Foodie Friday: Waste Not Want Not

The other day, the PBA and I were running between appointments and had a little bit of time to kill. When does that ever happen, right?

Well, as luck would have it, an international market was positioned about halfway between two of the places.

So of course we went inside. My 12yo considers himself to be something of an Asian cuisine “foodie,” but in actuality he’s probably only to the wannabe stage. He wants to be an Asian cuisine foodie, but he’s not there yet. I have no doubt that he’ll get there but it’s just not yet.

He has a Japanese cookbook and has spent hours pouring over it. But has only actually made a couple of the listed recipes. It might be his mother’s lack of interest/time/money for the myriad of ingredients that she doesn’t keep on hand which is keeping this dream from coming to fruition for the child. It’s just a theory I’m working on anyway.

So sometimes just for fun, we wander through international grocery stores to see what we can see. Sometimes we pick up a new and different Fruit of the Week (Haven’t seen one of those posts for a while, have you? Because Aldi doesn’t have new and different types of fruit…it’s not for lack of wanting. But no, we didn’t find anything at Saraga either…). And sometimes we wander around and try to guess (based on the pictures) what is actually inside some of the packaging.

It’s not as simple as it might seem. Sometimes the pictures are very misleading, if there are even pictures at all.

Mind you, we’re not making fun…we would genuinely like to know what these things are. Not necessarily to eat them…just for our edification. We’re all about the edification, don’t you know?

Typically I bypass all the meat counters, but on this particular day, I was cajoled into checking them out.

Of course I had to take some pictures; I captioned them in case you had trouble reading the labels in the pictures:

Beef Tongue

Pork Ufen. I have no clue what this is. Google didn't even help me out if you can believe it...so if you know, please clue me in. I am all about edification!

Beef Feet

Beef Ox Tail Fresh...do we really need to specify "fresh". And what is wrong with my child? Gross.

Tripe. 

Pork tongue

Chicken neck

 And though it probably goes without saying, I took pictures of things which have never touched my lips, let along been chewed up in my mouth and swallowed. I can’t even imagine what they’re like.

Actually, that’s not true. I CAN imagine what they’re like, which is exactly why I have never dared try them.

Makes me a little gaggy to consider eating them. In fact, I’m a little gaggy now, just thinking about it.

I’m sorry Lord, but it’s true. If it was all I had to eat, I think I would eat it, but even then I’m not so sure. I’ve never been THAT hungry so I can’t say for sure.

Seeing all these animal parts in the case really gave me pause, though. In this country, for the most part (I won’t lump you all into this), we are so jaded and have snubbed our noses at animal parts we think are “beneath” us. Animal parts which people in other countries eat without a second thought. Parts which some people would be thankful to have…while I wouldn’t dare touch it, let alone EAT it.

Humbled by my over-abundance: Thank you, Lord, for all you’ve given me. And forgive me, Lord, for saying this but thank you that I don’t have to eat meat like this. I know that it is a delicacy to some, but not to me. So thank you that I don’t have to eat it.

All of a sudden, my “communing” with the Lord Most High was interrupted when my 10yo began yelling from the other end of the meat counter. “Hey Mom! Hey Mom!”

“Yes, darling?” (I’m certain I used the word “darling”)

“Guess what I found?” (insert giggling)

He had been with me as we looked up and down the case, discussing all the seemingly-distasteful items. I could only imagine what he’d found.

Oh Lord, they found the testicles, didn’t they? Please don’t let it be somebody’s testicles…because I’m just not sure that I’m up to hearing about that.

“I don’t have any idea…what did you find?”

(More giggling…I probably should have stopped him right there) “Chicken boobs!”

(Giggling from both PBA members now.)

And in case I was slow to process, my 12yo quickly translated: “He means chicken breasts…” (More giggling from both)

Lord, thank you for answering my prayer…not exactly as I anticipated but rarely is it ever. One more request: please be with my boys, because they clearly need a lot more help than I do. Actually, I probably need some help too…have you met these boys? Amen.

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