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Turtle, anyone?
From the time I got off the strained green beans and started eating solid food, I've developed a taste for all kinds of foods, and I've been willing to try anything once. As a result, there are only a few foods that I don't like. Last week in Jacksonville, we decided to seek out a nice seafood restaurant. Looking through the Yellow Pages, we found one whose ad also bragged about "exotic" appetizers - turtle, ostrich, alligator and kangaroo. "Who in the world decided to eat a turtle?" my friend asked."Was it because there was no barbecue around?" It's a good point. Imagine being the first person in the world to try a certain food. You'd have to be daredevil, because you'd really have no way of knowing whether what you were about to eat was, in fact, edible or if, in reality, you were about to be dead. The pig is a perfect example of this. You and I now know that there are plenty of parts of the pig that are delicious. But what if you were the first person to decide to eat a pig? Somebody had to be the first person to look at a pig and say, "That there looks like some good eatin'. I think I'll slow cook it over hot coals, chop up the meat and slather it in sauce." That person turned out to be a genius, of course, if for no other reason than the discovery of bacon, which ought to be a food group of its own. I could eat a pound of bacon right now, my cholesterol level not withstanding. Then somebody came along with the idea of putting a couple of pieces of bacon on top of a cheeseburger, and a true classic was born. That person ought to win a Nobel Prize for food. The same can be said for the first person to try corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, country fried steak smothered in gravy and pecan pie. Of course, I don't think every food pioneer is as smart as the pig eater. Take, for instance, the first person to ever eat a mushroom. How did that person know whether it was an edible mushroom, a poisonous mushroom or a psychedelic mushroom? In any case, he was still eating fungus, and I have to question whether there was a severe shortage of food where this person was to make him say, "I'm going to eat this mushroom instead of that double bacon cheeseburger." Of course, it's entirely possible that it was the third or fourth or hundredth person who first successfully ate a mushroom. That's because the first person who tried one may have died from the experiment, and the second person is having a bad hallucinogenic trip right now. And, really, how hungry must the first person who ever ate an oyster have been? Those suckers are impossible to open. You need a fancy knife and a pair of heavy duty gloves, something that first person couldn't have known to have on hand. When he finally pried one open, it surely didn't look appetizing. To be honest, oysters look like something you cough up when you're getting over a chest cold. I can only imagine the conversation between the first person to eat an oyster and his buddy. "Hey, Sam, I've been fishing today and I caught a mess of grouper. You want to join me for dinner?" "No thanks, Fred. I think I'm going to eat these oysters. Pass me them soda crackers." "Uh, Sam, have you been in the psychedelic mushrooms again?" Over the years, I've eaten plenty of unusual things. But I don't think I - or any of my friends - have ever been the first person to try anything. I prefer to let someone else chart that course and report back to me what they find. Perhaps I should be more willing to take chances. Perhaps I'd be the one to discover something as tasty as bacon. But with my luck, what I'd discover would be as disgusting as a mushroom. So, no, I'll let others be the pioneers. My stomach thanks me.
Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times in Gainesville, Ga. He can be reached at mclarke@ gainesvilletimes.com.
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