The 'Mystery Meats' Of Thailand

[jaideeguy]

There are so many different fishballs and sausages here that go into the noodle soups, salads etc and I have always been suspicious of them and avoid them when possible.

Does anyone know what actually goes into them??

scrapings off the decks of the fishing boats??

or dredgings from the klongs??

or worse??

[THAILIBAN]

Haha !

Yeah that's a good one.

probably we all have asked ourselves this question more than once already.

But then, it tasted nicely, so we did not continue to inquire (adopting the THAI culture of, "don't ask don't tell")

and most probably, it was the right decision not to inquire further ;-)

[flying]

I dont eat them but have heard it is meat & flour

so the pork balls are pork & flour same for the chicken/fish etc

I guess it is no worse than Spam or vienna sausages but I dont eat those either

[rics21]

its just flour with "unused' meat.

parts of a chicken/ pig/ cow which cant be sold as meat.

[lannarebirth]

I don't eat amy of that stuff I can't identify readily, but I would note it is not just a Thai food issue. As my German BIL likes to say "no one knows what is in a woman's heart... or a liver sausage".

[Hawaiian]

One of my wife's friends makes her sausages with fermented beef. Her husband calls them "rotten meat" sausages and although he eats most Thai foods will not touch them. I stay clear of them, too.

The fishcake factories here make Japanese style delicacies like kamaboko, tenpura and chikuwa. They also make a fishball (the Japanese name escapes me) similar to the Thai ones.

The Thais here will not buy them and insist on the imported frozen ones. The locally made fishballs are made from surimi, which is a seasoned fish paste mixed with cornstarch. Compared to these the Thai ones seem to have a more fishy taste. Could the secret ingredient be fermented, i.e. "rotten" fish?

[phaethon]

There is an old saying: Don't eat anything unless you've first seen it with the head attached.

Not sure how that apples to jammie dodgers...

[canuckamuck]

The interesting thing is that here in Thailand the parts of the animal that are unsellable in the west are actually special items here. This creates a situation where there are less mystery parts available to be put into meatballs and sausages. I think the ratio of actual meat in the meat balls and sausages here is actually higher than it is in the west. There aren't very many parts of animals that don't have a place in the family recipe book.

[apetley]

The three B's, "Brains, bones and <deleted>".

[JUDAS]

I know my brother in the UK refuses to eat cheap sausages, claiming they are made from lips and assh@loes...

[jaideeguy]

The interesting thing is that here in Thailand the parts of the animal that are unsellable in the west are actually special items here. This creates a situation where there are less mystery parts available to be put into meatballs and sausages. I think the ratio of actual meat in the meat balls and sausages here is actually higher than it is in the west. There aren't very many parts of animals that don't have a place in the family recipe book.

Agree that the Thais don't waste many 'parts' of the animal and that flour and fat are probably the primary ingredients to stretch out the remaining 'parts' that are so finely ground up that they are unrecognisable.

Any one care to guess which 'parts'?? Ears, eyeballs, tails and sexual 'parts' to start with in sausages. I hate to even think of the waste products from the fish or where the fish come from.

Luckily I have a German Sausage meisterbrief close by that uses only choice cuts of pork and his prices are not too much higher than 'CP' products.

[IanForbes]

Mystery meats you say? Don't ask, you don't want to know. Same answer as the brand X weiners produced in the USA.

[thunder30101]

Whats in these hot dogs ? everything but the squeal.

[soundman]

Close your eyes and as long as it doesn't smell off, its all protein in the long run. Doesn't really matter what part of the animal it came from.

Personally I draw the line at mystery meat that looks like a curled up dog turd.

[travelmann]

I dread to think!!!!!

[travelmann]

Close your eyes and as long as it doesn't smell off, its all protein in the long run. Doesn't really matter what part of the animal it came from.

Personally I draw the line at mystery meat that looks like a curled up dog turd.

but and uncurled one??

[organic]

I feel a lot more comfortable about eating Thai sausages than British ones, especially since I used to work with a former industrial chemist with one of the UK's largest food processors. He wouldn't eat Brit sausages either (apart from M&S).

[Moonrakers]

It's an offal question

[canuckamuck]

It's an offal question

full points for that

[surayu]

Hey but they smell good, i did try myself an extended variety of them, hoping that the frying oil would kill any other even more misterious presence on them, but the taste was not matching my expectations so i just taste them, i have been sick for 3 days in a row, that was pure food poisoning at his best, not even my dogs dared enough to try them, however the ones they boil with the noodles soups are "good"