Wombat Central! OT and ONT!

LOL!!! Well put, Kate! :-)

Erin

I *swear* I read that as "frozen *MICE*" ... Talk about a double-take!

-j

No, the mogs are NOT on the camping trip, and anyway they prefer catch-yer-own mouse... ;)

Mayhem over: the blokes are all gone and I have the house to myself until tomorrow at 4:30, when the next customer is due... :)

Yeah, well, there are a lot of weird rumours about Brit cuisine around, especially on what they call the "continent". However, I'm almost positive that I never heard mice being part of their diet. But then... If folks on the continent like to eat amphibia (= frog legs), rotten fish (= surstrom) or moldy veggies (= Sauerkraut) - why not a couple of fresh frozen mice? I bet they taste great when roasted properly and doused with a liberal amount of brown sauce. Anyway, my cat eats them all the time; he seems to think that the brain is the best part and dissects it neatly. The rest is mine, obviously, since he places their little corpses right next to my favourite place on the couch. SCNR + RDLOL

U. ;-)

No, it was Romans and dormice in honey...

Sauerkraut is fermented rather than mouldy; it's cheese that we eat mouldy!

We also like pork pies that are built like Fort Nox, puddings that sound like a dread disease (Spotted Dick, for example) or a swamp (Sussex Pond!), and milk in our tea!

Brown sauce is for sausages.

The cats in this house do like mice, but will ignore them in favour of smoked salmon, Parma ham, and barbecued lamb chops!

The mince recipe, for about six people:

500g lean steak mince 1 Spanish onion 1 large clove of garlic 1/2 a small swede turnip 3 large carrots 2 stalks of celery 200g mushrooms 300ml of beef stock or dark real ale a large mug of frozen peas a handful of mixed herbs salt and pepper to taste a heaped teaspoon of cornflour stirred to a cream with half a teacup of cold water... A very little olive oil and a non-stick deep frying pan... Little new potatoes (Jersey Royals are good right now)

Dice all the vegetables except the potatoes to about the size of the peas while frying the mince in about a teaspoon of olive oil in the non-stick pan.

Add the vegetables, starting with the onions and garlic, all except the peas and potatoes... Let each one fry for a couple of minutes before adding the next.

Add the herbs and the stock or beer, and salt and pepper, and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes while you scrub and boil the new potatoes.

About ten minutes before the potatoes are ready, add the peas and the cornflour mixed in the water. Allow to come back through the boil and simmer gently for a further 7-9 minutes so all taste of flour is gone and the gravy has thickened.

Serve with the new potatoes.

NB: for camping the new potatoes can be added to the mince rather than cooked separately. Cut any bigger ones in half for ease of cooking.

We used to get a nasty version of this at college that was known as Mouse Stew: it had very few veg added to it, other than huge stringy bits of onion, and whole tinned tomatoes. My version is how me mum taught me to do it. It was one of her sneaky ways of getting Little Sis to eat a good quantity and variety of veg. The scouts seem to like it too.

actually one can find rat on menu's in Belgium... they have a fancy name for it but rat is is... yuk! also Cat was considered a good source of protein during the last part of the occupation during WWII here in NL but by then many people were eating tulip bulbs and bark too :S I am *so* glad I have never been in that position!!!

surströmming

fermented Baltic herring

(a specialty in northern Sweden)

they are not rotten! when purchased canned, in tins, you should only choose the cans where the ends are ballooned out from the gas buildup! prepare properly they are just fine other than having to pick away the bones, head and tails since they are tiny little things

klh in VA

Kate, what is a swede turnip? Is this the same as we have here, with white on the bottom, and purple at the top? I've always wondered about this, ever since reading Beatrix Potter!

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Every time I think about eating mice, I think about an old Disney movie called "Never Cry Wolf," which includes the researcher eating the arctic mice which have invaded his tent and devoured most of his supplies. Worth a look:

If folks on the continent like to eat amphibia (= frog legs), Mm, french-fried frog legs. With beer. Good stuff.

Surstromming -- fascinating stuff. Semi-fermented, semi-rotted herring. Some strange happenstance when the herring fishermen didn't have enough salt to preserve the catch. I've been reassured by some Swedish friends that, next time we're up to visit in the summer, they'll have a can for us. Something to be opened way down the end of the garden, and devoured outside, after it's aired a bit. For an amusing account:

or moldy veggies (= Sauerkraut) Well, fermented anyway. Kraut's good. So are the myriad incarnations of kimchi, and the hoardes of different Japanese fermented fruits and vegetables, although I did find umeboshi -- salted, sour plum -- a bit of a challenge, especially first thing in the morning!).

*laughing* Clearly, food is a passion.

Aw, he's providing for you. :)

SCNR + RDLOL

I'm not familiar with these acronyms -- would you define them, if you've got a moment?

-j

We went camping in the mountains in Utah a couple of years ago, at a beautiful camp area in one of the valleys east of SLC. We endured a torrential mountain storm, after which we were richly rewarded with the most intensely colored double rainbow ever (and naturally the photos don't do it 1/4 of the justice of the real thing). We finished pitching camp, made dinner, and were sitting around an enormous campfire making S'Mores, when I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eyes. Turned out to be a small army of camp mice, which apparently took new campers as a sign to come out and raid.

It was a long night. But the stars we could see made everything worth it, and we spotted a moose on the mountain opposite, as well. What a trip.

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Kate Dicey wrote:

It's nice, every now and then, to have the house to one's self. Not that I get much done, but it's certainly nice and quiet. :)

-j

down to the 'Best of All' - sixth on the list. Wikipedia would have it that it's the same as a rutabaga, but it isn't really. You could substitute rutabaga, but they are not quite the same. They are all varieties of turnip, as is the little white sort, sugar beet, and even radishes! :)

Karen Maslowski wrote in news:8b791$447c41be$422a83a1$ snipped-for-privacy@FUSE.NET:

oh, that reminds me of a camping debacle in the Presidential Range of NH... a thunderstorm hit just after we cleared the treeline on Mt.Adams. the 3 of us took refuge under a large boulder that formed a shallow cave. the storms didn't just blow over, so we were stuck there for the night. mice kept coming out & taking our hair! Mikey had brought along a coconut, something we had been deriding him for most of the hike in (he was 13, Sarah & i were 17 & 18), but i think the stupid thing saved us all from waking up bald ;) we broke it & tossed the chunks back further under the rock & that kept the little buggers busy so we could sleep :) lee

Oh, wow, Kate, I had no idea there were so many different varieties. (Thank you, oh Queen of Links.) That's one of the bad things about food here; we have so few variations in our food these days. It's sad, really, although we do have some great markets with good produce.

About 35 miles from here is a wonderful, wacky "grocery" store called Jungle Jim's, where one can buy almost any kind of food from anywhere in the world, including all the regional and national variations that have been discussed on this list. They have lots and lots of ethnic foods, and on any given day you can see people from just about every corner of the world, shopping for their favorites. The store itself is immense, and covers the equivalent of two or three city blocks. There's even a monorail for transport. Honestly, it's like the Disneyland of food.

Maslowski in Cincinnatiwww.sewstorm.com

Kate Dicey wrote:

What a hilarious story, Lee! I don't know how you slept, that would definitely keep me from slumber. LOL

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

enigma wrote:

Yes, I know it's fermented, but I've never been particularly fond of it. And Asian breakfast habits are really weird. Well, you know what I mean.

Yes, he's such a cutie. :-)

Oh, yes: Sorry Could Not Resist and Running, Ducking Laughing Out Loud (Well, at least that's how I learned them.)

U. ;-)

Re: Surstromming Tip of the hat to the research people! What other things did the inventors taste-test before they settled on Surstromming? We ate some things at school in the 50's on a dare while tipsy but there wasn't enough beer in Wisconsin for us to try that. JPBill

Sauerkraut=pickled cabbage In Korea it is kimchee.

I'm of Germanic origin and I don't care much for it either. Unless it is rinsed and mixed with the pork roast drippings to heat it. Then it tastes pretty good. AK in PA

Want a recipe for minced mice mousse?