The Lie of Delicacies

If you think the picture above is that of a freshly mutilated rat carcass...you're wrong. It's called Kimchi and it's a delicacy.

Why is it a delicacy? Because someone said so.

How do you make this scrumptious meal? Basically bury a cabbage with chili powder for a few months so it ferments. Dig it up after a month or so...(hell...why not wait a year)slop it on a plate and enjoy.

The god of the internet "Wikipedia" proclaims Kimchi was devised as a way to keep vegetables through the winter.

Bull.

The real story goes like this:

3000 years ago Mr. Kim came home from a long day at work. Mrs. Kim felt underappreciated because Mr. Kim sat on his fat butt playing on his new iPhone (or comparable technological device of that era) and played Angry Birds.

So, Mrs. Kim gave Mr. Kim's steak to the dog and made him some cabbage stew.

Mr. Kim thought it sucked, but in an effort not to offend his wife, buried it in the back yard. Only...Mrs. Kim found it while planting spring flowers 6 months later.

Mr. Kim came home that night to a "grateful" wife who had prepared a "delicacy" for him. He choked it down but figured it was a delicacy, so it MUST be good.

The next day he told all his friends, who asked their wives for more "delicacies" in the home. They, in turn, called Mrs. Kim for the recipe and the rest is history.

Now, poor koreans it this stuff three times a day.

This a 1000 Year Egg from China, or the Cadbury Creme Egg from Hell. And don't worry...it's not really 1000 years old. It's only like 6 months and they, too, are a "delicacy."

This story, according to the Gospel of Reese's Cup of Dr. Pepper, goes like this.

Some emperial cook got lazy with the duck eggs and accidentally put one in that was a few months old. The emperor gets pissed and wants to know what the hell the poop flavored rubber was in his salad.

The cook, scared for his life replies, "a delicacy." And in response the emperor replies, "Bring me a dozen more and feed them to my friends and family."

But don't think I'm only picking on Asian cuisine (I love Orange Chicken as much as the next guy). Every culture has their own "delicacies."

Russians have FAT JELLO or Holodetz.

Thanks for trying to make this tasty morsel look good with the christmas tree on top, but we still know that this is really just fat and gelatin mixed up.

And blood sausage...

which looks like the diseased lower bowel of a zombie was devised by european governments as a way to test biological warfare on its own citizens.

Some websites proclaim "admittedly not for everyone." No kidding. It's actually not for ANYONE. God is in Heaven hurling right now from that picture.

And all these are eaten because someone proclaimed it was a "delicacy."

I've considered having my dog poop on a piece of lettuce and sprinkling some bird urine and a bat eyeball and sending it to the Iranian government as an american delicacy and peace offering. The only thing that stops me is that AMERICANS will believe it is an American Delicacy and we'll be seeing it in combo meals at Wendy's...and some things shouldn't be supersized.

Dead Possums and Steak

One of the most disturbing memories I have is when I was about 5 years old in east Tennessee. While visiting my cousins we traveled up the dirt road to see THEIR cousins who were very used to a backwoods lifestyle. One of the little boys showed me a shed where they were "smokin' 'possums."

Upon opening the door a dozen or so skinned opposums hung from their tails while a harsh, smokey smell billowed out from the door. The trauma to my young mind has transformed this into the highest form of hyperbole so that in my mind I saw this:

Tangent--When I was seven my dad once forced me to drink the milk from my cereal bowl. He didn't want me to waste it. Now, I'd probably done this a hundred times before, but this particular time I didn't feel like it.

I can't remember the cereal, but I remember feeling the little, soggy chunks going down my throat and and felt like puking through the tears. To this day, the thought of drinking cereal milk nearly makes me vomit--end tangent.

Secondary tangent--There are no soggy cereal picture on the internet! That's in-freaking-credible.End Tangent

Two things happened after seeing, what I now refer to as, Satan's Gerbil Cage. First, Opposums exceeded Sharks as my most frightening animal (and the margin is not small), and I vowed I would never eat a dead animal.

Silly me. What a crappy life that would have been.

Years later I found out that KFC serves Dead Chickens! Luckily, the secret recipe of the 11 herbs and spices pays respects to the dead bird in the same way the wise men brought frankencense and myrrh were used to pay respects to baby jesus.

Understandably, there is some debate as two whether "chickens" are actually killed at all. Some believe that the Chicken Farmers raise chickens or grow a cyborg hybrid much like humans in The Matrix.

The idea of consuming a dead animal can convert many to Crunchies (vegetarians) and the brutality of tearing Big Bird's flesh with your teeth is often used to convert T-Rex's (meat-eaters/men) to vegetarianism.

My young son's Crunchie mother (recalling my Satan's Gerbil Cage story, no doubt) tried to scare him by telling him that the steak she had made for me was actually dead cow. Curiosity won out and he tried it anyway.

As I drove home that night, I wondered if my son would experience the trauma that I had as a child. Would he fear the cow above all of God's creations?

I opened the door, and the silence seemed to confirm the worst. Then he came running to the door...

"Daddy! Daddy! I ate dead cow and I loved it!"

Crisis averted.