I was at the American Academy in Rome during the foot-and-mouth scare. A notice appeared on the board, "the chef will not be serving beef."
Yet the chef kept serving carpaccio.
Hmmmmm. Not cow. Not veal. Clearly not tuna...
Then one horrible, horrible night, it clicked. And I announced – over my plate of boiled-to-gluten vegetables – "hey, you guys are eating RAW HORSE."
Italy is, in fact, the fourth-greediest consumer of horse meat, according to Wikipedia .
The same article contains this gem: "A UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) 2003 investigation has revealed that salami and chorizo sometimes contain horse and donkey meat, without this ingredient being listed as legally required."
Um, gross. That shouldn't bother me. A chorizo is a chorizo, be it beef, pig, or tofu. But a donkey... ugh. Somehow that just seems grosser than most.
It was carpaccio at an upscale restaurant that I believe felled me in Kampala; changed my life, I imagine. I just thought I'd snack on a few pieces as someone else had ordered it (that Cowardly Bavarian, probably). Next thing you know, sick for a week--due to unforeseen complications--and finally in the emergency room having some strange medication pumped into me--and so on, with another emergency room just a few weeks away--while the C.B. (I mean HM, right?) cowered in fear/guilt in the jungle and hid from the world (okay, just from me). The rest is history, or will be if a publisher ever lets me write "Curse of the Hippo." Then I can bare all and quit alluding to it mysteriously in my blog. Sometimes the cure is in the telling.
6 comments:
The artist really captured the My Little Pony pathos. Fantastic.
Ax (knew you'd be disappointed if the token vegetarian didn't snark in some manner...)
The biggest Italian place in the centar here has horse on the menu. No, I have not tried it.
I know that logically, we should all be chowing down on horsies and doggies. But I can't. I can't even eat a cow if I think about it too hard.
I went back by the horse place. Looks like they have all the same style as the pig, lamb, and cow places. Chops, sausages, mince. Yum.
I was at the American Academy in Rome during the foot-and-mouth scare. A notice appeared on the board, "the chef will not be serving beef."
Yet the chef kept serving carpaccio.
Hmmmmm. Not cow. Not veal. Clearly not tuna...
Then one horrible, horrible night, it clicked. And I announced – over my plate of boiled-to-gluten vegetables – "hey, you guys are eating RAW HORSE."
Italy is, in fact, the fourth-greediest consumer of horse meat, according to Wikipedia .
The same article contains this gem: "A UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) 2003 investigation has revealed that salami and chorizo sometimes contain horse and donkey meat, without this ingredient being listed as legally required."
Horse meat for ALL my friends! Ax.
Um, gross. That shouldn't bother me. A chorizo is a chorizo, be it beef, pig, or tofu. But a donkey... ugh. Somehow that just seems grosser than most.
It was carpaccio at an upscale restaurant that I believe felled me in Kampala; changed my life, I imagine. I just thought I'd snack on a few pieces as someone else had ordered it (that Cowardly Bavarian, probably). Next thing you know, sick for a week--due to unforeseen complications--and finally in the emergency room having some strange medication pumped into me--and so on, with another emergency room just a few weeks away--while the C.B. (I mean HM, right?) cowered in fear/guilt in the jungle and hid from the world (okay, just from me). The rest is history, or will be if a publisher ever lets me write "Curse of the Hippo." Then I can bare all and quit alluding to it mysteriously in my blog. Sometimes the cure is in the telling.
Oh no! Sorry to trigger bad carpaccio memories. The word will never cross my lips or keyboard at you again.
Ax
PS: I have stories like that. The double-standard is strange. I'd write 'em for print – insert sound of the Hallelujah choir there – but not the blog.
For me it's a complicated ratio of humilation factor versus artistic jollies...
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