h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Octopus is amazing! One of my favourite ways is, marinated in vinegar, and enjoyed with some ouzo And snails is also quite

Frog legs is a bit disappointing, not bad but I wouldn't go out of my way to have some, reminds me a bit of chicken wings. Similarly with bison, it's nice but not something completely different that I would track down the only place to serve bison fifty miles around. (There is one about ten minutes from home actually.)

Hi Lanza, yeah I bet you have access to all kinds of wonderful stuff. I once read an article about Lanzarote, and fish cafes were mentioned as a brilliant feature.

2legs yes snails are a favourite of mine, in garlic butter. A few years ago I would collect them from the garden and put in an old aquarium for a few days feeding them on flour and carrots. They need to be purged like that to get rid of the bitterness they have from feeding on usual garden plants.

I stopped doing it after a while though, because I did find it hard to cope with my queeziness of seeing them alive and pooing etc and having to clean the aquarium out each day, before cooking them..

I rarely go to restaurants where snails are on the menu. Just sometimes when my parents come, Dad pays ..but if they are on the menu, I'll have them.

The one time I was in a resturant which had snails in garlic butter on the menu, my friend talked me out of having them, on the basis I'd find it pretty fiddly getting them out of their shells... Unfortuantely they didn't have frogs legs on the menu... Seem to recall I had teriaki shellfish on that occasion instead (which was bluddy nice actually so perhaps no great loss)...
Actually...
I'm terible* when it comes to food; I can remember that* meal; must be about 7 or eight years ago; teriaki shellfish for starters, steak err the raw one... for mains and ice cream for dessert
hmmm... and just thinking.... yeh, I can pretty much rremember every* meal I've ever had out in my life/adulthood : both the bad and the good

Ooo and I'm just remembering the deviled whitebait I had for starters, oo would have been about 1999 December or November, when they had the decent* chef at a gastropub near me... with thick sliced wholemeal bread and french butter... that was the starter, and for mains I had I seem to recall the kanggeroo sausages, with mash Can't remember having a dessert on that* occasion
hang on... I remember meals I've had out better than pretty-much anythign else in my life! blimey... I mean I vaguely* remember the first times I had... you know... but meals.... I can still taste them! : No wonder why my diets never work well

I've heard very lack-luster reports of byson... a bit as I have also for things like aligator and crocadile, people I know who've had them say 'its alright' but don't rate it highly enough to say its soemthign they'd ever hunt down on a menu or choose a second time over a dish they like already...

Wish I could get hold of some decent venison for stewing; the supermarket stuff I tried was pretty tasteless (guess it was farmed?), and so damn expensive... Yet I know if I can just get chatting to one of the guys at the pub near me (who supplies a lot of the meat to the pub), He'd probably sell me half the animal for a cheap price (he's some kind of game keeper, and ensures that* pub has an intersting menu of venison, partridge, pheasant, rabbit, hare, and all manner of other things...)

Your meal memory is very impressive I wish I could remember mine that well. Usually I need something to trigger a memory (like a dish which reminds me some time I ate a similar thing, or the atmosphere in a bar which reminds me of another time in a small village restaurant, you get the drift).

Some snails are served out of the shell, in special dishes (with round holes like half-ping-pong balls). And even the shelled ones are not that hard to get out of the shell. (I think they are cooked outside and put back afterwards sometimes. Or did I dream that?)

Steak tartare
Mmmh, that's an idea. I need to find a butcher's nearby to get some meat for that.

Taht's the one... Steak Tarta (I can often remember the meal, but not the name!)

I can't remember every* meal I've had; useually its ones out in resturants; some of the ones in pubs (can't necessarily always remember bog standard pub grub meals; though I can sometimes; I remember a very medioka chicken burger and chips in a pub near me with my Brother, about four or five years ago, whilst we both had particularly full on hangovers also, I can remember the terrible* burger and chips at a Weatherspoons in London.... and the confussing same burger and chips in a differnt* weatherspoons in London, which was )
Memory is a weird thing... I can just* about recall the first time I with a woman but can more clearly remember the first time with a man
hmmmm.... Mind, most of the period when I was a teenager is pretty vague... I blame left handed cigarettes and booze...

Here's a restaurant for you, 2legs:

http://www.banffgrizzlyhouse.com/?page_id=6

perhaps the

'Exotic Fondue (7oz.) $50.95
Shark, Alligator, Rattlesnake, Ostrich, Frogs Legs, Buffalo and venison served with our special Sauces.'

I want to go to that restaurant anhaga

Yeah meals stay with me too..for years. The most divine cod and chips I ever had, in an ordinary place in Portsmouth, right by the entrance to the Dockyard..Man that cod melted in its firmness, and was soo fresh. The day trip to the supermarket at Calais, (I bought some snails there I remeber), and we stopped at some place near the Ferry terminal..so ordinary but it served a fantastic langoustine meal..all my friends were so jealous when they saw what I'd got That's what I love about France, aside from probably some Michelin starred places, you get an ordinary cafe that sells the most brilliant stuff, and you can be sat next to a lorry driver or a woman in a mink coat. Everyone in France really values food.

And the wonderful scampi and chips I had in a pub set on some rocks in a deserted cove at St. Agnes on the north Cornish coast. Myself and a girlfriend had rented a cottage in the village there and we went down to that pub every night and had scampi - I've never had scampi like it since. And it was so brilliant because the cove was so rocky and wild..but inside the pub with a roaring fire it was so cosy.

Yep food memories are fantastic.

I think when I finally lose all my marbles*1 Food memories will probably be soem of the last to go!
I remember one of the most fantastic fish N chips I had, many years ago now, with my Father, we'd been in town shopping, and stopped off at an 'Irish theme' type pub, which at the time was still fairly* new (now reopened as some kind of ghastly night club thing... though it was always a bit like a night club back then, but not quite so awful during the day and the guinness was actually* quite good).
Anyhow, we were both hungry and so both ordered the large* cod N chips... Were told we'd have to wait for a while....
We found out why we were waiting when we saw the van pull up, straight from the fish market at the other end of town, and the fish arrived in...
Well not too long later it arrived on our table, on plates, cooked with the chips and some pretty delish salad to boot
'Large'?! gigantic... I swear I've never seen cod portions so big... and cooked to perfection, and as we'd seen it just arrive, I guess that had literally just landed on the docks about an hour before we were sitting down to eat it



*1 Despite rumours to the contry this has, as yet, in fact, not yet quite occured. Probably.