Hog "bung"? Pig rectum? Fake calamari on the plate made from aforementioned ingredients? And the consumer doesn't know? Listen to today's This American Life.
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I dont really see why people are so grossed out by this. I can understand people mad about beng duped, but lots of food is made this way. Restauraunts have been selling punched out sharks fins as scallops for years.
Also, lots of people eat chitterlings (a staple in soul food cooking) its the same thing.
The question is how is eatting a squid any less gross than eattings intestines?
Posted by: OTF | January 12, 2013 at 01:36 PM
In the American Life Piece, the hog bung has a distinct gross out factor owing to its engrained fecal flavor which stubbornly remains unless one is diligent about blanching and brining it. That's a deal breaker for me.
Posted by: herculodge | January 12, 2013 at 02:37 PM
Makes me glad my wife developed a seafood allergy ten years ago. Of course, at the beach here in NC, you can buy actual squid and fix them yourself. Fun and easy.
Chitterlings, if you have never smelled them frying, can be approximated in their olfactory effect, by sauteeing assorted well-aged sewage in your kitchen with the exhaust fan turned off.
Sausage casings of the old-fashioned variety are just intestines, but the esthetics of "hog bung" start out from a losing position. It is all in what you are used to or raised with. I devour Chinese chicken feet. The broth is delightfully rich and the cartilage sucks right off, leaving just the little bones to spit out. And whole baby octopus are delicious! Snails still taste like dirt to me, so I no longer even try them.
Posted by: Bill Bush | January 12, 2013 at 03:04 PM
In the American Life piece, Herculodge, a food critic opined about the ingrained fecal flavor of the bung marring any chance for it to disguise itself convincingly as calamari.
At the end of the program two plates of bung were prepared: one of them blanched, brined and then fried, the other fried at its peak of "bunginess." The uncleaned bung did fool, I think, Brian, who had been avoiding calamari since the mere mention of it going incognito as his favorite seafood dish. Ira and others all agreed the fecal bung, if they had not been the chefs, would have easily fooled them, too.
Posted by: Zach | January 13, 2013 at 04:53 AM
Zach, indeed you are correct. It is possible to do the magic trick, which makes it all the more frightening.
Posted by: herculodge | January 13, 2013 at 06:23 AM
Reason #274 that I'm glad I'm a vegetarian. Jeez.
This is a really funny bit:
"In the American Life Piece, the hog bung has a distinct gross out factor owing to its engrained fecal flavor which stubbornly remains unless one is diligent about blanching and brining it. That's a deal breaker for me."
Posted by: jonnybardo | January 13, 2013 at 07:22 AM
The whole concept of eating pig bung is just revolting especially when you think it is something else.
Posted by: meb | January 15, 2013 at 10:19 AM
There was a case on People's Court on TV, wherein a woman claimed she suffered from the knowledge that what she ate at a well-known Italian restaurant was pig-anus and not calamari.
The defendant restaurant-owner admitted that he's been forced to use the 'substitute' because calamari has been over-fished. He described the cleaning processes and guaranteed no one is the wiser. He lost the case!
Posted by: P.A.Gruber | March 09, 2017 at 06:05 PM