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  #1 (permalink)   Report Post  
krusty kritter
 
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Default Mysterious brown things in the tamale filling

When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in the
tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
vegetable origin...

They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are definitely
not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled looking...

Please don't tell me that they are cucharachas, they aren't, and I alway eat
those mysterious brown things...


# * 0 * #
^



  #2 (permalink)   Report Post  
Ernie
 
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"krusty kritter" > wrote in message
...
> When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in

the
> tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
> vegetable origin...
> They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are

definitely
> not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled

looking...
> Please don't tell me that they are cucharachas, they aren't, and I alway

eat
> those mysterious brown things...
> # * 0 * #
> ^



Do they have legs?
Ernie


  #3 (permalink)   Report Post  
Ernie
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"krusty kritter" > wrote in message
...
> When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in

the
> tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
> vegetable origin...
> They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are

definitely
> not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled

looking...
> Please don't tell me that they are cucharachas, they aren't, and I alway

eat
> those mysterious brown things...
> # * 0 * #
> ^



Do they have legs?
Ernie


  #4 (permalink)   Report Post  
pulido
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"krusty kritter" > schreef in bericht
...
> When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in
> the
> tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
> vegetable origin...
>
> They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are
> definitely
> not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled
> looking...
>
> Please don't tell me that they are cucharachas, they aren't, and I alway
> eat
> those mysterious brown things...
>
>
> # * 0 * #
> ^

raisins?
>



  #5 (permalink)   Report Post  
pulido
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"krusty kritter" > schreef in bericht
...
> When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in
> the
> tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
> vegetable origin...
>
> They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are
> definitely
> not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled
> looking...
>
> Please don't tell me that they are cucharachas, they aren't, and I alway
> eat
> those mysterious brown things...
>
>
> # * 0 * #
> ^

raisins?
>





  #6 (permalink)   Report Post  
krusty kritter
 
Posts: n/a
Default

>From: "Ernie"

>Do they have legs?


Nope, no legs, no feelers, no wings...

I wouldn't be surprised if a cockroach accidentally found its way into the
tamale filling, but I don't think anybody is putting German cockroaches into
the filling on purpose...

Somebody once said that Mexican Indians historically ate no less than 150
species of insects, but I haven't seen any recipes that called for insects...

It has been said that some Mexican nationals smile when they hear the tune "La
Cucharacha" played in the USA because they remember eating Mexican roaches back
home. Insects are a good source of protein, and primitive hunter-gatherer
cultures collect everything edible for food...

Anybody who has been to Mexico has seen the street vendors, selling various
fruit concoctions, but peddlers of insects can also be found...

I once saw a video that showed a Mexican Indian woman peddling large round
roaches on the street. They weren't the German cockroaches that are such a pest
here in the USA, they were large and round...

The woman reached into her bag and shyly ate one of her live roaches. The
American woman who was interviewing her ate one of the live roaches, too. She
said it tasted like cinnamon...

And, I was watching an interview with Phyllis Diller just the other day. She
complained that the giant cockroaches she was keeping in a terrarium had died
because she didn't know how to give them the water they needed...


# * 0 * #
^



  #9 (permalink)   Report Post  
Ernie
 
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Default


"krusty kritter" > wrote
> I wouldn't be surprised if a cockroach accidentally found its way into the
> tamale filling, but I don't think anybody is putting German cockroaches

into
> the filling on purpose...
> # * 0 * #
> ^


When I was in Hawaii they had the biggest cockroaches I have ever seen.
I said something to a native about it and he got insulted. He said those
aren't cockroaches those are cane beetles.
Ernie


  #10 (permalink)   Report Post  
Jack
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"krusty kritter" > wrote in message
...
> When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in
> the
> tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
> vegetable origin...
>
> They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are
> definitely
> not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled
> looking...
>

regular black beans?

Jack




  #11 (permalink)   Report Post  
Jim Davis
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I love Mexican food but learned long ago not to ask these kind of
questions. :-)

krusty kritter wrote:

>When I eat at Mexican restaurants, I often find mysterious brown things in the
>tamale filling that I cannot identify as to whether they are of animal or
>vegetable origin...
>
>They are ovoid in shape, brown, larger than a pinto bean, but are definitely
>not a pinto bean. They have a thin skin that is sometimes wrinkled looking...
>
>Please don't tell me that they are cucharachas, they aren't, and I alway eat
>those mysterious brown things...
>
>
># * 0 * #
> ^
>
>
>
>
>

  #12 (permalink)   Report Post  
Thurman
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Ernie wrote:

> When I was in Hawaii they had the biggest cockroaches I have ever seen.
> I said something to a native about it and he got insulted. He said those
> aren't cockroaches those are cane beetles.


I was working for a computer company out of Boston a long time ago.
The corporate travel office made reservations for seven of us from
across the U.S. to meet in Houston.

As I was complaining to the front desk that they had given me a room
that was already occupied, another one of the guys came back from his
room to complain.

He told the desk clerk when he turned on the light, a roach three
inches long ran across the sink.

"That's nothing", the clerk said. "When I came to work this morning,
there was a roach in the parking lot 'molesting' a jack rabbit flat
footed".
  #15 (permalink)   Report Post  
Art Sackett
 
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Default

krusty kritter > wrote:

> When I was transferred down to Florida to work at Cape Canaveral, the
> cockroaches down there were called "palmetto bugs". They were about three
> inches long, too...


Three inches is just a middling palmetto bug. :-)

I was stationed at Eglin AFB, up on the panhandle, working on a radar
that looked south toward the Cape and watched for missiles that
thankfully never came; in that area I saw palmetto bugs of over five
inches in length. Big, nasty suckers that could bite. Hard.

> I bought an old Jaguar sedan in Florida, and brought it back to California
> after my enlistment was over.


I was the king of bug spray for my last month in Florida, because I
wasn't wanting to be the one who introduced those nasty damned things
to the neighborhood where I grew up in California. I've never met a
toxin that would do more than make a palmetto bug any closer to dead
than just a bit drunk looking, but I went nuts with the stuff just the
same. Every roach or palmetto bug I found was quickly dispatched then
heaved out the door, every hiding place I could find was sprayed.
Any object that could have hidden the nasty things was sprayed, then
wrapped in a sprayed blanket. I even disassembled my stereo and removed
the carcasses I found, and stuffed it with paper toweling soaked in bug
spray. I bug bombed my car the night before pulling out, including the
trunk. Probably killed some brain cells on the drive to California,
inhaling that crap.

Like I said, I went nuts. Or maybe I was nuts already.

When I got home to that place that never really felt like home again, I
left everything in the garage for a month or so before going through it
all out on the driveway. I never saw a carcass, an egg casing, or even
a bit of an antenna. Not a footprint. I never saw a sign of a roach or
palmetto bug in the six years before I escaped from California, and
haven't seen one since.

Your story of the palmetto bug in the Jag makes me think that I've been
very lucky. :-)

--
Art Sackett,
Patron Saint of Drunken Fornication


  #16 (permalink)   Report Post  
krusty kritter
 
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>From: (Art Sackett)

>I was stationed at Eglin AFB, up on the panhandle, working on a radar that

looked south toward the Cape and watched for missiles that thankfully never
came;

You do mean Uncle Nikita's missiles in Cuba, don't you? I like to think that
one of Uncle Sam's stray rockets never went thataway any farther than
Titusville...

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, I was stationed at Edwards AFB, which
was just out of the extreme range of enemy missiles in Cuba...

Edwards AFB was a research and development center for new Air Force weaponry,
but we didn't have any atomic bombs or hydrogen bombs stored there, at least,
not so far as I ever knew...

Two nuclear-armed B-47's arrived at the base and parked at the end of the
runway, ready to head out if the shooting started. No way could the B-47's
reach Russia without refueling, they were aimed at Cuba...

I was on standby in case the B-47's had electrical problems. I would be able to
change burned out light bulbs, fer sure, fer sure...

Some Tactical Air Command fighter pilot with a broken F-101 woke me up at 2:00
AM and demanded that I hurry down there and fix his plane so he could fly back
to Oxnard AFB. I told him that I was just on standby for the B-47's, and he
threatened to have me court-martialed if I didn't get down there and fix his
Voodoo. He said the US was in a state of war and that I'd be in serious trouble
if I didn't haul my butt down to the flight line...

It must have been some secret emergency mission he was on that had him out
there flying around in the dark instead of grabbing a bunk in the transient
barracks...

Or maybe he just wanted to get home to his wife...

The Strategic Air Command was just beginning flight tests of the latest B-52H
and I was out looky-looing at the new bird when a thing like a lumber loader
rolled up, carrying a dummy hydrogen bomb. Those early hydrogen bombs were huge
things that looked like huge propane tanks...

And the War Plan for Edwards AFB became imminently clear when they loaded all
of us airmen up into our blue Air Force busses and took us out to the borax
mines in Boron, CA. There are about 100 miles of tunnels underground there, and
we were all going to take our blanket off our bunk and a bottle of water in a
clorox jug and we were going to hide in those tunnels for two weeks until the
nuclear fallout subsided and we would proceed to kick some Russkie ass with
whatever we had left standing...

SAC deployed its B-52's out on dry lakebeds in Nevada about that time. Another
internet denizen said that B-52's were practicing emergency landings on
deserted interstate highways in Wyoming, too in case they made it back from
Russia and found their home base was a smoking crater...

Fat chance of that. Not too many GI pilots knew about the Russian SS-5
surface-to-air missile that had shot down Francis Gary Powers in the U-2 spy
plane, but they were going to find out about the flying telephone poles in a
few years, over North Viet Nam...

I went out to Mud Lake near Hawthorne, NV on a mission to fix the broken rescue
helicopter for an X-15 rocket plane mission. The X-15 couldn't fly until all
helicopters and fire engines waiting to recue the pilot were in place and ready
to get him out of the rocket plane...

I saw all of the SAC B-52's parked on the dry lake bed. I saw some of them from
the back seat of a Cessna 172 that a local rancher owned. He'd graciously
volunteered to support the military effort by flying us back from Hawthorne
after a night in a casino hotel room...

He wanted to prove to our helicopter pilot that a Cessna could do zero forward
airspeed too, but after a few stalls above all the B-52's, the SAC general in
charge came onto the radio and politely ordered the Cessna pilot to stop doing
those stalls over his warbirds...

We got the danged helicopter started, it was a bad boost pump, but the X-15
mission was scrubbed that day, when the pilot of the B-52, a hotshot major who
had never been
commander of an X-15 mission couldn't get one engine started...

He was supposed to carry the fully-fueled X-15, which was a flying bomb full of
liquid oxygen and ammonia fuel up to 39,000 feet and drop it so the rocket
plane could fire its rocket engine and fly 50 miles up, going maybe 5000 miles
an hour...

But, with one engine refusing to start, he should have aborted the mission. He
thought he'd be a hero and save the day by taking off and windmilling the
engine to start it...

It wouldn't start, so he decided he would land and the mission would still be
saved if mechanics could fix the engine problem...

He should have dumped all the jet fuel, as well as dumping the X-15's dangerous
fuel, but he didn't. He attempted a landing while grossly overweight...

On his final approach, he popped the drag chute out, that should have only been
deployed on the rollout after landing, but doing it in flight tore the drag
chute door off, and the force of landing bent the B-52's landing gear, and the
mission was scrubbed...

So, we loaded up all the fire trucks that were deployed all over Nevada and
California dry lake beds and flew back to Edwards in our C-130 Herky Birds....

>I was the king of bug spray for my last month in Florida, because I wasn't

wanting to be the one who introduced those nasty damned things to the
neighborhood where I grew up in California.

Fortunately, as a barracks rat, everything I brought back ro California from
Florida would fit into one duffle bug, a suitcase, and about three cardboard
boxes...




# * 0 * #
^



  #17 (permalink)   Report Post  
krusty kritter
 
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Default

>From: (Art Sackett)

>I was stationed at Eglin AFB, up on the panhandle, working on a radar that

looked south toward the Cape and watched for missiles that thankfully never
came;

You do mean Uncle Nikita's missiles in Cuba, don't you? I like to think that
one of Uncle Sam's stray rockets never went thataway any farther than
Titusville...

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, I was stationed at Edwards AFB, which
was just out of the extreme range of enemy missiles in Cuba...

Edwards AFB was a research and development center for new Air Force weaponry,
but we didn't have any atomic bombs or hydrogen bombs stored there, at least,
not so far as I ever knew...

Two nuclear-armed B-47's arrived at the base and parked at the end of the
runway, ready to head out if the shooting started. No way could the B-47's
reach Russia without refueling, they were aimed at Cuba...

I was on standby in case the B-47's had electrical problems. I would be able to
change burned out light bulbs, fer sure, fer sure...

Some Tactical Air Command fighter pilot with a broken F-101 woke me up at 2:00
AM and demanded that I hurry down there and fix his plane so he could fly back
to Oxnard AFB. I told him that I was just on standby for the B-47's, and he
threatened to have me court-martialed if I didn't get down there and fix his
Voodoo. He said the US was in a state of war and that I'd be in serious trouble
if I didn't haul my butt down to the flight line...

It must have been some secret emergency mission he was on that had him out
there flying around in the dark instead of grabbing a bunk in the transient
barracks...

Or maybe he just wanted to get home to his wife...

The Strategic Air Command was just beginning flight tests of the latest B-52H
and I was out looky-looing at the new bird when a thing like a lumber loader
rolled up, carrying a dummy hydrogen bomb. Those early hydrogen bombs were huge
things that looked like huge propane tanks...

And the War Plan for Edwards AFB became imminently clear when they loaded all
of us airmen up into our blue Air Force busses and took us out to the borax
mines in Boron, CA. There are about 100 miles of tunnels underground there, and
we were all going to take our blanket off our bunk and a bottle of water in a
clorox jug and we were going to hide in those tunnels for two weeks until the
nuclear fallout subsided and we would proceed to kick some Russkie ass with
whatever we had left standing...

SAC deployed its B-52's out on dry lakebeds in Nevada about that time. Another
internet denizen said that B-52's were practicing emergency landings on
deserted interstate highways in Wyoming, too in case they made it back from
Russia and found their home base was a smoking crater...

Fat chance of that. Not too many GI pilots knew about the Russian SS-5
surface-to-air missile that had shot down Francis Gary Powers in the U-2 spy
plane, but they were going to find out about the flying telephone poles in a
few years, over North Viet Nam...

I went out to Mud Lake near Hawthorne, NV on a mission to fix the broken rescue
helicopter for an X-15 rocket plane mission. The X-15 couldn't fly until all
helicopters and fire engines waiting to recue the pilot were in place and ready
to get him out of the rocket plane...

I saw all of the SAC B-52's parked on the dry lake bed. I saw some of them from
the back seat of a Cessna 172 that a local rancher owned. He'd graciously
volunteered to support the military effort by flying us back from Hawthorne
after a night in a casino hotel room...

He wanted to prove to our helicopter pilot that a Cessna could do zero forward
airspeed too, but after a few stalls above all the B-52's, the SAC general in
charge came onto the radio and politely ordered the Cessna pilot to stop doing
those stalls over his warbirds...

We got the danged helicopter started, it was a bad boost pump, but the X-15
mission was scrubbed that day, when the pilot of the B-52, a hotshot major who
had never been
commander of an X-15 mission couldn't get one engine started...

He was supposed to carry the fully-fueled X-15, which was a flying bomb full of
liquid oxygen and ammonia fuel up to 39,000 feet and drop it so the rocket
plane could fire its rocket engine and fly 50 miles up, going maybe 5000 miles
an hour...

But, with one engine refusing to start, he should have aborted the mission. He
thought he'd be a hero and save the day by taking off and windmilling the
engine to start it...

It wouldn't start, so he decided he would land and the mission would still be
saved if mechanics could fix the engine problem...

He should have dumped all the jet fuel, as well as dumping the X-15's dangerous
fuel, but he didn't. He attempted a landing while grossly overweight...

On his final approach, he popped the drag chute out, that should have only been
deployed on the rollout after landing, but doing it in flight tore the drag
chute door off, and the force of landing bent the B-52's landing gear, and the
mission was scrubbed...

So, we loaded up all the fire trucks that were deployed all over Nevada and
California dry lake beds and flew back to Edwards in our C-130 Herky Birds....

>I was the king of bug spray for my last month in Florida, because I wasn't

wanting to be the one who introduced those nasty damned things to the
neighborhood where I grew up in California.

Fortunately, as a barracks rat, everything I brought back ro California from
Florida would fit into one duffle bug, a suitcase, and about three cardboard
boxes...




# * 0 * #
^



  #18 (permalink)   Report Post  
Art Sackett
 
Posts: n/a
Default

krusty kritter > wrote:

> You do mean Uncle Nikita's missiles in Cuba, don't you? I like to think that
> one of Uncle Sam's stray rockets never went thataway any farther than
> Titusville...


Actually, being a youngster (I'm only 43), I was in the Air Force when
Reagan took office -- so our greatest concern was SLBM's that could
have come from Soviet subs hiding south of Cuba.

The radar was built in the 60's to do spacetrack, and got the missile
warning role later. It's one of the least radar-lookin' things you'd
ever see:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/.../an-fps-85.htm

We also took good long looks at new satellites that the Soviets put up,
many of which were debris clouds by the time they reached our coverage
area.

I don't know how everyone else feels about it, but I really do
appreciate good war stories and I thank you for sharing yours. My
biggest and best stories are all pretty tame.

--
Art Sackett,
Patron Saint of Drunken Fornication
  #19 (permalink)   Report Post  
Jim Lane
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Art Sackett wrote:

> krusty kritter > wrote:
>
>
>>You do mean Uncle Nikita's missiles in Cuba, don't you? I like to think that
>>one of Uncle Sam's stray rockets never went thataway any farther than
>>Titusville...

>
>
> Actually, being a youngster (I'm only 43), I was in the Air Force when
> Reagan took office -- so our greatest concern was SLBM's that could
> have come from Soviet subs hiding south of Cuba.
>
> The radar was built in the 60's to do spacetrack, and got the missile
> warning role later. It's one of the least radar-lookin' things you'd
> ever see:
>
> http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/.../an-fps-85.htm
>
> We also took good long looks at new satellites that the Soviets put up,
> many of which were debris clouds by the time they reached our coverage
> area.
>
> I don't know how everyone else feels about it, but I really do
> appreciate good war stories and I thank you for sharing yours. My
> biggest and best stories are all pretty tame.
>


I'd like to tell story too about being a senior in high-school/feshman
in cleege during the Cuba missle crisis and my USAF stories, but dang
it, this is a cooking group. So I won't.


jim
  #23 (permalink)   Report Post  
Ernie
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Jim Lane" > wrote
> How about returning to cooking? I heard enough of them from my father
> and was sent home as a child from the PI when that broke out.
>Jim


Ok Jim,
How about this:
I received the tamale making kit as a Christmas gift that is listed on
Webb site http://www.mexgrocer.com . Now I need to decide
what kind of tamale I am going to make first. I think it will be pork,
although I could use leftover Christmas turkey. I also got a tamale
press with masa and sauces from the same place.
My new toys .should keep me entertained for a while.
Ernie




  #24 (permalink)   Report Post  
Jim Lane
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Ernie wrote:

> "Jim Lane" > wrote
>
>>How about returning to cooking? I heard enough of them from my father
>>and was sent home as a child from the PI when that broke out.
>>Jim

>
>
> Ok Jim,
> How about this:
> I received the tamale making kit as a Christmas gift that is listed on
> Webb site http://www.mexgrocer.com . Now I need to decide
> what kind of tamale I am going to make first. I think it will be pork,
> although I could use leftover Christmas turkey. I also got a tamale
> press with masa and sauces from the same place.
> My new toys .should keep me entertained for a while.
> Ernie
>



Do not overlook sweet tamales.


jim

  #25 (permalink)   Report Post  
BillB
 
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Default

On 25 Dec 2004 01:18:12 GMT, krusty kritter wrote:

> When I was transferred down to Florida to work at Cape Canaveral, the
> cockroaches down there were called "palmetto bugs". They were about three
> inches long, too...


In VietNam and probably other Asian countries those delicacies
were called rice bugs. Never saw too many of them, but one day some
guys brought out several large spray tanks and attacked the base of
the shack/tent (wooden pallets) that housed several dozen of our
R-390 receivers and other assorted radios. Within minutes the
ground was swarming with thousands of the critters. When I go after
bugs one-on-one I avoid insecticide. Heavy duty detergent sprays
(Fantastik, 409, Murphy's, etc.) are surer, quicker and leave the
floor cleaner, even if you wouldn't want to then eat off it.
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