Idon't know if the sausage was cooked. It was cold when i got it. Thinking it might not have been cooked makes me even less happy about the way it tasted. (It was BAD).
(Note to self. Don't eat strange meat products that taste especially bad in foreign countries while drinking vodka again.)
I don't think America is ready for that. The closest thing that came to that, was a fried chicken franchise, years back called Pioneer Chicken. They made great fried chicken, better than KFC, I would say.
They had fried chicken hearts and gizzards. I liked it. I thought they were out of business, but I found one store in Hollywood some years back. It tasted the same, so it was the same Pioneer Chicken. But, they no longer had the hearts and gizzards.
At least a couple of times, I have encountered really pretty young Ukrainian women (I recall one at a hotel desk, another working in a shop) whose breath could almost have toppled a warhorse. Maybe they had eaten some such delicacy ...
Such encounters have a startling quality. From a couple of meters away, I'm anticipating the pleasure of coming closer ... and then ...
I had a funny conversation today. One of the Ukrainian girls now living with me here in the UK (did I not mention that? I'll elaborate later) said that they both have been a bit queasy at times because of the change in diet. Among other things, she said the food is 'fake'. I asked her if she was referring to things like TV dinners, pre-prepared meals and the like. She said yes, but also that 'even the vegetables' here are fake.
I asked why - "because they're all the perfect size and shape and colour. It's just not realistic!"
The fruit here is harvested when they are perfect in shape and allowed to ripen in warehouses or on the store shelves. It looks better and sold more easily, but it has less vitamins than if it is allowed to ripen on the vine.
The Moldovan lady I know will not buy what she thinks are American frozen chicken halves available in Kishinev.
Why? Because she says they are too meaty, too big and too "perfect looking" (she said it).
She says that anything that looks that good must have been grown with the aid of chemicals and hormones. SHe prefers the more scrawny looking chicken pieces available in the market - just because they look less healthy.
The problem is she could be right. I know there has been news reports of chemicals and hormones in our meats, and I don't know if it is practiced, but I don't really pay that much attention. I am sure the Food and Drug Administration keeps up with it and if may allow just a little.
One of my hobbies a while back was to raise chickens in my back yard. Neighbors put a stop to that. Those darn roosters start at 4AM. The feed store had different food for chickens, if you want them to lay eggs. I never did ask, but I assumed it was hormones.
Many chickens and animals here are kept in cramped places. All they do is eat. No wonder, they get fat. I am assuming here that the Ukrainian chickens are more free and allowed to roam. I prefer meat with bones in it anyway, like wings, not breasts.
Free range chickens that feed on natural grain will have a yellow skin when butchered. Commercially raised chickens will have nearly a white skin. I will not even buy beef from a large market chain, because the salage they are fed destroys the flavor of the meat. Most people in the American cities have never eaten a fresh garden tomato. Unless you can compare, you will never know the difference My girl makes dolma from her garden grape leaves. When she used the ones from the market, they were like paper, so even in Ukraine the markets are net quite the same
I understand that corn fed chickens are the best meat and eggs, amongst other things I'm opening a restaurant, the chickens will be free range but I plan to come to a deal with the farmer, I'll buy the corn myself if need be, that the chickens be reared appropriately.
I remember buying two white leghorns from an egg farm many years back from Central California. All their lives they lived in a cage about one foot by one foot by two feet. There were hundreds of cages side by side from front to back. They had all the food and water they wanted. When they laid eggs, it went down the shoot to the bottom for an easy pick up.
When I got home I let them loose in my back yard. Six hours later, one of them has moved about six feet, the other two feet. These chickens did not know how to walk. Friends came by that evening and we made Shake and Bake.
The place I bought the chickens from was one of two, I was told. The other went out of business. This place went out of business too, several months later.
Ivor, there were three feeds available for chickens at the feed store. Two of them, I already mentioned was the regular food, the other for egg laying. Honestly, I did not look at them closely, but one of the engredients was ground corn.
The third food was pure ground corn. It sounded good to me, chickens fed with pure corn. When I gave them just that, their excrements became yellow. I then bought the regular food and alternated the pure corn and that until the pure corn was gone. I did not study up on the virtues of feeding just corn to chickens or Farmer John's claim to have corn fed pork. But, as far as feeding chickens just corn, it can't be healthy to any animal to have their excrements turn yellow for a long period of time.
I forgot to add, the yellow excrements were watery. As long as I fed them just the corn, their excrements stayed that way. Not only was I worried about the chickens, their excrements were more messy than normal. That's just FYI. It maybe perfectly healthy for all I know.
rb, want to try an experiment? good, get yourself a big container of 'wylers' grape drink mix (or any other dry powder mix that is purple) mix it up and drink a couple gallons, let us know what color your poop turns out! it is really quite spectacular and amazing for you poop watchers.
Speaking of beer - there are several great Ukrainina varieties, in light and dark. And I try to partake in these offerings whenever I am in Ukraine. But curiously you can never find them in the nicer restaurant. Even restaurants that proudly promote Ukrainian cooking (and there is a regional or city dish in every region and city) its difficult to find Ukrainian beer.
There's Heineken, Stella Artois, Tuborg even Corona - but you won't find anything Ukrainian at the better restaurants.
The effect Ralph is looking for can just as easily be gotten by drinking grape soda. And the color he refers to is distinctive, surprising and NOT purple.
Biy has THIS thread gone off topic with that subject.