There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

I would consider myself something of a food explorer. Back at Uni in San Diego, my friend M and I used to do the best we could to scout out new restaurants and cuisines just for the fun of sticking something new and exciting in our tummies. Ethiopian, Brazilian, raw beef, horse meat, things we didn't know how to pronounce or dishes that we had no idea what they contained were all ordered with excitement. It was like discovering a new, uncharted culinary world.

Then I came to Scotland.

For a while, I eagerly did my best to eat as many things that I had never heard or, or if I had, had always wanted to try; haggis, toad in the hole, spotted dick, clootie pudding, fried mars bars, christmas pudding, cullen skink...

But something you have to realise with the British is that when it comes to trying new and utterly different, they dip their toes in the waters and then wade in cautiously rather than cannonball in. 4 years ago, there was one Japanese restaurant in Edinburgh, and of that restaurant, most of the dishes were Chinese with only a handful of ridiculously expensive sushi-esque ones. Then suddenly there was a Japanese explosion and 3 Japanese restaurants popped up in the space of a few months which slowly gained popularity as more and more Scots slowly treaded the waters of what was being see in places like London as the new posh food.

But diversity does exist, albeit in very small holes in the wall that cater to their own kind. Like last night.

Scottie and go to this Chinese place which primarily serves Hot Pot. I've had it once before and to be honest, didn't like it one bit. But this time around, Scottie mentioned trying it, and even though I knew he would hate it, and even though I didn't like it, I wanted to get it just to expose him to something so foreign. Now this place is ALWAYS filled with Chinese, and you really to feel like the sore thumb standing out in a place like that. We ordered the Hop Pot, and sat back as it all began to arrive. Now for those unfamiliar with Hop Pot, think of it like the Chinese version of fondue, but not delicious. You get a boiling pot of soup- ours was divided in two and I naturally had to ask for the 'medium spicy' which arrived with about 58 red chilli peppers happily eroding away the side of the pot with their deadly heat. Then came the plates of raw food- fish sticks, fish balls, tofu, noodles, mushrooms, kelp, lamb, beef, spam, and.. the fish dish. Out of the 3 marine creatures, I could identify two; the squid and prawn. The next one was something that came in a tube, looked like a very long worm, and...was still alive.
'Did you see that?'
'What?'
'It just moved?'
'What, no, you're seeing things'
'No, look!'

I did, and sure enough, the wormy tip of the worm-like mollusk was wiggling around in a futile search for escape.

'Uhmmm, well, at least we know it's fresh!'

So naturally, I had to prove that I was a fearless eater and bung it in my side of the pot. A good 5 minutes later, and it had slipped out of its shell and had transformed into a cooked wormy thing with a lot of little dangly wormy bits hanging off. I made it past two bites before I had to hide it under Scottie's politely refused wormy thing.

Now, the wormy thing wasn't the worst that has seen the inside of my tummy. That same night, when I bunged my squid in the soup, I forgot to remove its eyes and then forgot about them until I was munching away. I also pretended not to see the strange grey matter that was inside the cavity of the squids body. However, in my defence, I have to say that on a scale of deliciousness, last nights dinner rated about a 3. What I am ashamed to admit was what I used to eat and enjoy when I was younger and didn't know better.

My family was pretty poor when I was growing up, so my mom always bought the cheapest mean on offer- that always being cow tongue. And to this day, I freaking LOVE cow tongue. But at the time, my mom, to make it sound more appealing, knowing that no 6 year old will gladly chomp away on tongue, passed it off as beaver tail. Which I was more than happy to eat.

But the thing that takes the cake is partially formed chicken foetus. I don't think that nowadays I would have the stomach and resolve to nom away on it like I did back in the day, but before I really knew was it was, Chicky-in-the-egg was my favourite! We had chickens and an incubator, and apparently partially formed chicken is a delicacy in Thailand/Vietnam/Laos/Philippines, one my Thai dad was eager to introduce me to at the tender age of 4. Yes, I used to beg my mom for Chicky-in-the-egg after kindergarten on a weekly basis. I can't remember how I ate it, but I remember it tasting just like an egg, only slightly meatier and chewier. And I remember liking that cheweyness.

I'm sure that it's still delicious, but now that I am a bit older and wiser, I don't think that I can literally stomach it or the thought.