3/25/03
I now eat things that I never could have imagined touching when I was eight-years-old.
Topping the list of things that I now eat on a regular basis that I would have never eaten is onions.
Where once the onion was my mortal enemy, it is now a close, personal friend. We've laughed together, cried together (heh, heh). I eat them chopped, sliced, fried, raw, baked, diced, caramelized, battered and just about any way you can think of to prepare them.
At eight, though, if you would have given me a choice between eating onions or lancing a boil on my butt, I would have stuck a needle in my hiney so fast it would make your head swim. But today, I've made my peace with onions. And it didn't stop there. Now I eat things like sauerkraut, spinach, sashimi, beer, beer, lima beans, salmon, yellow mustard, olives, habaneros, beer...
What has remained on the list of forbidden foods and will forever remain on the list, right beside raw sea urchin (don't ask), is liver.
Beef liver tastes like it looks. No, that's not true because raw, it looks like Jell-O made with blood. I think liver is more like what I would imagine a dried, yet slightly re-hydrated, dog turd would taste like.
I'm sure many of you will dispute my assertion that liver tastes awful. The fact that liver lovers are such zealots when it comes to convincing you that the stuff is actually edible is evidence that it truly isn't edible. So please don't try to get me on the liver team. Please, don't send recipes. Don't remind me that it's very nutritious. Don't try to sell me on the fact that it's easy to prepare because I already know the only thing you can ask for in a drive-thru in hell is a McLiver.
I think God invented the liver as kind of a booby trap in cows. He did it to convince us that we shouldn't be eating meat. There's much more evidence than that. Physiologically speaking, we (humans) have a lot more in common with those animals that choose to eat fruits and veggies than we do with, say, a house cat. We have no claws or sharp pointed front teeth to tear flesh. We have big salivary glands to predigest our food and big flat molars for grinding grains. Cats have very strong stomach acid compared to ours. Cats have short digestive tracts so that food (meat) won't hang around and putrefy in the bowel. In contrast, our intestines our twelve times the length of our bodies compared to the short, three times the length, cats have.
I'm certainly not saying that we should all be vegetarians. I love meat. My barbecue is in constant use throughout the summer. But maybe I'll start cutting back on the amount of meat that I serve my family. Or start choosing meats that don't scream very loudly as they're slaughtered. Like dumb cows. Dumb cows never see it coming so they're too surprised to scream.
And fish. Non-screaming fish.
That's what's for dinner.