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diff --git a/md/40_The_Strangest_Things_Ive_Ever_Eaten.md b/md/40_The_Strangest_Things_Ive_Ever_Eaten.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b95690 --- /dev/null +++ b/md/40_The_Strangest_Things_Ive_Ever_Eaten.md @@ -0,0 +1,113 @@ +--- +title: The Strangest Things I've Ever Eaten +--- + +GI Joe did it! Don\'t look at me.\ +\ +That was the answer the survival student gave the leader when our group +caught up with them. I was on a BYU survival course in the summer of +1973. We were hiking in the mountains of southern Utah when GI Joe came +upon a porcupine in a tree and decided to throw rocks at it until he +knocked it out of the tree and killed it. I have no idea what GI Joe\'s +real name was. We all called him that because he wore his army fatigues +the whole time he was with us in the survival course. Apparently, he had +spent some time in the army before he started attending Brigham Young +University.\ +\ +I didn\'t witness the incident when our group caught up with the group +in which GI Joe was hiking. I only know that the leader was not very +pleased that GI Joe had killed a porcupine when he saw the crime scene +and the dead porcupine. They tried to teach us respect for the animals +of the forest and that we should try to avoid doing harm to the +ecosystem as we passed through. However, we were on survival and we were +always hungry, so a free meal of meat wasn\'t totally out of the +question. \"Well, all right\", said the leader. \"We can\'t waste it, so +we\'ll have to eat it.\" They proceeded to skin the critter and build a +fire to cook it on. I wasn\'t involved in the process, but I thought I +ought to take advantage of the opportunity to taste a porcupine. After +all, how many people in the world can say they have eaten porcupine +meat?\ +\ +When the critter was well done, anyone who wanted some was encouraged to +help themselves. I tried a little bit, but it wasn\'t terribly +impressive. It could have benefitted from a little salt and perhaps a +bit of rosemary and thyme, but we didn\'t exactly have access to a +grocery store around the corner. At least it didn\'t make me gag and now +I could spend the rest of my life bragging that I had been brave enough +to eat a porcupine. It was all about the prestige and glory, not about +staying alive in the wilderness.\ +\ +The following segments describing my other culinary experiments are not +in chronological order. I simply wrote about them as I remembered them, +not trying to organize them in a properly ordered sequence. + +A Sego Lily\ +\ +These are little bulbs that the saints crossing the plains often ate\ +to stay alive. I found one when I was on survival. They have a little +white flower that looks a lot like a morning glory flower. The bulb is +down in the ground about five inches deep. I ate it raw because I had no +means to cook it at the time. It was a bit like a turnip. We also ate +wild onion greens, elder berries and roasted pine nuts.\ +\ +Snails\ +\ +My father was good friends with Ed Peats, the owner of the Red Lion +Hotel on the Columbia River near the I5 bridge. Dad had done some kind +of favor for Ed, so Ed gave him a free meal for himself and his family +at the restaurant in the Hotel complex. Ed said we could have anything +on the menu. When I saw that among the appetizers on the menu were +snails, I thought they might be a memorable tasting experience. They +were tough spongy balls that were heavily doused with garlic and other +spices. They could have been little lumps of rubber tree sap for all I +knew. They certainly didn\'t look like any snails I had ever seen.\ +\ +Crawdads\ +\ +When we lived in Oregon City in the old farmhouse, there was a little +stream nearby that had a lot of wild crawdads living in it. I was about +10 or 11 years old and loved to explore and find new and novel ways to +get muddy. We often spent hours catching the crawdads, but we always let +them go again. It never occurred to me to eat them. They were a bit +larger than a big scorpion and looked about as hideous. Many of them +were infested with some kind of little white worms on the surface of +their claws. I still remember being fascinated by the fuzzy little hairs +that covered the surface of their claws. They wiggled and waved when +touched, so I knew they were some kind of parasite that hitched a ride +on the shell of the crawdads. My brain said this is not something you +would put in your mouth. It just didn\'t look like something that could +be tasty.\ +\ +On one such occasion, I was with a boy that lived near our house. When I +showed him the crawdad creek, he got all excited and said he wanted to +catch some and bring them home to his mother to cook them. Seriously, I +thought. I gotta see this. So I helped him catch a bunch of them in a +bucket that we proudly brought back to his house. His mother was quite +delighted when she saw them. She boiled some water in a big kettle and +added stuff like lemon wedges and other spices. Then she added the +bucket of crawdads, worms and all. When they were done cooking, the +mother showed me how to crack the shell off of the tail section where +the meat was. I couldn\'t really understand what all the fuss was about. +I couldn\'t get the image of those worms out of my mind, but I at least +tried a few because everyone else looked like they were really enjoying +the feast.\ +\ +Elk Heart\ +\ +I went elk hunting with my father once when I was still a young +teenager. We went up north somewhere and stayed with a friend of my +father on the evening of the big hunt. I don\'t know if it was some kind +of ancient hunter-gatherer ritual or something, but our host cooked an +elk heart for dinner that night. This guy was a true hunter that always +got his elk each year. The elk heart was in his freezer from a previous +year\'s hunt, I suppose. I wondered what other kinds of weird animal +parts he must have in that freezer. The meat was nothing to write home +about. It was pretty chewy and tasted gamey to me, but it was edible.\ +\ +I\'ve also eaten roasted ants and deep-fried octopus. Other notables +were wild pheasant my dad shot and swordfish from a restaurant in New +York City. The only strange thing I ever ate that I actually enjoyed was +wild catfish from the lake near the house in Vancouver. But, in general, +the weird things I have tried were not tasty treats I would ever want to +eat again. I\'ll stick with barbequed filet mignon and mocha almond +fudge ice cream, thank you very much. |