Things found in bins, crocks and jars at pubs & bars

[Jacob_Marley]

Before it closed, my favorite pub used to keep a jar of pickled eggs, a jar of pickled sausages and a jar of pickled hocks on the bar. All homemade ... I still crave the stuff.
Other places I've been to might have a nut heater for peanuts or cashews.

What other non-restaurant type Pub Food have you seen or had ... whether in the States & Canada, Europe, Australia or anywhere else?

 

[Subsailor]

As you have listed pickled eggs, sausages, hocks but also pickled hot peppers. Their's was all homemade also.
I can't remember the name of the place, out in Silverdale, Washington before they built the Trident Base. It was gone when I got stationed there 11 years later. They had a a mall and a everything then.

A big plus to a young single sailor at the time was befriending the twin sisters that worked there!!!

 

[flars]

Beef jerky added to your list.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

Pickled pigs tongues.

MC
(My dad loved them over crackers).

 

[WoodHokie4]

I frequented a bar in college that had a couple bottles of tequila with snakes in them. That was pretty weird...never got the nerve to order a shot though

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[boscobeans]

Smoked eels in olive oil.

bosco

 

[axmdr40]

Bacon!!!!

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Smoked eels in olive oil.

bosco

Oh man, +1 to that, Henry.
Never seen it at the pub but I love smoked eels. Smoked fish in general but smoked eel is one of my favorites. A big thing at Christmas time with my mom's side of the family (East Prussians er, ah, German). We don't get it in oil but just as you would smoked fish.
Hard to find now so everyone gets an "eel ration" at Christmas when the smoked plate comes out.
Going to the pub and having a boomer of stout and a plate of smoked eel sounds wonderful right now.

 

[Homercidal]

I stole a pickled hot asparagus from a jar at a homebrew party last May. I'm pretty sure was the at FSR402's club kegerator.

Awesome stuff! I like asparagus and was really intrigued. I keep forgetting that it's something I want to make myself when asparagus goes on sale.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

I stole a pickled hot asparagus from a jar at a homebrew party last May. I'm pretty sure was the at FSR402's club kegerator.

Awesome stuff! I like asparagus and was really intrigued. I keep forgetting that it's something I want to make myself when asparagus goes on sale.

I just picked up about 4 pounds of asparagus stems at a market in Dearborn for .50cents a pound. I think I'm going to give the hot pickled asparagus a try.
Maybe they'll be my Fourth of July pickles.

As far as eating asparagus fresh, the stems seem much less bitter than the florette/tip. Hopefully these will be worth the work fine as pickles. Couldn't resist at .50cent/lb.

 

[MollyHatchet]

I love to go to McSorley's in NY city and order a cheese plate with a sliced onion and a sleeve of crackers. Goes great with their light or dark beers.


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[Jacob_Marley]

Ok, not "found in bins, crocks or jars", but ...
There's a German Club I'm affiliated with that occasionally serves a great "Gehacktes" plate.
Similar to raw steak tartare (but without the raw egg ... and with some brandy mixed in) Gehacktes is very high grade fresh, raw ground sirloin served on heavy German rye bread with sweet butter and chopped onions. With a little salt and pepper on top it's awesome with a couple cold Spaten Optimators. Ach Gott im himmel das schmeckt!


Also the Michigan Brewery Company (RIP), though they technically did not have a kitchen and serve food, used to serve a pretty good "off menu" liverwurst at its old location. Another great sandwich with dark beer.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I went to a place a few times that had a nut heater. They told me it was actually a hand dryer and to stop doing that.

 

[elkshadow]

I went to a place a few times that had a nut heater. They told me it was actually a hand dryer and to stop doing that.

I LOLed.

 

[scarekrow]

How else you gonna dry them off?

 

[jdm61]

Back in the day in Kentucky, you would see big jars of Penrose hot pickled sausages. They smelled nasty but they tasted pretty good. My dad said that at your typical burger/beer joint, when the sausages were gone, there was a lot of the liquid left, so they would fill up the old jar with hard boiled eggs and let them get all hot and nasty. ConAgra owns the Penrose brand now and as I understand it, when the old Penrose plant burned down around 2010, ConAgra killed the brand. Beer cheese with celery sticks an/or crackers is another must have bar food in Kentucky, but it does in plastic tubs unless it is made on site.

 

[scarekrow]

Reser's has a thrift store just out of Portland that used to sell packaged pickled sausages and sometimes single packaged pickles. Good on a drunk but not the best texturally.

Oh as for bar nuts watch the bar scenes at the beginning of "Every which way but Loose" and you'll never make fun of someones nuts

 

[jdm61]

Reser's has a thrift store just out of Portland that used to sell packaged pickled sausages and sometimes single packaged pickles. Good on a drunk but not the best texturally.

Oh as for bar nuts watch the bar scenes at the beginning of "Every which way but Loose" and you'll never make fun of someones nuts

The old school pickled sausage connoisseurs will tell you that sausages in the blister packs are nowhere near as good as those that have had a chance to funkulate for a long time in a big jar full of the the nuclear pickling slop.:rockin:

 

[scarekrow]

Oh you make it sound so tasty I want to find a bar that still has them

 

[WayFrae]

Did someone say nuclear pickling slop? You know just how to make a man hungry.

 

[jdm61]

Did someone say nuclear pickling slop? You know just how to make a man hungry.

I saw a thread on here from a couple of years back mourning the destruction of the Penrose plant and giving what proported to be a recipe for said pickling slop.

 

[Barley_Bob]

Things found in bins, crocks and jars at pubs & bars

Not an Oxford comma, apparently.

 

[unionrdr]

Seems to me it was Penrose that made those great pickled sausages I used to love with beer at the bar near work?

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Not an Oxford comma, apparently.

... and now, a moment of grammatical and punctuatory explanation for those not familiar with that lasting legacy of the Oxford University Press.

 

[jdm61]

I almost forgot about one of my favorite bar foods from back in my youth in Miami. The town of West Miami was one of the few in South Florida that had no blue laws for a long time. Much of Dade County at that time was unincorporated and did not serve booze on Sunday and most the other cities were the same. This was still the case when we moved down there in 1968. Over the post war years, a bunch of beer joints and a couple of bars and package stores had sprung up in the area. Even after the county laws loosened up in the mid 70's, folks still opened little bars in that area right outside of the town limits. It was kind of low rent mom and pop beer joint, bar and liquor store heaven for years after the blue laws went away and there are still some of those old places in business to this day. A number of places had hot food, including some of the best burgers in town at a couple of joints, but some of the best snack food was smoked fish. Whoever was smoking the fish would make it from whatever large, meaty species that had on hand and cut it up in pieces maybe the size of 2/3 of a stick of butter wrapped in tin foil. The same guys sold to a lot of the bars and they served it with hot sauce and cold beer and that was all you needed.

 

[unionrdr]

That smoked fish is indeed great with a cold one! we used to do that in the pit at home for our Mad Midnight Munchies parties. Everything served had to be caught, shot, grown or home made. Over the years, it got really popular! Venison ribs, rabbits, squirrel, salmon...whatever in the barbecue pit.

 

[jdm61]

That smoked fish is indeed great with a cold one! we used to do that in the pit at home for our Mad Midnight Munchies parties. Everything served had to be caught, shot, grown or home made. Over the years, it got really popular! Venison ribs, rabbits, squirrel, salmon...whatever in the barbecue pit.

The guys across the river from you would take all of that mess along with some roadkill and maybe a crow or two, throw it in a big kettle and call it burgoo. The running joke in South Florida for years has been that when anyone says that a certain fish, such as mullet, amberjack, sailfish, kingfish, etc tastes great smoked, that means that it is a nasty fish that can ONLY be eaten smoked because smoking can even make an old Converse sneaker semi-palatable.

 

[Cyclman]

The guys across the river from you would take all of that mess along with some roadkill and maybe a crow or two, throw it in a big kettle and call it burgoo. The running joke in South Florida for years has been that when anyone says that a certain fish, such as mullet, amberjack, sailfish, kingfish, etc tastes great smoked, that means that it is a nasty fish that can ONLY be eaten smoked because smoking can even make an old Converse sneaker semi-palatable.

Actually, I think that having to eat crap is exactly how most of the best foods came about. It is the food that is pickled, smoked, salted, dried- the poor people food, that gives us many of our best eats. Buttered lobster, not so difficult. BBQ with vinegar sauce, that takes SKILLS.

 

[jdm61]

Actually, I think that having to eat crap is exactly how most of the best foods came about. It is the food that is pickled, smoked, salted, dried- the poor people food, that gives us many of our best eats. Buttered lobster, not so difficult. BBQ with vinegar sauce, that takes SKILLS.

You are correct. Nazty tough meat is how we got BBQ and a lot of deli meat like corned beef and pastrami. The funny part is that lobster was considered peasant food for years. It was the mark of poor people in Maine, Mass, etc, until rich New Yorkers "discovered" it in the mid to late 1800's. Same with other "luxury" foods today. Who were the first brave souls that ate a raw oyster, squid or a cow's thymus?

 

[unionrdr]

Yup. Peasant cooking' started a lot of dishes that cost more to make now. We used to get round steaks for $1.50 each. Ox tails for about the same price. Those prices have tripled or more at this point. And fresh caught salmon was great in the pit. Cold beer was always good with any of that. Didn't have to be "fancy" beer, but always a bonus.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Yup. Peasant cooking'... Ox tails for about the same price. ...

Oh man, oxtails (oxtail stew) was one of the best winter dishes we used to make when I was a kid. Oxtails and homemade bread, fresh out of the oven.
I know ... not something "found in bins, crocks and jars" ... but it gets one to thinkin. Pickled hocks are found in jars at bars ... why not oxtails?

 

[jdm61]

Yup. Peasant cooking' started a lot of dishes that cost more to make now. We used to get round steaks for $1.50 each. Ox tails for about the same price. Those prices have tripled or more at this point. And fresh caught salmon was great in the pit. Cold beer was always good with any of that. Didn't have to be "fancy" beer, but always a bonus.

Yeah. Any low grade meat that can be used in "competetion" to make BBQ or chili and anything used for trendy dishes has tripled in recent years. Local fish here in the Tampa bay area gives me major sticker shock. why the hell should I be paying $23 a pound for stuff that was caught 20 miles away?

 

[Jacob_Marley]

... gives me major sticker shock. why the hell should I be paying $23 a pound ...

I saw pot roast (not organic either) a couple months ago at kroger for over $12 a pound ... $12 a pound !!! I almost went and asked if it was a mis-mark. Recently, chicken that was 1.79 a pound, mysteriously and suddenly at 3.79/lb.
Absolutely obscene.
And just wait til the climate change really hits food production ...
It's getting to ...



(you have to have seen the movie to get the implication of the scene)

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Back to On-Topic ..... another bar snack ... Kri-Kri. Common as "Japanese KriKri" but is extremely popular in the Middle East, Far East and Europe.

A bit like eating beer-nuts while drinking. And all sorts of variations ... wasabi ... hot etc etc. Awesome stuff.

Basically peanuts, mixed nuts etc battered in a sugar/rice flour/coconut milk/sesame batter and deep fried. Very addicting.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

found in jars ...

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Found in crocks & jars ...
Cherry Pepper Shooters

Though most commonly found at Italian deli's ... still qualifies as a bar food and can be made a home.

Cherry Pepper Shooters ... aka Peperoncini Ripieni.

Cherry (pepper) Shooters are cherry peppers about the size of small ping-pong balls with the seeds taken out and then stuffed with Italian lunchmeat like capicola and a cheese like smoked provalone, and then partially covered with extra-virgin olive oil.

Unbelievably good, they really have to be tried ... a giant hit.

They can be stuffed with all sorts of things ... my favorite recipe is the following ...

The peppers I use are Mezzetta ...

Here’s the recipe ..

Cherry Pepper Shooters
12 – 16 Marinated cherry peppers
1/2 Lb. smoked or sharp Provolone cheese
4 – 6 Slices prosciutto (approximately 1/8 Lb.)
Olive Oil (EVOO)
1 Large clove garlic, peeled and sliced

Rinse the cherry peppers under running water. With a paring knife, remove the stems. Using a melon-baller, knife or small spoon, remove the seeds and ribs.

Cut the provolone into cubes small enough to fit into the cherry peppers. Wrap each piece of cheese with a thin ribbon of prosciutto. Stuff one into each pepper.

Place the peppers in a clean glass jar, distributing the garlic as you go. Fill the jar with enough olive oil that has had just a bit of salt and pepper added to it, to cover the peppers.
Let sit overnight before serving.

Goes great with wine, beer and (I think) a double scotch.

 

[unionrdr]

I remember when my wife used to like getting cherry peppers with her steak at Brown Derby by the airport in Cleveland.