A Time to Learn…

April 15, 2005 | 1:30 AM

about how things taste. Yeah you might think I’m about to post something brilliant about tasting God or something like that. Nope. Let me just offer a short list (and critique) of some of the things I’ve eaten since I moved to New Orleans. First a disclaimer: my brother doesn’t eat seafood. If it’s from the water- he doesn’t eat it. Me? I’m the second most picky eater in the family. I eat crab claws and catfish. And so the list of firsts follows:

Kimchi (Korean): They take cabbage. Raw cabbage. Put it in a jar. Stuff spices and “stuff” in there. Then they bury it for a year or so. Click this to find out more. You should know- it wasn’t terrible. It was almost sweet. And then there was some kind of time-delayed nastiness that hit. And an after taste that makes ya want to cry. And that was that.

Hummus (Middle Eastern): So for the longest time I wasn’t sure whether the pita bread I had or the white gunk my friend Paul put on it was the hummus. Then I realized that the pita bread was just bread- and the white gunk was the hummus. What is hummus? Something not good. It was almost bitter. Some people like it. Some people don’t. Count me as the second.

This all leads me to tonight. Tonight I had the most exotic of all time (for me anyway). Tonight… James gave me:

Land Snails (Nigeria): These things are freakin gigantic. You need to know that. Sweet mercy. They took it out of its shell (by the way, it’s at least 2 and a half inches long, butterflied and then cooked (somehow, I think).

Escargot? No thanks. This is a Nigerian delicassy. Not for this gentle soul. Nuh-uh. Rubbery. Tasted like river water. Little salty. Then as it was chewed into tiny bits, it had a spicy taste.And so my adventures in food have gone. Who knows what’s next. Nothing I want. So that’s that. And I’m off to do some work. Peace.

Posted in Life