In the chat room, is it possible to add an option that let's you ignore all PMs?

These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:
She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison."
He said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner(about Ernest Hemingway).

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." - Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second.... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.." - Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts.. . for support rather than illumination. " - Andrew Lang(1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

LondonPunjabi and The desi dude  are now PJ Gabrus.

Standard Promotion to PJ Gabru/Pari is after reaching 1000 or more posts. However, both of these users have immensely contributed to forums with excellent quality posts. They both participate in discussions extensively and display great knowledge, as such we have made an exception.

Everyone congratulate them and hope they will continue to fill PJ with informative posts.

 :superhappy: :superhappy:  :superhappy:

Absolutely hate it! It get's me depressed.

Anyone else feel my pain? :pagel:

1. This Cheese is So Gross It’s Been Outlawed…



Casu Marzu, a pecorino cheese and Sardinian specialty, surely wins among most disgusting cheeses of the world. The direct translation is “rotten cheese” and rightly so: blocks of otherwise beautiful Italian pecorino cheeses are purposely prepared to become the natural breeding grounds for nests of maggots—the natural harbingers of rot and putrefaction. As if pecorino wasn’t pungent enough…

Like many distinct ethnic practices and traditions, formaggio marcio, is a generations old culinary delicacy, with roots in familial history. The process of producing casu marzu, aka “maggot cheese,” is considered a process of finely metered fermentation. However regionally traditional the consumption of maggot-laced cheese, it hardly jives with modern food preparation and sanitation mores, therefore the offending cheese is officially illegal. Don’t let that stop you from searching for a chunk along your Italian travels, even if it will run you a steep number of Euros and from a “black market” peddler. “Godfather, you want formaggio marcio? We’ll get you formaggio marcio, don’t you worry.” Reports are it tastes exactly as you might imagine: strong pecorino, the crawly snot-plump bodies of insect larvae, and the slimy fat they’ve made of the digested cheese. Oh, and the worms jump off the cheese while you’re eating it. Mange!

  

2. Mongolian Boodog



They don’t call it “Outer Mongolia” for nothing. Nomads, sans stainless steel gourmet kitchens, ages ago found more ingenious ways to cook a whole goat, sometimes marmot (but they may have fleas that host bubonic plague, so goat may be a better choice)—from the inside out, after you’ve hung it upside down, bled it and broken its legs. The stuffing is a bit non-Western, too: smooth hot stones crammed into every cavity imaginable and even up under the leg skin where you would have yanked the broken the bones out. Blowtorch the beast ‘til desired doneness; it can also be roasted over an open fire. That’s authentic Mongolian barbecued meat, Boodog.

 

3. Soft-Boiled Fetal Duck



Balut takes a top spot by a landslide among the gross egg category, which should include 100-year old eggs. Balut is a fairly common and unassuming street food available in both the Philipines and Vietnam. It has also earned a widespread reputation as one of the all-time grossest ethnic delicacies. Most of the eggs with which Americans are familiar are unfertilized eggs. The balut, though are fertilized duck eggs, incubated or allowed to grow invitro for a certain length of time, usually a few weeks. Peel back the shell and along with a typical soft-boiled eggy interior is also the small inert body of a fetal duck—small bones, feathers, beak and all, some more developed than others. Most accounts suggest slurping it right from the shell with a pinch of salt. There is a right way to “enjoy” balut.  

 

4. Whole Sheep’s Head



Sheep’s head has been a traditional delicacy served in a number of world regions, including the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. You’ll find smoked versions and recipes for sheep’s head soup, usually presented whole and intact, sometimes with brains, often without (risky to consume). The eyeballs and tongue are particular delicacies. In America, most meats are separated from their heads, their feet, their tails—so we can forget about the fact that we’re eating something that once had a head, feet and a tail and at that point we no longer call it cow or pig, but T-bone steak, and bacon. Herein lies the grisly factor in sitting down to a meal of whole sheep’s head.

 

5. Octopus, Straight-Up

octopus

 

Anything still alive and squirming is food for a “most disgusting” list. Raw seafood is legendary in most Asian cuisines, Japanese sushi and Korean kimchi are notorious raw realms. Raw octopus is common as is still alive octopus, served straight-up on a plate or in a bowl. Baby octopus (sannakji) may be served cut into bite-sized, still-wriggling pieces, suction cups and all, or slurped squirming, whole. Octopus is exactly as you might imagine: rubbery, chewy and fairly tasteless and some brave adventurers report the suction cups sticking on the way down. Regardless, the dish has been a valued part of Korea’s cuisine for centuries and is considered a vitality enhancer and a health food.

 

6. Vacationing in Alaska: “Don’t Eat the Stink Heads”



Salmon is a staple of the native Alaskan diet and natives have traditionally used all parts of the fish. One of the traditional delicacies is fermented salmon heads. Colloquially the dish has earned the name “stink heads.” Essentially the heads of King salmon are buried in the ground in fermentation pits, put into plastic or wooden barrels, even plastic food storage bags, and left to let nature do its thing for a few weeks or more. The heads are then harvested and consumed as a putty-ish mash.


“Stink heads” as a distinct ethnic cuisine have been covered in various mainstream media the latest of which is The Food Network’s “Bizarre Foods” show. In and of themselves salmon heads are not repulsive, whole fish dishes are a legitimate part of rustic AND haute cuisine everywhere and King salmon is a real world delicacy. What has struck the “gross-out” nerve is the overriding fact that much of the stink head prep process is less about fermentation and more about rot and decomposition. The dish, by modern culinary standards, is nothing but rotten salmon heads, albeit treasured tribal fare. Imagine, a bucket load of large King Salmon heads left outside during the warm summer months for a few weeks….Outside the native Alaskan culture the stink head topic is nothing but a novelty, but health-wise the tradition of stink head consumption poses a real and continued challenge to regional Alaskan healthcare professionals faced with frequent and, sometimes serious, totally avoidable botulism cases.

 

7. Deadly Fish: License to Cook


 
 

One of Japan’s most elite delicacies is also one of the most dangerous dishes you’d ever put in your mouth. The fugu fish is a cute little puffer fish, hardly “most disgusting,” but grossly lethal, certainly. Coursing throughout its vital fish organs is deadly venom—tetrodotoxin-- a natural defense system that renders its attackers paralyzed. Ingest enough of this fish’s poison and you’ll go belly-up, too dying a slow death from conscious paralysis and asphyxia. Currently, no type of anti-venom exists to undo what’s done from fugu poisoning. Regardless of the risk, in Japan’s most luxurious restaurants trained and licensed fugu chefs deftly prepare fugu for high society types, fugu aficionados, and culinary thrill seekers. Chefs adhere to strict preparation, sanitation, storage, and disposal guidelines to minimize risk.  

Has fugu killed anyone? You bet it has, though annual deaths resulting from fugu consumption nowadays are few and generally accidental. For true gastronomic satisfaction the best chefs are able to prepare fugu laced with a remaining trace of venom, which reportedly tingles on the tongue, providing the eater with a sensory brush with death. The potential risk makes fugu even more a thrill to consume and one forbidden to hit the Japanese Emporer’s dinner plate.

 

8. Jellied Moose Nose



The ‘jelly’ part makes it sound sweet, like a clear jelly you spread on a nice thick slice of toasted sourdough. But jellied is how the moose nose is prepared, not jelly as in bread spread. This is, after all the cooking is done, a traditional and time-honored Alaskan dish of real sliced moose snout. White meat or dark?

The list could go on AND even more interestingly be drawn from the perspective of someone well outside the American diet. A non-American list of most disgusting “delicacies” would probably begin with the All-American hotdog and a bag of pork rinds: “A ghastly, but clever disguising of cast off animal parts that do nothing for your health or virility.”  

 

9. Bat Paste – Make sure you try this last because it could kill you.



First, net a bunch of flying mouse, fruit, or fox bats in a remote village.

Drop live into a pot of boiling water or milk.

Roast to desired doneness.

Chop and make into paste with Thai herbs and spices.

Or when you have an abundance of fruit bats, try this optional Fruit Bat Soup recipe.

Bats are part of the native cuisine in Thailand, parts of China, Guam and more, but they are considered notorious disease carriers. You might want to consider dropping them to the bottom of your culinary To-Try list.