Mystery Meat

I should have known this day would come.

But I can't believe I was completely blindsided by it! I didn't even expect to be had! I just walked right into it!

This evening I went out for yakiniku with Toshi, a friend of mine. He's part of what my neighbor Gayleen calls "The Awesome Foursome," which is a group of super-friendly and generous community members who have made so much of Himeji life available to all of us at Shirasagi. Yakiniku is a Korean dinner, where you cook plates of raw meats and vegetables on a grill in the center of your table. I love meat.

For the most part.

But now, I question the term "delicacy."

After I watched it grill to perfection...as it basked in the open flames, perfectly seasoned and lovingly bathed in a shower of fresh lemon...I popped it in my mouth. But it was tough and completely unappetizing. And the second piece didn't succeed in winning me over, either.

And Toshi said, "What do you think?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's not my favorite. It's kind of chewy."

"It's tongue!"

WELL DUH IT'S CHEWY!

Augh! I've eaten raw shrimp that were still moving on my plate, and I've eaten chicken heart and chicken cartilage and practically every part of a chicken you can imagine, but at least I knew what all of it was beforehand!

I took no time to stop and question what I was about to consume because I had already slipped into the yakiniku pleasure coma! And now I have to live with the psychologyical ramifications of unwittingly ingesting tongue! To me, it's way more gross than brains or livers or anything. It's way too personal.

And as Theo Huxtable once said in the infinite wisdom of youth (and scripted humor), "I don't want to taste anything that can taste me!"