Wednesday, January 08, 2003

strange, strange food. jack and i play “menu roulette” every time we sit down.

we normally go to a restaurant called the no name. well, i think i’ve already described it. it’s not a restaurant at all. there’s no name out front so people just call it the no name. we normally eat the tuna, corn, french fries and spinach.

tonight we decided to spin the wheel. roll the dice. just pick something at random.

we picked a couple of dishes and they were wonderful. some beef and pepper dish came to us steaming. another tofu dish was quite a treat. i ordered something else but it was yet to arrive.

it came and jack exclaimed, “oh, crabs.” he was sorely mistaken. the next thing he said was, “whoops!” it was a plate full of tiny birds, roasted. they were about the size of my pinkie and still contained their heads. there were about fifteen of them and they came surrounded by lettuce, tomatoes and other greens. they looked like baby bluebirds that had fallen out of the nest. their eyes were disturbingly large for their heads. they looked almost alien. their wings were folded in front of them as if in prayer. at least the bottoms of their feet were cut off.

jack and i pretended to be full. we asked if we could have them to go. our friendly waiter who always wears blue, baggy pants, wrapped them up and we were off.

immediately we took them to a vietnamese friend’s house. he said that they were a small type of bird and, alleviating some of our fears, said that they were at least a year old. they were caught in a small net, de-feathered and then roasted whole (insides, brains, eyeballs, bones, skin, everything). he said they were quite good and that we really should eat them. i couldn’t bring myself to it.

some other vietnamese friends came into the room and we all chatted for a bit. they noticed the plate full of baby bird carcasses and commented. they started to eat them. well, first i said to them, “if you guys all eat one, i’ll eat one.” how stupid of me. i thought that their stomachs would be turned too. they all picked one up and crunched their way through. one man just bit the head off and slowly mulled it around in his mouth.

so now it was my turn. i picked up a greasy chick by it’s severed foot and held it a bit. i looked at its eyes and beak. it surely was dead but it looked too much like a dirty bird you find mangled on some suburban sidewalk. then, before my hand told my mouth what it was doing, i was eating. crunch. chew, chew, crunch.

they were incredibly good. i couldn’t believe it. they tasted of roasted garlic and sugar that was surrounded by some wonderfully crunchy shell.

i actually ate a few of them. jack couldn’t stomach the idea and i teased him by placing a bird on my tongue, sliding it in my mouth and then opening my mouth and saying, “cuckoo!” he didn’t find it nearly as funny as i did.

well, as i write this the birds aren’t sitting too well in my stomach. their souls may have taken to flying again or maybe it’s just the brains, guts and bones.

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