You Want Me To Eat What????

I like television and I like food, put the two together and life gets very good. I mean eating while watching TV, but eating while watching TV that is about eating is the equivalent of winning the lottery. So, I was as giddy as a twelve-year-old schoolgirl when one of the funniest bloggers out there, AndreAnna, suggested a new show on the Travel Channel called Bizarre Foods With Some Big Bald Guy Whose Name I Can’t Recall Right Now, But I Think It Might Be Andrew. It’s a hard show to stomach and after watching a few episodes, I now realize that she was getting back at me for threatening to take her husband Crab Fishing with me so we could pretend we were as cool as the guys on another Travel Channel show, The Deadliest Catch. Yup, message delivered and received AndreAnna!!

As I was watching this program, I realized I had stumbled upon the perfect dietary tool. When I saw the ads for the show, I just assumed that the host would be eating different types of foods from all around the world that we might think are bizarre. I did not however realize that he would be eating things that a human has no right consuming, at least not knowingly! Let’s put it this way, the first portion of the first episode was about Iguanas. Well, not about them per se, but about hunting and eating them. Yes, in Trinidad and Tobago there is an actual Iguana hunting season. Apparently, Iguana hunting consists of shaking them out of trees (because as the show informed us, they can survive falls up to 50 feet – I bet that tidbit helps you win at Trivial Pursuit!) and then them running away. This step is followed by shooting them out of the next tree they climb into. Iguana hunting, really? Doesn’t seem that challenging….

But that’s just getting the Iguana. The next step is to burn it’s head (over a man’s kitchen stove’s burner mind you). When the skin on the head burns, it makes it easier to pull it back and skin part of the Iguana. Are you hungry yet? Then the Iguana is chopped up, though still very recognizable unfortunately, and mixed with spices and oils. Then it’s eaten, in all its crunchy reptile-able goodness. I guess it’s one thing to eat a chicken leg knowing it’s a chicken leg, but it’s another thing all together to eat a little green slender chunk knowing it’s an Iguana leg. I will never be able to eat green beans, pickles or cucumbers the same way again.

Now normally the site of a man biting into a chunk of Kingfish that he JUST landed into his fishing boat and removed the hook from (as in it’s still alive), eating a recently removed fish heart or eating pig’s feet would make me bring my last 3 meals back up for a visit. However, after watching that same grown, apparently somewhat educated man eat Iguana that still looked like Iguana tempers all of that. Maybe the producers did that on purpose to desensitize us. I mean after the Iguana thing, I could actually stand watching the preparation of Haggis! Truly folks, Iguana throw up right now. Sorry, I had to do that. Perhaps I am now forever desensitized to disgusting foods that no sane non-starving human should ever have to force down their gullet.

Until last night, I would have classified a lot of other types of foods as bizarre or disgusting. Until last night I would have been grossed out by the scene in ‘Elf’ where Will Farrell puts syrup and chocolate in his spaghetti. I guess all of that and what I consider bizarre food selections pale in comparison now, but I will share them with you nonetheless. I would not be true to myself if I did not list all vegetables excluding tomatoes first. Since Iguana has some meat in it, I might actually consider downing that before taking on a vegetable. Eww, veggies. I mean really! Tops on that list would be celery. It’s a perfect way to ruin a good meal in my book. Oddly, I can eat rhubarb, which texture wise is pretty close, but rhubarb is soaked in strawberry juice, which makes it very palatable and technically more like a fruit. Next would be, uh, wow, you know what, I only dislike vegetables. Gheesh, I really am a human garbage disposal. I guess short of it being a tropical lizard, I’ll eat anything. Well, that and raw fish. Sorry everybody, but eating raw fish is such a waste of yummy deep fried breaded coating.

We’ve all heard the commercial for Life Cereal that says ‘give it to Mikey, he’ll eat anything.’ Well, apparently that’s true. I’m not sure that’s the reputation I want to have though. But then again, neither is being Michael the Green Tropical Lizard Eater. While I don’t ever see me eating Iguana, I do realize that if I’m going to get my own Travel Channel Show (which I think I would be really good at, you know in a humble, non-ego sort of way), I’d better start preparing. Maybe I can just work my way up to Iguana slowly. You know, like having a slice of zucchini that isn’t deep-fried. Ewww, did you just feel me shudder in disgust…