life list

we were in delhi, visiting a college friend of loret's.  sitting in a restaurant, hungry, in my mid-twenties, the menu item 'brain fry' is just too tempting for me to pass up.  i figure what the heck, i'm kind of a vegetarian, but living in a poor nepali village i don't get much protein, let alone 'brain food.'  we are on holiday, the humid heat of the monsoon bears down.  two large kingfisher beer bottles are open on the table, a bollywood song plays over the sound system, tabla and sitar accompany a wailing tinny voice.

our food arrives, and my plate.  yes, it unmistakably is mine.  'brain fry sahib, you like?'  he gives me a thirty two tooth smile.  mid thirties maybe, the waiter wears a starched white shirt, his three day beard gives his chiseled brahmin face a bluish cast.  he looks like the shiva statue we passed in an altar just outside in the alley.  i was expecting some sort of chopped and stir-fried curry, maybe on a bed of rice, some chili pepper, onion, and tomato.  something indistinguishable.  what arrives at our table, on a bed of fresh green lettuce, is clearly the thinking organ of a goat, or like-sized animal:  two shiny gray hemispheres, as ropy and dendritic as you'd expect to see in a gray's anatomy textbook.  bon appétit!  not bad actually.

thus began my 'life list' of bizarre foods.  during the locust swarm a few years back, some butter and a frying pan yielded several tasty morsels.  this wasn't exactly my idea, there was an article about it in the washington post.  also made a couple chocolate covered cicadas.  miller even ate one of those.  i once ordered and dispatched a big pile of pig intestine at a chinese restaurant.  it kind of looked and had the texture that you might expect:  extra large al dente penne pasta, diagonally cut.  a bit more umami and chewy.  stinging nettle and ghanja we're occasionally the only thing green in my village in the dry season:  these were fried up with curry and went swimmingly with chapati, hot off the skillet.  actually, the life list had already started some years before:  in germany, the day i witnessed my girlfriend's father castrate several screaming piglets, i tried a slice of homemade blutwurst, or blood sausage.  however, the list had kind of stagnated until yesterday.

took my sweetheart out for a pre-valentine's mexican feast at d.c.'s own oyamel.  the tapas were excellent, but there was one that i had all to myself.  'no problem, go ahead peter, i'm full, couldn't fit another bite,' i am told.  entymologically speaking, of course.  she still seemed to have room for the scallops and fried cactus.  it seems i had unlimited access to the chapulines, one taco on a tray.  i knew what i had ordered - indeed when i heard about this dish on a recent radio show, it so wanted to find its place on my list, it was only a matter of time.  however, i wasn't expecting the sort of mass carnage piled on a bed of guacamole, cradled in the fresh corn tortilla, staring back at me.  in my mind, i had been expecting maybe two, three - at most four - little critters, deep fried and denatured, buried under lettuce, chipotle sauce, some shallots.  instead it looked like dozens of legs, thoraces, antennae, wings, what have you.  and heads.  perhaps even numbering in the hundreds - no doubt some hundreds of parts went into that pile.  and the texture, while flavorful, was not without a hint of its source:  grasshopper!

washed down quite well with a beer.  would i like to go back for another?  'fraid not, my list spurs me on to greener pastures.  pastures...hmm, ever try a cow pie?