaking and squeezing tamarind paste is as near to poo-massage as you are ever likely to want to get and may well be backing away from your monitor right now.
Worry not! For yummyness awaits within.
Tentatively break open a pod and take a peek inside.
Oooooh!Looky! A little poo, all tied up with string.
If ever any of you have nightmares about triffids or Invasion of the Body-Snatchers this might freak you a little.
I dare say not many of you would think - upon first encountering one of these - "Hey! That looks like something I want to put in my mouth."
But persevere! Remove the strings and chow down on that sticky, brown mess.Holy Moly!
It is utterly delicious!
If there are any Brits out there who remember Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, these are just like a less sugary and far more delicious version of those.
Once the sweet-sour tang has hit home and your tastebuds are enjoying multiple orgasms in your mouth you'll discover that there are hard little seeds inside the gooey deliciousness.
Simply put these to one side and carry on avidly devouring every last drop of that sticky pulp.Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …
Once you have a decent pile of seeds (which won't be long as the taste of the pulp is so fantastic), get yourself a frying pan and gently dry fry the seed cases for around five minutes, shaking them occasionally.
Let them cool for a bit, then crack open the shell casing with your teeth (or a hammer if you've got crap teeth) to reveal what looks (and tastes) like a hard version of a toasted peanut.These are considerably less delicious than the yummy pulp but still worth trying, if only as a test of your dentist's handiwork.
As a special treat on today's "Dive's Extreme Eating" post we'll be devouring some of the goodies Mayuko brought back from Tokyo.
Pocky fans will be drooling at liquorice and crunchy nut Pocky and lovers of weird, squidgy, milk-flavoured rubber sweets will enjoy the little white packets with the cow on the front.These read:
ミルクソフトキャンデー
… which is pronounced "mirukusofutokandee", which - as any fule kno - is milk soft candy.
But it is the limited edition KitKat that is the scariest thing here.
The Japanese really love their limited edition weird-flavoured sweets and this one is no exception:
Hands up who can read this:
しょうゆ
Yup. It's "Shouyu" … er … soy sauce flavoured KitKat.
Which … much to my disappointment, actually tasted delicious. A little like Caramac, if anyone remembers those.
Anyhoo. That's it for this episode of Dive's Extreme Eating. Not very extreme this time I grant you, but perhaps it will encourage you to put weird things in your mouth and see what they taste like.
30 comments:
Yesssss! I had some of those in the Caribbean and in Tahiti - which I picked straight from the tree or from the ground below the tree, and they're heaven on earth.
But
1. I had no idea you could buy them in boxes and that's the best news ever
2. I had no idea you could also roast and eat the nuts inside and that looks like a promising experience
Thanks for the good news dive!
Woohoo! Great to see someone else adventurous enough to eat stuff that looks like poo.
Well done, Nathalie!
Get down to your nearest Asian deli right now and treat yourself to a box.
Hey! And you get it from a box with negotiable cooking! My kind of treat, Dive!
I can read it, I can read it!! It says ????
My, but that stuff looks unappetizing. Ye Gods. Then, you having referred to it as poo throughout, I am backing away so far, it looks like strange little needles. I think I'll pass, though I am usually open (ahem) to odd tastes. It was the poo thing which did it.
I thought my post today was extreme. Yours takes the cake.
Thats even more stomach turning than the whalemeat.
Yuck, pass.
Hee hee, Katherine. I do love snacks that you can eat straight off the tree. Unfortunately this tree only grows in the tropics so I'll settle for snarfing them straight out of the box.
Lynn: get yourself a proper computer (or read it at work). Hee hee.
Take Nathalie's word for it; this stuff tastes like Heaven on earth.
Try it. You'll love it!
Kate: next time I think I'll have whale sashimi for starter and this for dessert.
Lynn seriously, forget about dive's reference to poo. Think pee, no I mean peas in a pod. Except they're large peas in a large pod and what you eat is mainly the gooey substance around the peas, much like in a passionfruit. The tingy flavour is what does it for me.
Me, too, Nathalie. I have to confess the yummy, tangy-fruit deliciousness yanked my back into the kitchen by my tastebuds and made me devour a whole load more since I posted this.
The aftertaste is amazing, too.
Hey ya! So THIS is what you do when we Amuricans are bingeing on turkey and dressing! Huh, I'm feeling like the gap in the ocean is just that much larger this morning. :D
I actually have found this tamarind (? you say ?) on rainy days in the upstairs hallway in my house before. Strange, I've never actually sampled it for sweetness.
It does sound a notch better than whale blubber or chocolate covered spider though, I'll give you that. harhar
It is interesting to see what tamarind looks like as you do hear of it in recipes- but I never would have thought it was a gooey bean-pretty cool. Does it taste anything like a date or fig?
Oh, hee hee, Shan! I love that you find this growing naturally in your upstairs hallway.
When you use tamarind in cooking it imparts a lovely sour tang to soups and stews and sweet/sour dishes, but this stuff is just like fruit jellies only much, much better.
However, I'd advise trying the stuff in the box before the stuff in your hallway.
Can you smoke this stuff,dive?
Very probably, Rich, but whether it would taste good or get you high is not something I'd like to be the first to try to find out.
Good lord. Who ever decided this should be food?
Probably the same person who first tried to eat a lobster, Robyn.
A seemingly idiotic thing to do but with a delicious outcome in both cases.
Whilst I trust Nathalie implicitly, I think I'm still with Scout and others. Rich's comment just tends to confirm.
Well, this one certainly sorts the men out from the boys … or the dashing, daredevil, gourmand-heroes of Blogville from those cowering behind the sofa when I call out "dinner's ready".
I've said it before and I'll say it again (because I SO love saying it):
"I'm not angry, just disappointed."
Hee hee hee.
Well I'm curious now because I've never tasted tamarind so I'll have to find an asian grocer and see if I can find a packet. I'm very much into mangoes - I love them so another tropical fruit is worth the effort particularly since Nathalie endorses your view. Roasting the nuts is an added bonus - a bit like roasting pumpkin seeds I suppose.
As for soy sauce Kit Kat - I guess you'd need to be Japanese (or you) to appreciate that one, Dive. Original and quirky post, Dive.
Hmmm now Mme's description is getting me interested; I adore mangoes too. I mi....ght pop into an Asian store if I can find one. May...be.
Thanks for sharing Dive! I never would have thought to try tamarind. I used to have two Asian student employees (one Cambodian and one Vietnamese) who used to make all sorts of yummy things for me. I miss them. There is one Asian store in town I will have to check out.
The licorice crunch pocky Wow! My kids love pocky but never encountered this kind! My kids love soy so much they would probably eat the KitKat.
I can't wait for the day when I hear a mother excitedly calling her children in from a backyard play session with the words: "Come inside, kids, your poo-snacks are ready!"
I saw this and immediately thought of the movie "Caddyshack" and the scene where Bill Murray's character eats the "poo" that was thrown in the pool (which was actually a candy bar). Once again I'll drop a notch in your eyes because I've never tried this, and I'm sure there's a plentiful supply in my area. I'd happily try this if it was offered to me, but I can't say that it has ever occurred to me to search it out. Maybe I will now! As far as soy sauce Kit Kat -- pass (and you know how much I like chocolate).
I've used tamarind paste for cooking (I actually have some in the fridge - should I go and lick it???)and seen the pod but never thought of eating the seeds. There is a bit of a leap of faith involved isn't there. Looks like poo, smeells like poo must be.....tamarind?????
Jules it DOESN'T smell like poo at all!
Mme: Give it a try. It's really weird to put something so … er … "unusual-looking" in your mouth and find your tastebuds dancing for joy.
The soy sauce KitKat was disappointingly not the least bit soy saucy, even though soy sauce was way up there on the ingredients list.
Good girl, Lynn. You won't be disappointed. If you're anything like me you'll take a tentative nibble, think hmm … that's okay, then take a bigger bite and then suddenly eat the whole box.
Neetzy: Give it a go.
I'm not surprised your girls are Pocky fans; I have to keep Louisa supplied with the strawberry Pocky I get in London (apparently the stuff she can get in Norwich is made in Thailand and hasn't got the same cute inner wrapper … sheesh! Girls!).
The Japanese go way over the top with "limited edition" foods. She loves "Melty Kiss" chocolate, too.
Lucio: Tamarind pods shall henceforth forever be called "poo-snacks".
Thank you for that. Hee hee.
Katie: I'm relieved you thought of that one and not Divine in that infamous John Waters scene.
Ew!
You'll never drop a notch in my eyes, but if you see any tamarind pods on your shopping trips, give them a try.
The soy sauce KitKat was much nicer than getting a normal KitKat and pouring soy sauce over it.
Jules: tamarind paste is much more pooey and sour. These things are yummy, just like sweets.
There is indeed a leap of faith involved. It reminds me of the time Mikey made "shitty biscuits" … biscuits shaped just like dog turds. They looked so real it was virtually impossible to put them in our mouths but they were delicious.
Nathalie's right. They don't smell like poo. Go hunt down a pod and try it.
Dive I do admit that sounds like me!
You know i keep coming back to this post but you just can't convince me. I'm going to have nightmares about this stuff.
By the way should you want to dine al fresco on some truly fresh raw whalemeat japanesey origami rice wrapped food then you should know that a pod of whales have just beached themselves in Tasmania, the bottom of australia. you could go sit on the rocks with your chopsticks and just pick it straight off the bones. Don't they say fresh seafood is the best?
Lynn: hee hee.
Kate: nightmares about edible poo? That's … er … refreshingly different.
Tasmania's a bit too far to go for suicide whalemeat. I did try to grab the one that got stuck in the Thames last year but the bloody Natural History Museum beat me to it. The Japanese restauranteurs were furious.
Hey ho.
Laughing my f-ing arse off.
Thanks for making me smile through my bi polar cranky haze. xox
Dive: Naturally, they'll be available in chewable, crumbly and crunchy varieties. There will also be options for vegetarians, vegans, the lactose intolerant and our many friends who subscribe to religions requiring that their nibbles be prepared according to the strict dictates of a Supreme Being. The toughest customer market will be those who are already devotees of junk food - i.e. real shit - in all its pricey, nefarious manifestations.
I tried to be open minded, I really did.
But, god...it just....looks...so...so..gross.
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