Huh?
My wife talks about folks there eating snake several ways, something else you donât see here much.
The one and only time I argued an appeal in the Second Circuit (this is probably 15 years ago), I had time tor lunch after, before heading to LaGuardia to fly home, so of course I went to Katzâs. My sandwhich was half pastrami, half tongue. Delish. As Iâm sitting there at a table by myself, trying not to mess up my suit (I probably took my tie off), there were two ladies at the table behind me and one was just going on and on (not quietly) about how she could not believe they had âtongueâ on the menu and how disgusting it was, etc.
Iâve never had natto, but if we want to talk legumes that I donât understand how people eat them, much less seek them out, can we talk about boiled peanuts?
My edited/deleted post, not the thread.
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Color me impressed. They are crazy weird creatures.
Perhaps even more plussing is Americaâs lack of taste for seafood. In the great Los Angeles, perched by the pacific and its abundant treasures, there are nary any seafood restaurants at all. And if they do exist, theyâll make sure theyâll deep fry and batter it beforehand to make it palatable.
Bottom line is Americans simply donât eat seafood. Sure, we can talk about some people in Montauk, Alaska or the Carolinas where that isnât true, but as a general rule I think it stands.
I wonder why that is?
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Tongue (lengua) is very common in Mexican cuisine-street tacos w/tongue are very very common in Texas at least
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Ankimo is one of my favorite dishes to order at a good sushi restaurant.
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Same for Northern California. One of the items in my weekly breakfast rotation at our local Mexican restaurant is sopes con lengua.
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Wasnât tongue part of a Berserkerday offer from either Morgan or Flannery this last year?
Itâs delicious!
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Iâve often wondered that. A great deal of the country is landlocked, but, as you said, even on the coasts itâs tough. Hard to say chicken or egg about things like availability - do we have access to so little seafood because people donât want it, or do people lack familiarity because quality seafood is unavailable and expensive when it is? Is it just a history of âmanly beef culture?â Even when Americans do eat fish, they seem to want it not to taste like fish. Mackerel is a hard sell.
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Lengua tacos are usually available at the taco trucks along international blvd in Oakland. I sometimes get a lengua taco among my choices but my wife wonât touch lengua
I eat offal more often while traveling abroad than in the US. After a horrid tripe incident 40 years ago in Nice, I am unable to tolerate it, even in menudo, which I loved. Taste memory is usually a blessing, but in this case a curse. I tend to avoid the alimentary canal from the stomach south, but still love a good Florentine lampredotto.
You are all welcome to my serving of andouillette!!
Maybe it has something to do with which protein sources were most easily available in the region historically, and the culture grows from there? If I had to hunt/farm/fish all my own calories, and I lived in most places in the U.S., I would think raising cattle would be a pretty attractive option. Fishing seems like a lot more work, unless you live in Hawaii. Maybe someone here with commercial ranching or fishing experience can confirm or deny?
Iâm sure thatâs a huge part of it.
AI chimes in:
"Historically in the continental United States, if you needed to produce all your own food with the least effort, the best crops to raise would be corn (maize) and beans, often grown together in a âThree Sistersâ system, alongside squash, as well as chickens for eggs and meat as livestock.
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I can only speak for where I live roughly halfway between the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. There is no problem with access to seafood if willing to eat local. There does seem to be a difference between the locals consumption and those who moved here later in life. Honestly, I wish the difference were even greater as blue crab pricing is difficult to swallow but yet we still do as there isnât anything better than blue crab.
The US overfished our native species for hundreds of years. The problem is supply as much as demand, I think.
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Part of why I love to travel is to try all the unique regional foods. Having all that available to me here is a cheat code I donât want.
Tho I do agree that I would not mind seeing more offal options. Kidney, Liver, etc. Tripa tacos can be the absolute best, or absolute worst depending on prep (and pre-prep)
Love the thread and Japan has always left me stunned with all the food possibilities, and using every part of ingredient to 
Huge tongue fan, and would add that itâs probably one of the easier things to make and prepare.
Whenever tongue or cheeks is on a restaurant menu I just canât resistâŚ