Food is a popular topic of conversation at my workplace. We have an even mix of ectomorphs (slim folks) and mesomorphs (solid, muscular people), vegetarians and carnivores, health nuts and gourmands. The most passionate and heated debate usually surrounds the question of “where do you draw the line” with things you’ll put into your mouth. Raw vs. cooked. Domesticated vs. wild. Local vs. imported. Kosher vs. cheeseburger. Cows vs. dogs.
A few months ago, I went to a restaurant on Dundas ominously named “The Black Hoof“, where I ate bone marrow (did not like – gelatinous, flavourless, icky) and raw horse (was okay, not something I’d eat every day). I texted a colleague and her response was “OMG RAW HORSE??!?! WHY?”.
Curiosity is the simple answer. I’m an adventurous gal, and I often like to say that, within reason, I’ll try anything once. I’ve got a pretty relaxed attitude towards what is edible, so usually when we’re talking about eating dog-meat (in the context of visiting a country where dog is part of the cuisine, NOT in the context of me coaxing Fido into my personal abbatoir so I can enjoy dog burgers on a Saturday night in Toronto – let’s be real) I’m the one nodding while others are gagging.
However, I have recently run into two experiences that are taking my “try anything once” attitude to the wall.
1) Dessicated Ox Bile
2) Entomophagy (Eating Bugs)
Dessicated what now?
So, the dessicated ox bile is a component of the evening digestive pills that form part of the “Innocleanse” 7-day cleanse that I thought I’d try out this week as a sort of personal challenge. There are the usual regimen of enzymes, purgatives and thermogenic (temperature-raising) ingredients in these pills – alfalfa leaves, sennosides, papain, cayenne pepper) but let me stress that this is emphatically not the crazy Beyonce cleanse where all you drink is spicy maple syrup lemonade. The list of foods you can eat is restricted, but you still have to eat.
The “NO” foods for this cleanse include wheat grains, fruit, caffeine, milk, carrots, tomatoes, pork, shellfish, yeast, oats, barley, potatoes, vinegar, sugar and margarine.
At first, looking at that list, all I could think of was celery sticks. But as it happens, if you’re willing to shell out about $150 in groceries at Whole Foods, you can eat a lot of things that are included in the “YES” food category, namely: yeast-free sprouted grain breads, lemons, limes, fresh cranberries, unsweetened almond butter, organic plain yoghurt, butter, eggs, herbal tea, sunflower seeds, vegetables, hummus, tzatziki, olive oil, garlic, onion, lean beef, chicken, turkey, all fish, beans, yeast-free grains (millet, quinoa, spelt, amaranth, brown rice, kamut, teff, buckwheat), unsweetened soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, and tofu.
We’ll see if I can last out the whole 7 days. Yesterday was day one and I had a screaming, eyeball-splitting headache all night from caffeine withdrawal. This morning my head is still hurting, but not as badly, but my upper arms feel like someone administered a series of clumsily-injected flu shots into them. Achey and heavy and sore. Apparently the first three days are the worst. I’ll keep everyone posted.
So, what was that about eating bugs?
There’s a surreptitous supper club in Toronto called “Charlie’s Burgers“. The idea is, you go to their website, fill out a survey about your food fantasies and they may (or may not) invite you to dinner. The mandate of this mysterious enterprise is to give great chefs “a blank canvas to create whatever menu they want, with no boundaries whatsoever.”
This month, they’re really pushing those non-existent boundaries by offering up an extravagant 9-course meal made up of… insects. Yes, for just $155, guest chefs Matt Binkley & Jeff Stewart will tantalize your tastebuds with tarantulas. Okay, not really (there are no spiders on the menu), but they WILL serve you crickets, grasshoppers, forest nymphs, scorpions, queen ants, water beetle, rhinoceros beetle, wax worms, meal worms, super worms and butter worms. See the complete menu if you dare! (or, if you want to know which wine goes with scorpions)
I have to make up my mind if I’m bold enough to eat these things before the dinner happens on Jan 24. If I’m honest with myself, I think I already know the answer. As an old-school nerd, the moment I think of eating worms, the image that springs to mind is of Riker staring down the parasite-infected Starfleet Admirals in episode #25 of ST:TNG, “Conspiracy”.
The valuable life lesson that episode taught me? If you eat bugs, your head may asplode.
Tags: beyonce, bugs, challenge, cleanse, eating, entomophagy, food, head asplode, ox bile, Star Trek
Posted by pipes on Sep 17, 2003 in
Travel,
Wishful Thinking I’ve decided to tidy up my crazy mental and visual notes for the weekend by dividing them into two sensible categories, and two entries. From the photo-essay I’ve assembled so far, Saturday’s topic, “FOOD,” appears to be taking on the shape of a Zagat guide written by Mary Shelley. Meanwhile, Sunday’s feature, “FASHION,” will be a laissez-faire Vogue tribute to September street sights and Manhattan hipster initiatives.
*Note: I wrote large chunks of this Monday afternoon at Gate D2 of LaGuardia airport while waiting for delayed flight 1167 to Toronto to arrive. The rest was lashed together Tuesday night under the influence of high fever delerium. Could be disjointed. Not recommended for the faint of heart or the high of cholesterol. Beware.*
New York is home to thousands upon thousands of restaurants. Good food is abundant, and many people eat it. But the seedy, sticky, enormously distended underbelly of Manhattan’s culinary adventures is what I set out to explore. Five star experiences are a dime a dozen, and guides aplenty tell you where to lay your plastic down for tasty apps and a main. But where can you get authenticity? Where can you find True American Eats? Right here, baby. Right here.
Vegetable: Boar’s Head Pickles. They’re cheap and they’re massive. A single courgette can feed a family of five for a month. You can buy them anywhere in New York, and the only requirement is that you must be able to heft them out of the jar without breaking your own arm.
But watch out… if they soak up too much brine, they can turn EVIL.
Animal: Sturgeon. It’s a fish, whose popularity would suggest it spawns in huge vats of heroin-laced ambrosia. Barney Greengrass, the self-titled “Sturgeon King,” has people lined up around the block waiting for their piscine hit on Sundays. Seriously, some folks camp out overnight. I would have snapped a photo of the ravening hordes, but I didn’t want to be mistaken for the delivery guy.
Mineral(?): There were several fine candidates for the dishonorable mention of most-freaky-totally-chemical ‘food’ item on the shelves in NYC. Despite the stiff competition, I narrowed it down to a tie for first. “New Extreme Crème Taste Oreo O’s Cereal” is terrifying in its frivolous disregard for the health of young Americans. To me, this product smacks of chocolately defeat, a saccharine acceptance of video game culture and obesity.
The second item I caught a glance of in the checkout aisle, casually laying itself out as an “impulse item.” Instantly recognizable as one of my childhood delights, “Fun Dip” has taken on a disturbing new face with the advent of some subtle graphic retooling of their packaging. The dip itself is pictured as having fun, making the figurative horrifyingly literal. The average consumer may not even register the dreadful scene unfolding in happy cartoon colours, as the dip’s anthropomorphized mouth opens wide to receive a tongue piled high with its own substance. Crystalline fructose cannibalism. Apple, grape and cherry cheerfully plunge the dip stick into themselves in an overtly sexual and violent act. What kind of twisted morality is this teaching the children of today?
Other: While not technically edible (the same could be said of Oreo cereal, really), there were a few other food-fetish items that seemed worthy of note. During a routine stop at F.A.O. Schwartz, the giant toy store across from Bergdorf Goodman’s, one can take witness the glory that is the world’s biggest Mr. Potato Head.
Also on display were the latest in cutting-edge plastics that didn’t prove useful in warfare, so got annexed as toys instead. Check out silly putty if you want historical precendent for this practice. You have to appreciate the humour in “Goooze” by Nickelodeon (insert vagina slang joke here). Yes, I know. I have a filthy, filthy mind. But you have to admit, the packaging doesn’t help. Not only does “Goooze” (snort, guffaw, ahem) come in a wide array of food-flavours such as cream soda, mint chocolate chip, whole lotta berry, and the freakish pinenana-splitz, it also has some hilarious marketing imperatives. “New Scented Formula: Smell It!”, “Stretch It”, “Bounce It!”, “Squeeze it!”, “Bubble it!” How’s a girl NOT supposed to laugh? Serious homonym action with a really nasty word for snatch I could giggle at and move on, but SNIFF IT?!? It’s all just too much for my poor perverted mind to handle.
It didn’t help that just one floor up was another strange twist in the weird world of food-related toys. Some bright spark saw a market for new, hip, urban Barbie Dolls, and decided to call them “Flavas.” These dolls are true role models for the Future Leaders of America. Little hip hop ghetto people wearing leopard print tube tops and oversized pants, their ‘hoods tagged with graffiti, sporting names like P. Bo and Kiyoni Brown. I don’t think I need to go on about these. They sort of scream for themselves.
Tags: authenticity, F.A.O. Schwartz, Flavas, food, fun dip, goooze, hipsters, LaGuardia, Manhattan, Mary Shelley, Mr. Potato Head, NYC, oreo cereal, pickles, sturgeon, toys, true American eats
