The Titan, Prometheus, played a trick on Zeus, the Father of gods and men. Prometheus gave two offerings to Zeus on behalf of all mankind at the settling of accounts between gods and men. The first was a lovely selection of meats gift wrapped in an ox's stomach. The second was a bunch of bones wrapped up in glistening fat. Zeus chose the lovely glistening fat wrapped bones, which then set the precedence of how offerings to the gods should be given in the future; all the bones were to be wrapped in fat and then burned as offerings, leaving the more desirable meat for man. Zeus was pretty upset about that and retaliated by hiding fire from all mankind. Prometheus, always going to bat for the humans, stole fire back from Zeus, hiding it in a giant fennel stalk and gave it back to the humans. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him chained to a rock at Caucasus where an eagle eats his liver everyday (well, it grew back... nightly...). After several years, Hercules shot that eagle, and set Prometheus free.
It seems that if Zeus had gone for the poor man's food--the stomach, all of this could have been avoided. But he didn't. He was tempted by that caramelized, crispy fat. In my mind it is very much like bacon or the pork belly we had with Andrew, Simy, Ben and Amy. Beef stomach is only tempting to people like my JE, when served in a good, flavorful broth as in pho or menudo--two of his favorites.
In fact, tonight, after we passed around some Christmas cheer, AKA baked goods, we caught a quick dinner at a Latino Mercado off of Alicia and Paceo De Valencia. It has a hot food counter in the small grocery store with a great beverage selection. JE got the menudo, I got some sort of "cow in verde sauce." I sampled before I actually ordered it. The flavor and texture was amazing, something akin to a really nicely cooked pot roast. It was served on a platter with rice and beans and a side of tortillas. I ate about half and felt really full. Later, as I was waiting for JE to finish his menudo, I picked up another piece and ate it. It had cooled considerably, which changed the texture. Suddenly I recognized it as lingua--tongue. I am an adventurous eater, but tongue is one of those things that I wouldn't order on purpose, but I don't doubt was contained in that ox's stomach as an offering to Zeus.
How far would you go in eating something delicious? The word "delicacy" has a terrible connotation in this country, or at least in my mind. I see the bright green liver in the lobster shell, fried un-laid arctic perch roe Tatiana tricked me into eating in Russia, rotten smelling 1,000 year eggs in Asian markets, stinky tofu at the night markets in Taiwan (stinky as in lift a horse's tail and take a whiff--not exaggerating!), sea slugs in Mexico, fried sparrows in Taiwan, and strange tidbits of fish in Korea. I am not talking grossies--no matter how much you like that sort of thing. What I am asking is, if something tastes genuinely good to you, it has some sort of emotional satiation attached to it, how far would you go to get it, and what could possibly stand in your way of eating it?
I ask this because of a situation I was in a while ago. See this entry of this blog.
The truth is that while we made some of those porcinis into a beautiful tart, we made pappardelle with chantrelles in a butter and white wine sauce. They were amazingly good. I had never eaten mushrooms that good before. Midway through the meal, however, we began noticing strange pale green shapes. We soon figured out they were a sort of mushroom worm or maggot. That gave us pause... literally. Just a pause. We continued to eat, picking out the little guys and placing them on the side of our plates. The clincher was when JE offered me a piece of mushroom he was sure was worm free. From my side of the fork, I could see where the worm had been sliced through and half his body was still stuck inside the mushroom. That was it for me, I was done.
The other day, I was fixing some dried wild mushrooms from Costco--you know that giant container? JE found a bit of chantrelle and examined it. "Is that...? Could that possibly be...?" He headed toward the trash can and chucked the bit of mushroom. "I'm not taking any chances!"
In 74 days and about 12 hours, I will be running/biking/swimming my first triathlon. I am half way there!
We ran this morning. I love running in the morning. Strange. In 74 days my life has changed, with just one morning/shoelace/movement/footstep- at a time.
Tonight, as we dropped Christmas cheer off at Swantje and Larry's house, Larry told me that my face looks thinner, or was it that my skin looks radiant?, or that I look happy? He couldn't place the difference, but he knew I was different. The same thing happened in UT with my sister in law. "No, really. What is the difference?" Training makes me glow.
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