Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site tymix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!oliveb!t~mix!figmo
From: figmo@tymix.UUCP (Lynn Gold)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Disgusting foods (or "Dinner for People Who Aren't Very Hungry")
Message-ID: <389@tymix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 21:21:29 EST
Article-I.D.: tymix.389
Posted: Thu Apr 11 21:21:29 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 02:48:40 EST
Organization: Tymnet Inc., Cupertino CA
Lines: 30

Last summer, during a going-away luncheon for one of my (former) co-workers,
I had such an experience...

The aforementioned co-worker's luncheon was VERY Chinese (one of those
deals where the menu is in Chinese -- exclusively!).  I had made it through
the pickled jellyfish and the whole fish in hot peppers fine.  (Unless you
were Chinese, much of this luncheon looked like something out of "Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom.")  Anyway, after eating lots of weird (and
delicious) foods whose names I couldn't understand, a dish with an almost
familiar-sounding name is placed in front of me:  Sea Cucumbers.  Having
never had them before (let's face it, you don't find too many of them on
Slovak or Jewish dinner tables on a regular basis), I remarked, "This is
a vegetable, right?"

At this time everyone at my table looked up from their plates in amazement.
Several of the people started chuckling.  "Yeah, it's a vegetable, all right"
guffawed one.

It was then UNGENTLY explained to me that they were some kind of animal --
to quote one of the others, "It's like a snail.  A common garden slug."

I then smirked and tried to use the same excuse my father and his father
(who was a big fan of escargot) have used whenever they were in a situation
where they were expected to eat something they didn't want to:

	"I can't.  It's not Kosher!"

--Lynn Gold
Tymnet, Inc.
...tymix!figmo