In a Twitter discussion about cooking and eating blood, Drew Magary got this reply:
My grandfather would get a pint of blood from the butcher and fry it up into chewy nuggets. Ate it heavily salted with beer.
— rural elite (@bookofruthless) March 18, 2018
That set off a string of stories about the weird things that people's grandpas would do. Some stories were about habits left over from different times. Some were about showing how hardcore they were. And some were pranks from old men who wanted to laugh at their grandchild's naivety.
My grandfather would eat heads of garlic like they were apples. One time, my father said, “Jesus, did you eat a whole head of garlic?” Charlie said, “Well, yeah, but I had a piece of gum afterward. You can still tell?”
— Vince Guerrieri (@vinceguerrieri) March 18, 2018
My grandpa ate onions like apples, and Friday night was Swanson Fried Chicken TV Dinner Night, no exceptions. If grandma wanted to go out for dinner, he would bring a tv dinner along and make the restaurant heat it up.
— James Korsmo (@TTSO_James) March 18, 2018
Once when we were hanging out with my Grandpa, my 4 y/o little sister asked if he had any gum. He looked around conspiratorially and then gave her Copenhagen. My mom was not happy.
— Josh Johnson (@double_j36) March 18, 2018
"Fried egg sandwich."
— Mitchel Durnell (@MitchelDurnell) March 18, 2018
"I'm sorry sir, we don't -"
"I know you have eggs, and bread. Fried egg sandwich."
There are a bunch of the best Tweets about grandpas and their weird ways at The Concourse. Found at Metafilter, where you'll find a lot more grandpa stories.
One of the stories mentioned putting butter on "bread so thick, you could see the impressions of his teeth in it after he took a bite." There's a Danish word for that! Tandsmør = "tooth butter".