Curious Foodstuffs

Have you ever seen one of that invasive species, the Giant African Snail? I think it comes from Madagascar. These are big honkers, 6 to 8 inches long, and thick. One will feed a family of four. Getting rid of the slime is a chore, but vinegar and blanching make it possible. The only one I ever cooked, I made a very nice curry. I read several essays about cooking dogs and cats today. I've eaten cat on several occasions, cougar, but never a house cat, and I've never eaten dog. I spent half the day reading very strange recipes, some of which were revolting, rolling offal forcemeats into stomach linings. Dogs have been eaten for a very long time; that Mexican hairless dog is hairless for a reason. And domestic cats are said to cook very much like coons. Not that I care. I have no intention of cooking tabby. The reading extended into the eating of birds. This has always been of interest to me, because I wondered how you deal with the bones, and I finally found an answer in a Roman recipe, for cooking small birds. Sparrow size, I can tell from the context; the legs and the beak are cut off, the birds are fried, and you dip them in this incredible sauce made from rotting fish parts. You eat them bones and all. Anything larger, a Starling, for instance, there are going to be larger bones, and you have to suck the meat off them and throw the bones in a midden. Oysters or rabbits, the detritus fills the space allowed; when the pile gets too high, you just move on, down the line. Shell-piles are often the only high ground, 35,000 years of eating oysters has created a barrier reef. Just one reason I was happy to be tapped to talk about habitation. I actually know something about it, I chose to live this way. The brain trust from the University is coming out tomorrow night, more degrees than you could shake a stick at, and they're bringing a bottle of single-malt. They want to be fed, and they want the sauce, which is a good thing because the sauce needs to be resurrected. I'll do a couple of rubbed tenderloins on the grill and cook a few pounds of baby potatoes, finished in a skillet with butter and herbs, Cole-slaw, and french bread. The new guy they're bringing might be a vegetarian, so I'll pick up a black-bean patty. Drew and Mike are fine with meat and potatoes, as long as they have the sauce, which has become legendary in these parts. I'll use this opportunity to pasteurize it again and fill it out with some wine and juice marinades I'd been saving. It's ten years old, and needs the occasional kick in the ass. I'll need to clean off the table, and move a few boxes of books, the house is a mess, but I don't care. It should be lively conversation, which is high on my list of ways to spend your time, and I'm only sorry Glenn won't be here, to record it all, and bring his intelligence to the table. Or Linda and Glenn, so that Linda could be part of the conversation that Glenn would be filming, because I always love where she takes the conversation. I don't, nor does anyone else, explain why I should be a locus for very smart people exchanging their ideas. Maybe it's only that I'm a good cook. They put up with my bullshit to eat my ribs, or the sauce, whatever.