things i won’t eat

i was just reading this little blurb on eating cicadas and i started thinking about things that i am not going to eat. as a kid, i was unusual in that i would eat practically anything. however as an adult i have grown more picky, and nearly all the foods that have ended up on my list of things i will not eat are some kind of meat:

1. bugs of any kind. the only exception to this is maybe the worm at the bottom of a bottle of mezcal….and the last time that happened was in acapulco about twenty years ago. and i nearly hurled.

2. any organs involved in thinking, digesting, or filtering blood. or storing urine. wait, let’s make this simple: no organ meats. i will occasionally break this rule to eat foie gras.

3. bunnies. this comes up all the time for me, as some dear friends of mine own the public, and are very proud of the rabbit sugo. still, to me, it is a fucking bunny. my first pet. eaten by a rattlesnake….which brings us to…..

4. reptiles. i am trying to think of circumstances that would lead me to eat a lizard. or even a chicken-tasting snake. ok….survival.

5. this one technically belongs up in #2. organs involved in sexual reproduction. this comes up (no pun intended….seriously) primarily in macho cowboy places and vietnamese pho restaurants. CLARIFICATION: i have gotten some direct telephone comments on this one. there is no way of putting this directly that is suitable for an all-ages audience, so i will just say that there are certain circumstances where this rule does not apply at all. and in these circumstances, one is not technically eating. and in this special situation, this might be considered one of my favorite. hmmmm. i hope that clarifies it without causing further problems. which, coincidentally, leads us to…..

6. i will eat most any kind of seafood. however, i regard crayfish with a very strong degree of suspicion. and pretty much any other bottom-feeders that spend a large amount of their waking hours wallowing, flipping, crawling, or however else ambulating in waste products and slime of an undetermined nature.

i consider myself pretty gastronomically open-minded, but looking at this list i guess maybe i am not. oh shit. i forgot eyes. i’m not going to eat any eyes either, if i have anything to do with it. i will eat pigeons if you call them squab. i’m not 100% certain where pastrami comes from, and that’s why i can still eat it. and if i spend much more time browsing sites like this, my diet will continue narrowing.