If You Are What You Eat, Then ...

Caution: Do not read this is if you're averse to dining on household pets

Seeing as how this is a diner, we should occasionally turn our our attention to food.

Otherwise, I run the risk of violating the zoning ordinances, which down here in Florida are more like zoning “suggestions.”

So, in order to avoid the authorities shutting down this joint …

***

I am talking to my friends Lyn and Mark when the conversation turns to food, which is what the conversation always turns to if I have anything to do with it.

Blame it on being a southerner. We southerners have what is called a “rich oral tradition.” Meaning, we like to tell stories. We also like to uphold another rich oral tradition—putting food into our mouths and eating it. And it is truly the best of all possible worlds when we can serve both purposes by telling stories about eating food.

Idle chatter about recipes doesn’t get it. Ideally, a good food story should involve some degree of adventure, like one of my favorite stories: “The Time a Whole Bunch of Us Bought a Goat in the Virgin Islands and Cooked It in the Galley of a Sailboat During Hurricane Allen When My Wife Was Pregnant with Our First Child and Suffering from Both Seasickness and Morning Sickness.”

A story like that is loaded with divergent elements, the actual eating of the food being a fitting climax.

For the record, this particular goat came pre-butchered. We poured in lots of curry. And it wound up being just shy of a religious experience for everyone.

Except my wife.

***

But a good food story doesn’t necessarily involve good food. Indeed, some of the best ones fall into the subcategory of “Weird Food We Have Eaten in Our Lives,” which is the trail down which I had embarked with Lyn and Mark.

I have just finished telling them my two favorite Weird Food stories. One of them I call “The Year-Old Raw Shark Story.” The other one, well, I can’t divulge its title because it would enrage animal lovers who have rather narrow ideas concerning the consumption of all furry creatures, let alone household pets.

So I have shared these stories with Lyn and Mark and now it is their turn.

“Now, I didn’t personally eat this,” says Lyn, “but not too long ago my husband and son ate a batch of tadpoles.”

“Tadpoles?” I say. “Little, bitty, squiggly tadpoles?”

“No,” says Lyn, “big, squiggly bullfrog tadpoles that were about 6 inches long. Max (that’s her son) caught them and Mark fried them up. Said they weren’t all that bad.”

Mark prides himself on teaching Max, who is ten, to have an adventurous palate. The two of them often go to Mosquito Lagoon where they spear stingrays, then filet the sweet, white meat from the ray wings for Stringray Stew.

“So, when Max came to me and said, ‘Daddy, can we eat these?’ I couldn’t very well just go ‘Yecccchh!’ and tell him to throw them back in the pond,” says Mark.

My gosh, no. That would have been inconsistent parenting.

So Mark pulled out a frying pan, tried gutting the tadpoles, gave up on it and just cooked the little bastards whole in bacon grease. Because everything is made edible by bacon grease, even the fake meat that is such a rage these days.

So how did they taste?

“Just like regular tadpoles,” says Mark, “but bullfroggier.”

Let’s just say Max didn’t ask for seconds.

***

“But if you think that’s weird,” says Mark, “I have a friend who eats bees.”

And see, that’s the thing about Weird Food stories. Once you start telling them …

“Actually,” says Mark, “what he eats are bee larvae. He raises bees, right? And every now and then he’ll shake some larvae out of the comb—they look like little white grub worms—and sautés them in butter. Says they are creamy and sweet and good for you.”

Buttered Florida Bee Bodies. Yes, there might just be a market.

***

Be thankful this is not a scratch ‘n sniff photograph

So here’s the year-old shark story. I ate the shark during a trip to Iceland when I spent a couple of weeks with some acquaintances who live in Reykjavik.

One evening, just before dinner, Fredric, my host, said: “Come, try my hakari.”

His wife and daughters shuddered and made faces as Fredric and I walked through the snow behind his house to a small shed. Inside, the odor was overpowering, like something evil had crawled up and died. Hanging from wooden racks were several foot-long strips of what looked like beef jerky. Fredric twisted a strip in half—one piece for me, one for him.

I’ll tell you how to make hakari and you can imagine for yourself what it tastes like.

First get fresh shark. Then, without gutting or skinning it, bury the shark in snow. For six months. During this time it ferments. Then dig up the shark, cut the strips from it and hang them to dry for another six months. When you eat hakari it is a year old and has never been cooked.

Tell you the truth, it was delicious. Like smoked mullet but with a whole lot more funk.

***

Let’s just say that the essence of hakari stayed with me for days. When I got on the plane to fly home, people turned in their seats to follow my progress down the aisle.

I had a middle seat with big people on either side of me. They found seats elsewhere on the plane.

And for that alone, I would consider making my own hakari and eating it before I board any flight.

***

As for that other story, the one with the title I couldn’t divulge? It took place many years ago, after I dropped out of college and traveled around the world trying to find myself.

Decades later, I’m still doing the same thing. A man of great consistency, that’s me.

I’d been hitchhiking through Jordan trying to get to Saudi Arabia not knowing that I would be turned around at the Saudi border on account of being American.

I knew that Saudi Arabia didn’t allow Americans inside its country back then. But being young and immensely naïve, I thought maybe I could talk to the border guards and we could come to an understanding.

Clarification: I wasn’t just naïve. I was stupid as hell.

It was late in the afternoon when I met up with a Jordanian soldier who offered me a ride and a place to sleep at the home of his parents. Their house was in the desert, a big, one-room affair made out of mud and straw. Dinner was served on the floor with everyone—mother, father, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles—sitting around a giant bowl. It was filled with a stew of some sort, and we each had several pieces of flat, tough bread with which we dipped in and sopped up our meal.

No one spoke much English, but I understood that it was a dish served only on special occasions. I was honored. I was also hungry. I ate a lot.

***

During our meal, the soldier’s father—a big, bearded man in a turban—let out a resounding burp. It was a burp of such heft you could have sliced it and had it for breakfast.

Other family members followed suit. Then they all looked at me. And waited. When in Jordan, do as the Jordanians do. I swallowed air and offered a burp. It brought smiles and grateful nods.

Then we got back to eating, grabbing pieces of bread and scooping up meat from the stew. It was really quite tasty. And I told my hosts that by rubbing my stomach and nodding and smiling.

“What’s in it?” I asked, pointing at the stew.

There was much talk regarding the stew as the family searched for words. The patriarch struggled to explain with all sorts of gestures. Then his eyes lit up, he smiled broadly and announced: “Arf! Arf!”

Friends, there are some situations for which there is no appropriate response. All you can really do is be polite. Then grab a piece of bread and go back in for more.

I’m not sure, but I think it was a Pekingese.

***

Which brings us thank dog, to TODAY’S POLL!