Sunday, October 8, 2006
The Things We Put into Our Mouths
I mentioned that we've been watching Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations thanks to TiVo magic (I am loosing all sense of when shows are actually aired and what channel they're on - I'm guessing this is a common side effect of TiVo ownership, no?). We watched a couple episodes last night - Quebec and China - and were brought to a new keen awareness of just how far Bourdain will go to experience cultures and their foods (and to make entertaining television). Now let me just say that I don't consider myself a squeemish, eat only what I've had before, kind of girl. I'm as adventurous as the next foodie, but...I draw the line somewhere.
I drew it at the moment Tony brought the bloody handful of freshly shot seal flesh to his mouth. I drew the line even thicker when he was offered the prize morsel of the seal: the bloody eyeball staring at him in newly blinded accusation. He was offered this favored piece by the poor Inuit family he was staying with and he, respectfully so, ate it.
I watched. I grimaced. I hid my face behind my hands.
I also grimaced last week when I watched him in India eating brains in their gooey, jiggly sauces, but nothing prepared me for the bloody carnage of the seal being devoured by the family on their kitchen floor. Apparently he's eaten the live, beating heart of a cobra too, but I have yet to be blessed with that hunger inducing episode.
All of this to say: I'm not as adventurous as I thought I was. Huz and I have a freind who went to China a few years ago with his wife and her family. While there, he decided to experience the culture through food, much like Bourdain. He went to a street-side stand and ordered fried grasshopper on a stick. The wings were spread wide open in crispy rigor mortis and he crunched right into it. I don't think I could do this.
What's the most adventurous food you've ever eaten? Me? I guess having dim sum in Chicago's Chinatown was the most adventurous of late. I tried duck feet (very fatty ankles) and baby octupi (texture=firestone tires). I went to Hong Kong once for a weekend with my mom (Yes, a weekend; you read right. We're crazy.) and was in a hotel restaraunt that rotated round and round (blech). I went to the dessert bar to get some yummy raspberry ice cream at the end of my meal. I brought it back to the table and dug in, only to discover that it wasn't raspberry. It was ube, a purple root which was nasty. The whole rest of the trip I complained about eating squid ink ice cream because that's the only way I knew to describe that awful flavor.
You? |
