Saturday, December 10, 2005

Internal Organs

Internal organs porridge no doubt sounds horrible to most people, just the name. But when you eat it, you'll fall in love with it. For Vietnamese like me, it's just so delicious.

From the small intestine, kidney, blood, liver, stomach and heart a few quite different delicious dishes can be made. However, there are two common dishes, one which is steamed and the other is stir fried with vegetable pickles and onion. People drink wine and beer with this dish. One plate of offal is enough for four. I'm sure most westerners would need quite a few beers or wines before they even tried this dish. What do you think?

21 comments:

amy7252 said...

You'd have to make the Westerners eat the dish before telling them what it was!

Unknown said...

haha... that's true!
Yo, thanks for sharing this. Hanoi in particular, and Vietnam in general, has always been in my heart, even tho I'm away from home now. It's been three years, but I'll definitely make my way back whenever I have a chance. Hopefully you and I can meet up for a few beers and a dish of "internal organs"! :d
Keep up the good work! ;)
-nxh

Richard D. Owens, Artist said...

Maybe some hard liquor too...

John Powers said...

Three Cheers for you Godknows!

This blog is so much fun to read; first because it's interesting to know a bit about Vietnamese culture, and second your fine wit. Yes, I think many Westerners would need a few beers. But here in the U.S. with people from so many cultures living together, organ meats and all the things that can be done with them are often something prized by their cultural heritage. So Slavic people love duck blood sausage, Scots have hagis, and people in the South love pig intestines, chitterlings.

roppa said...

It sounds a lot like Haggis - sheeps stomach stuffed with offal, spice, herbs, oats and barley. I will have to try it sometime, I'm still plucking up the courage!

Leniere said...

Yeah, a couple of drinks would ease me into that.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, an alien Mom is making “human entrail stew” because her little alien offspring has a cold. It’s not entirely impossible is it?

FooDcrazEE said...

ngong qua! it is delish but Asians have ways to clean the internal organs and somehow cook them up. Try some deep fried intestine for your porridge, dude

iMav said...

Troi Oi, I love how food can be the perfect description of what a country can be all about. Hai Lam! Sorry, but I'm trying my hardest to try and express what my partner used to teach me about the Vietnamese language, but coming from an ethnic background myself, all that you've shown on your blog sounds delicious! Cam on, I'm hungry now!

Van Cong Tu said...

Hi all,
If you want to discover my country then you should try out all of the food in my blog. There are lots of strange things to eat in Viet Nam. You might need some brandy or hard liquor to help.
Cheers

Nish said...

Great blog! I love the pictures and the bits of information! I've had pigs intestines (which were just chewy}, and pigs tongue{Which tasted awesome!)... But pigs blood was too much for me to go for ^_^

Keep up the great blog!

yana said...

my family love the internal organs porridge : ) I can tolerate it, just not a fave hehe

Anonymous said...

Mmm..ngong qua de! But I only eat the sausage, all the other stuff I leave to everyone else.

HappySam said...

I loved vietnamese food when I was in hong kong, can't get anything close to it now i am back in the UK,
love the blog

Van Cong Tu said...

Hi Anonymous,
What does "ngong qua de" mean? is that vietnamese or another language?
Happysam, You love Vietnamese food means you have to try this dish too Ok hehehe.
Thank god that mangoes's family loves this dish. Join my club please!!!
Cheers all

fashion in theory said...

i eat it...the congee anyway

but then again, i'm vietnamese...

Jennifer said...

Ha! Scarydish.....

céline said...

They do some of that in France too. It stinks!!!

Susan in Italy said...

Hey Godknows,

I'd try it not only after a lot of alcohol but also maybe with loads of hot chilli sauce on top. They have things like that in Italy too. Some of it's good, some terrible.

Van Cong Tu said...

Susan in Italy, Unsane,irilys,trucstop: I think its good with someone like me but its not good for western :) But i think you should try it for once and then get back to me.

Anonymous said...

Someone has to defend us westerners. I knew what it was and devoured it with no alcohol!

Di Be was over tonight for dinner and I was trying to tell her and my wife which dish I liked the most that Di Be had prepared in the past and I found this sight!

Of course I agree with the westerner comment as my wife (viet) says I eat more vietnamese foods than most vietnamese! But this dish is definitely a delicacy!

Kathyrn Dodson said...

This article seemed interesting because of the introduction. I look forward to seeing how many posts you would like to share in the future to reflect your desire to share such great content. You can see my latest article at the following link. Please meet me Check CPS Test Kohi. If you want to know if you can click on Second Installations, see the article given. Here we explain in detail about clicks per second in minutes. Thank you.