You’ve got NYTimes food writer, Pete Wells, on your side as regards andouillette. His “Excremental Encounter” piece in Chowhound is a classic.
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Good title. It does smell like shit and tastes what I imagine shit tastes like.
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Have to share this anecdote because I think you will find it amusing. I think that some people are not intending to be mean, but are just pure clueless sometimes. My former employer used to gather the people from all of its offices on an annual basis for a little three day meeting. The first time that we all went to lunch together, I was sitting next to a colleague at a table for 20 at PF Chang. As I sat there and ate my white rice. She looked over and said I never could eat white rice. It reminds me too much of what maggots look like. that was about 15 years ago and I still remember like it was yesterday.
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OMG. Comparing rice to maggots. That would’ve probably ruined my appetite. Yikes.
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I just remembered this. I was eating sushi with a friend many years ago. There was uni in the assortment. I’d never had it and was about to try it, and she said that she couldn’t eat it because it looked like dog sh*t. Have I ever tried uni? Not yet! 
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What must the person sitting next to the first person in the world who decided to eat oysters must have been thinking.
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My sister decided she hated sushi bc the first time we took her to a sushi joint she ate a teaspoon of wasabi 
She’s also squicked out by the idea of eating raw fish, although her current trip to Japan finally cured her of such nonsense.
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You should have told her to stop recycling sight gags from The Lost Boys!
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I had the same raw fish dread at my first sushi experience. But got comfortable with it in short order!
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Yeah, I think it’s just a mental block for many. My sis is a very picky eater:
- no meat on the bone bc god forbid you recognize you’re eating an animal part
- insisted she hates tongue, but absolutely loved it when mom made it — until she was told what it was
- no organ meats AFAIK
TBH there’s probably a lot more on that list, but since we don’t dine together very often I can’t remember anything else.
And her reactions to foods she dislikes are those of an immature child — “ewww” or “that’s gross/disgusting” — despite the fact that she’s 5 years older than I.
Peeps be weird 
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I confess I’m still squicked by raw animal of any kind.
My maggot story: It was brown rice, at my friend’s mom’s hippie school, served with the usual stir-fried tofu and veggies. Just as we were about to start eating, my friend said “The rice has maggots!” “So it does,” said her sister. I think we drove into town for pizza. I always store my brown rice in the fridge these days.
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Ok, here’s my rice/maggot story.
In sophomore year of high school, I had a couple of friends, one caucasian (who we’ll call ‘Sean’), and the other Japanese American (who we’ll call ‘Kevin’). Kevin and I had been trying to convince Sean for a little while that inarizushi was made from goat scrotums filled with seasoned rice. Sean could not be convinced, and gave a lot of arguments why we must be pulling his leg. One day, my parents were giving all three of us a ride to an afterschool event and during the ride, we revisited the argument. After listening to us for a little bit, my dad chimed in.
ricepad’s dad: No, no…that’s not right.
ricepad and Kevin, simultaneously but silently to themselves: Oh, crap…the jig is up.
Sean: Finally I get the real story.
RD: Traditionally, it’s made with goat scrotums and boiled maggots. We use rice because it’s so hard to get any quantity of maggots these days.
Sean: WTF???
ricepad and Kevin: [nearly wet themselves laughing]
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In high school (Glendale High in Glendale, CA), our eclectic multicultural group (2 Americans, 1 Taiwanese, 1 Lebanese-Armenian, 1 Indonesian and a few others) would sit on a planter in the quad to eat lunch. We’d always ask each other what we had and usually each of us would answer.
One day though, the Lebanese-Armenian member was very hesitant to tell us what was in his sandwich. We pushed him a few times to tell us, he at first said that he wasn’t sure of the contents. We felt that it would be a little odd to eat something that you didn’t know, and we prodded him again. Finally he told us they were lamb testicles. Teenagers being teenagers, we naturally said “Ewww!” Other then one more time where he was eating sweetbreads (brains) for lunch, he never brought anything that we seem strange to most North Americans.
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Thanks for sharing that. The resulting coughing fit may require hospitalization😵
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Go Glendale! Mother went there then on to Fresno Hi. That was a LONG time ago!
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When I was little I certainly had sammiches made from the sliced tongue my Dad brought home from the deli - along with corned beef, pastrami and salami. Of course I thought it was called tongue because it was shaped like a tongue. No prob - the last Jewish deli that even carried it closed years ago.
I was only in it for the half sour garlic dills, I swear!
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Is tongue usually served with its skin on? The one time I had it, the texture was disconcerting, like chewing on my own anesthetized tongue.
Glendale and Fresno share something in common…substantial Armenian populations. Fresno has 50,000 and Glendale 80,000. I miss Armenian food and middle eastern food in general. There are a fairly good number of middle eastern restaurants here in Vegas, but my sister isn’t a fan and I’m not so keen on eating out alone.
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At the risk of sounding pedantic, I’m going to assume the “Americans” were white. Ibid for the reference to “North Americans”.
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In Chinese preparations, the skin gets peeled off the tongue. It can be pretty chewy, though, especially if not cooked long enough.
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