BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 07:56 AM

For the uninitiated, American cheese is a type of yetch that tries to pass for the real thing. It looks and tastes like plastic.

Not to be pedantic, but why do we say "Gross" when the word, in this context,is actually "Gauche")?

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 07:58 AM

Yes, I know that gross has other applications, but I don't think it fits in this case.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 09:01 AM

Gauche means awkward or clumsy, eg an embarrassed young man at his first formal dinner. I don't see how this can relate to food, kendall.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 06:11 PM

I think Velveeta isn't even legally "cheese"...it's "cheese food product" which means a bunch of chemicals, artificial stuff and sodium. There may be a tiny bit of something real in there, but it's not cheese and it's not enough to make a difference.

I grew up with Miracle Whip and I LOATHE it. My mother always said it was the same as mayonnaise, and I didn't find out any better until I left home, married, set up housekeeping on my own, and bought my first jar of Hellman's to mix into various sandwich fixin's. Different universe. Now I'm a mayonnaise abuser and eat it on french fries (chips), burgers, etcet etcet. Wish I had the time to make mayo from scratch -- that's what The District served when we took Jeri there for her birthday lunch. (Home made tomato ketchup, too.)

Spam is something else I can live very easily without.

There's a bunch of "food" out there right now that scares the crap out of me: meat glue (yeah, they "glue" pieces of meat scraps together to make steaks), HFCS, artificial sweeteners...not to mention a lot of the "frankenfood" that Monsanto is foisting on us and trying to make sure it's not labeled. And everything from chicken to beef that is fed everything from chicken shit ("chicken by-products") to corn -- cows were designed to eat GRASS, not corn. Corn fattens them up fast but it's a race to get to market weight before the corn rots them from the inside. Ugh!

I hate talking about this before dinner!

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: kendall
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 07:40 PM

I believe that originally gauche' meant low class. It came from the Bohemian community on the left bank of the river Seine.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: kendall
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 12:40 AM

Right?

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 08:31 AM

Tinned sliced tongue has to be among one of the most grossest of all foods. Despite how fancy it might be dressed up on a platter it still looks like what it is, makes me gag whenever it is served up.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 09:02 AM

Well, kendall, gauche does mean 'left' in French. But I've never heard it used to describe something low class. My enormous Oxford Dictionary gives "lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward", so I imagine it's generally used to describe attributes of human beings, not food. But I enjoy words and am happy to read your different usage; it's how language evolves.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 11:03 AM

I used to like the Chef Boyardee products - canned spaghetti and meatballs, ravioli, beefaroni, spaghetti o's, etc. when I was a kid - but I'd have to be hard up and really hungry to eat that nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,maryrrf (lost cookie!)
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 11:08 AM

Guest above was me. I also used to like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with the powdered cheese but I don't care for it now. I'd rather just boil some macaroni,grate up some good quality cheddar and nowadays I'd probably add some broccoli or spinach.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: kendall
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 12:02 PM

Tongue makes you gag? Do you eat eggs? hehehe

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 12:52 PM

Patsy, I used to adore tongue when I was a kid. Despite the name, I just thought of it as a word and didn't realise what it was (it was always served in sliced, unrecognisable portions) until one day I saw it -- whole -- sitting out on the counter before it was cooked.

After that, it was years before I could bring myself to eat it again, even though I had loved the taste of it before. Even now, decades later, I still don't have the same enthusiasm for it that I once did.

Another gross food story:
Went out shopping with my Gramma one afternoon. In the freezer of a small butcher's shop, saw a plastic-wrapped packet labeled "calf brains" and thought "What kind of monster would eat calf brains?" -- just as my Gramma noticed what I was looking at and exclaimed, "Calf brains! Your Daddy used to love calf brains when he was a boy!"

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: frogprince
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 08:32 PM

Some folks like 'em

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: kendall
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 08:39 PM

How about Lamb fries? aka, Rocky Mountain oysters.

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:54 PM

I guess this is not a Velveeta appreciating group. If I am on death row and have a last dinner it will be macaroni and cheese made with Velveeta like my dear departed father used to make..and a real coke. Why do people put macaroni and cheese in the oven with crumbly things on it? mg

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 09:22 PM

Smoked beef tongue is exquisite. I like it in sandwiches (on rye, garlicky dill pickles on the side), but it's BEST in a boiled dinner. Problem is, you really need two in a boiled dinner because they're comparatively small. (Smaller than a corned brisket or smoked butt.) Alas, Tom won't eat the smoked butt, which I also really like. But, then again, Tom doesn't seem to want to make boiled dinner no matter what's in it. Sigh. I am really, REALLY hungry for boiled dinner!

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: gnu
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 08:06 PM

Some votes for Canuck cheddar I see... but, beware, not all Canuck cheddars are the same. Kraft cheese is good. Indeed, consider this... Kraft havarti is to die for... Kraft "Cracker Barrel" havarti is good but not as good. Cracker Barrel old cheddar is what I use for mac and cheese and it is spot on. Decadent and seldom eaten, but, when it is eaten, it is a pig out treat.

I wish I could eat cheese. I LOVE it but I am prone to parotid gland stones and even though I have only 1/3 of one parotid left, I figure if I can get them, I can get kidney stones and gall stones, so... I am SOL on the cheese.

Gee, just talking about cheese gives me that sucking and sour feeling in the cheeks where my parotid glands used to be. I miss cheese more than the glands tho... >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Most Gross Processed Foods
From: Brian May
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 07:49 AM

I LOVE Spam - now that's PROPER canned food ;o)

Gross to me, is growing lovely green vegetables etc then murdering them all in the name of a cult called 'vegetarianism'.

Good old fatty bacon, porky scratchings, pork pie and dripping sandwiches (having delved underneath for the jelly), that's what proper food is.

You only live to 23 but what a life - simply, beyond 23 you're unable to get a wheel barrow to fit your belly . . . ask most Scotsmen or rednecks.

Have fun . . .