Uhh, well, if you eat hot dogs, chances are you've eaten most of the things on that list, LOL! But seriously, I'd definitely draw the line at some of those things...assuming I knew what they were before I tried them. If they were being served to me, as a guest, I guess I'd buck up and eat them! Or at least try.... Looking at it objectively, if he finds all of those foods "weird and disgusting", Ray must have been raised at McDonald's! However, I suppose many of the things listed are probably weird to people (or generations, maybe?) who don't really know anymore where food comes from, or how to eat well! I'm sure poverty, and simple "use it up" philosophy made for lots of "interesting" recipes in every culture, too. I have tried many of the more "westerly" foods mentioned. Blood pudding is just blood sausage - you can buy it at any supermarket (though the more commercial varieties are usually way oversalted, I find). I admit, probably a pretty hard sell to generations raised on fast food and products from M&M Meats! A lot depends on what you were exposed to as a kid, and how adventuresome you are in later life. (We haven't travelled extensively, but it's sure depressing to hear about tourists in Milan asking for directions to the nearest McDonald's, LOL!) Crisps are just potato chips. Right here at home, Hostess used to produce some pretty bizarre "flavored crisps" - ketchup, dill pickle, bacon... There was some especially odd combination I can't recall right now, too. Tongue, cooked for sandwiches, and ox-tail soup are both delicious. Anyone of middle European extraction is probably familiar wiht head cheese; I never ate it as a kid, though my mom made it for my dad and sister, and they ate it with vinegar...which made me cringe at the time. Escargot, truffles, borsht, seafood - delicious! "Boudin" is just a generic term for sausage. Schmaltz is just chicken fat, used for flavorful cooking, in the same way that some people might use bacon grease. My brother-in-law, from Kansas, eats some of the odd things on that list - rattlesnake, frogs' legs (from huge bullfrogs), scrapple, Krispy Kreme doughnuts...ooops, maybe the last one's not on that list! Scrapple is pretty much like head cheese but with oat meal added - again, I declined to try it when my mom made a batch for him years ago! He ate it fried, which would make it a little more palatable, I think. Well, all cheese is based on mold, so blue cheese and roquefort are only a little weirder and more disgusting than the norm. Actually, what I find weird and disgusting is that tasteless stuff from the supermarket! Yeah, I guess there's no visible mold on it, or a funky crust that someone may find nasty, but it tastes of...absolutely nothing. Of course on the topic of strange foods, one always has to consider where eggs come from, LOL! Have you heard of the live food restaurants in the far east? DH's brother is an executive whose company markets products to the far east. Anyway, back before he became the president (and could get subordinates to do this kind of thing!), he used to have to do a lot of dinners with clients. Apparently, Korea is/was a very macho sort of culture for doing business, so he'd be taken to restaurants that featured live food - live fish or snakes in the soup, for example. And to get a sale, I guess you had to make a good "manly" impression....gulp. I don't know how popular this sort of thing was in the general culture, but it does exist.

If someone told me I could never eat beef again ... no big deal. Dh grills filets a few times a year and we eat burgers weekly during my tomato harvest. Maybe meatballs & meatloaf once a year. That’s about it. Grew up eating ribeyes and occasionally flank. I don’t care for any steak with fat or one that I have to chew and chew. That’s why I love a buttery filet. That said, tonight we dined at Sullivan’s steakhouse. It’s restaurant week (prix fixe menu) and that was dh’s choice; mine was Galatoire’s earlier in the week. I chose the filet (it is a steakhouse after all) with no sauce. I wanted a real comparison to the steaks dh grills. It didn’t even come close! Zero flavor and far from melt in the mouth tender. I can understand why some of you don’t like filets if you’ve eaten ones like that. And to think that they normally charge $32 for that cut is nothing short of criminal.

Changing the cheesecloth. I do it often. Mostly we buy beef from a local butcher who uses local cattle and he hangs his stuff but every now and then a FCO ribeye is offered on sale at a supermarket. If rib eye steaks are the sale item, they will sell me the whole piece. So I've got a chunk of wet aged Alberta beef. we don't care for striploins/NY steaks so I do ribeyes. You are right, its the moisture and temp that needs controlling and most household fridges are a bit too cold. So getting a separate fridge would help. Again, change the cheesecloth regularly. And leave it in there, the outside should look pretty knarly, purple and dried right out....I do ribeye roast for three weeks, trim the ickky bits, cut my steaks, leave out that night's dinner and freeze the rest. You lose a lot of weight, more than you might like especially if you paid a premium for the loin but as a once in a while treat, albeit one that takes a month of forethought and playing around with, it works for us.

Patti, if you just want to marinate the steak to make it more tender just follow the advice of using acid and oil. Now keep in mind that anything that you marinate the steak in will make some difference in taste. The vinegar/oil combo will be offer the least amount of taste alteration. Use an oil that has the least taste like grapeseed oil. Peanut oil is a good second choice. The lack of added flavor is one of the reasons it is popular for stir fry along with the higher smoke point it has compared to olive oil. Just pounding the meat manually will tenderize and offer no change in taste. You may consider buying meat tenderizer, which is different than marinade. It uses enzymes. You only asked about marinade in you initial post. You can purchase meat tenderizer at the grocer or make your own. The enzyme most commonly used meat tenderizer is papain which comes from papayas. Meat is sprinkled with the powder and the enzymes help to break down the meat fibers. The same result can be obtained by marinating meat in papaya or pineapple juice but this will change the flavor a bit. Pineapples and papaya contain this enzyme, which is why you cannot use fresh pineapple in Jell-O and get it to set. If you are looking not to change the flavor go with a meat tenderizer and pound them out. I am a bit confused by what you said about marinating steaks in "French dressing". *French dressing* is a term that refers to vinegar and oil by by culinary aficionados and professionals. For some reason Americans refer to a mix of tomato paste, sugar and oil as "French dressing". This concoction is is referred to as Russian dressing or Catalina dressing elsewhere. It can be a bad idea to use sugar in marinade if you are going to broil steaks as the sugar will burn. If the meat is truly tough, consider not serving them as "steaks" and using them as part of a dish. Slice thin for sandwiches or use in a dish like Ropa Vieja. Here is a link that might be useful: Ropa Vieja