As I sat down to write my Cant, the weekly Cant, the same Cant article that I know needs to be written and submitted by a certain time every week but yet I often leave until the last minute, as I sat down to write this Cant, I realized that my Muse had taken a little vacation, packed her bags, and rented a little sea-side cottage in charmingly rural Northern Elysium to unwind and gather her thoughts. In other words, I was stumped. Where the heck was I going to get my inspiration for this week? Well, I found my inspiration sloshing around in a curiously red liquid at the bottom of a Costco-sized jar of kim chi.
I eat a few things that other folks treat with disgust, open hostility, or fear. Just opening a jar of kim chi can clear out a room. I think everyone has a few of these foods. Here are some of my favorites:
Some weeks ago I related my adventures with baby food made with pureed baby sheep. As I mentioned then, the stuff tasted OK. What got me gagging was gelled lamb gooshing across my tongue.
I have no such problems with deviled ham. I've talked about this with folks at work. They point out the fact that the company's logo/mascot is a little red devil. In their opinion, representations of Satan on a can of meat should be enough to warn most people off.
Sure, deviled ham has more than its share of fat and salt, but as long as you don't eat lab-rat quantities you should be fine. I was going to argue that deviled ham is no more noxious than a Big Mac or Spam… I don't think I'll go there.
My problem is that I really like the stuff. Actually, let me qualify that before you think that I love it enough to spoon it straight out of the can. I really like deviled ham sandwiches: wheat bread with a touch of mayo, lots of iceberg lettuce, and a thick slathering of deviled ham. In my opinion, this is the only acceptable way to consume deviled ham. The "serving suggestions" on the wrapper are disgusting.
So it's fashionable. Millions of yuppies and yuppie wanabees stuff raw fish down their gullets. My problem is that I really like the stuff. My first experience with sushi was a California roll from the teriyaki take-out place where my friends (and eventually I) worked. I found the combination of sushi rice, seaweed, and filling strangely compelling. Of course, I had no idea what the little green ball of stuff was on the side. After I finished the roll, I assumed it was some sort of dessert and popped it into my mouth. After flames stopped jetting out of my nostrils I had gained a new respect for wasabi. It wasn't until college that I had nigiri-sushi. A good friend took me to a sushi bar where the chef was a friend of his family. I sat there feeling very much the clueless, brutish gaijin as my friend and the chef chatted and laughed in Japanese. Then the sushi started flowing and I was hooked. A few items, such as squid and sea urchin roe, triggered my gag reflex, either because of taste or texture. On the whole, I really grooved on the non-fishy, almost meaty taste. I still groove, but it's hard for me to justify paying three to six bucks a portion, especially when for a while my wife wouldn't kiss me for three days after a sushi binge.
This is a "food" that took me years to appreciate. When I was a kid, our family made a habit of bringing a baguette of good crusty French bread home from a grocery shopping expedition, forgetting all our plans for dinner, and feasting on bread. I would chow down on piece after buttered piece of the heavenly bread while my parents would smear braunschweiger. How could they ruin the taste of that wonderful bread with globs of disgusting gray/pink liver goop? I couldn't even stand the smell of the stuff. To my dismay, my dad would use whatever knife was closest to him and taint it with the nasty sludge. I would go through three or four knives in frustration.
At some point, years later, I tried the gunk and found that I liked it. Pretty soon, I held solo orgies of crusty bread, braunschweiger, and pepperoncini. My braunschweiger bliss lasted only a short while. Curiosity led me to read the ingredients: pork livers, pork fat, salt. I don't eat it any more out of respect for my arteries.
Lest you believe that everything repulsive comes from animal carcasses, I offer asparagus rolls. Take thinly sliced white bread without the crusts, barely touch the bread with a little butter, lay a spear of canned asparagus in the middle, roll, and eat.
Asparagus isn't a vegetable that makes it through the canning process very successfully. The end product is a military olive drab color and has the consistency of pudding. Nevertheless, I could eat asparagus rolls until the cows came home.
Here we have another fine example of a vegetable gone wrong. Kim chi is basically Korean sauerkraut: cabbage that's been left to sit and rot, or "ferment" for the more delicate among us. I blame my kim chi addiction on my Korean friends who also oversaw my first experiments with chugging Jim Beam and doing the naked funky chicken under starry desert skies. (Yes, there is causality there.) Once you get past the fact that kim chi smells almost exactly like garbage, it rewards you with a zing like nothing else. Of course, most folks don't get past the smell. My parents banished my first attempts at making my own kim chi to the patio. I was not allowed to open the jar in the house. I don't blame them, but it was worth it. So, when my wife and I were on a Costco expedition recently, I was overjoyed to see huge jars of the stuff for sale. Having experienced kim chi before, I had to bribe my wife with a Costco-size pecan pie. It was worth it.
Pakeha