Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Screaming Blue Iguanas

[Internet General's Warning: Put down the sandwich. Seriously. You do not want to be eating your lunch while reading the following I've-Got-Nothing-Else-For-You post from a dried up blog. Original Me, you are a has been. Oh, sorry, we found somebody more dried up than you. So no food. But wine is strongly encouraged. That way, this might be a little entertaining. And now....the Internet is drunk. This message has been FDA-approved.]

A couple weekends ago Dear Prudence and I bellied up to a bar one rainy Friday night. But in securing these cozy seats for the night we had to entertain some chap who gave them up for us. Nice guys finish last indeed (i.e., standing up in the main thoroughfare of the bar only to be elbowed en route to the bathroom - constantly). So in the goodness of our appreciative thirsty little hearts we "let" him tell us in painstaking and barbaric detail about a trip to Honduras in which he ate endangered iguana eggs and how this came to be: He didn't want to die (i.e., starve to death) hence his "when in Rome" justification (of eating the sweet little innocent baby doll eggs).

Coming to a restaurant near you.

So since we had to hear his story of endangered cuisine and the finger-licking lip-smacking of such a delicacy and mostly because I am THAT NICE (I know! Thank me in champagne!), I will share his meal with you!

We ate it - the story - and that didn't taste good. So, I warned you. Remember put down the sandwich - for the next day or two and digest this.

Now coming to Foodtv.

This story comes with a character and his name is, Gentle Ben. Gentle Ben used to work for the Peace Corps and longs for the days when he wasn't working for the man, he stiffs the bartender a quarter every time he orders his stout, and he frequently strokes his bushy beard while he shares his tale of barbarous woe.

Gentle Ben leans in between DP and I, hand in V formation within his nest of facial hair stroking the words along, and carefully selects his descriptor like any of the best food critics I could imagine,

"Iguana eggs are fluffy."

(NOT) Coming to Bob and Ediths! But foodtv is still interested. Maybe there is a Semi-Homemade cocktail in the works.....

I know you must be famished right now since you have been forced to go without your sandwich for the lunch hour while you read this mouth-watering tale of apparently-ethnic cuisine because see, as Gentle Ben says, "Dude, this is how they survive, by eating the iguana." How many ways can you skin a cat? How many ways can you filet an iguana is what the natives (according-to-Gentle Ben) ask. Seriously, would you order a hamburger at a Mexican restaurant? OK, Gentle Ben, point made.

Take us back to Honduran cuisine.

How To Hunt Iguana, as told by Gentle Ben

Shake the cute little guy from the tree.

Dive into the water after him.

Bring him to the cooktop.

Filet the iguana with an incision down the belly.

Munch on the legs at the movies.

Cut the eggs out of the body.

OK, CUT, CUT!! (Or even bad choice of words - no more cutting - stop this Gross Fest!!) Seriously, no more. I am having horrific flashbacks to when I was in junior high and I forgot to skip school on Frog Disection day. And what were we supposed to learn anyways on that day? I'll tell you what I learned: Frogs have sex. And my kermit had lady parts because she was "in that way." Only to be found out after the incision and all the little black eggs (a la caviar) exploded out of her belly onto my lab table. And to this day, I can not try caviar. (But I am sure there are other factors involved in that decision too and they have to do with: gross and eww and a Taco Bell palette.) Alright. That's it. My kid is skipping school on Frog Disection Day. I will send a note: "Susie will have to miss out on your little experiment because she would like to eat caviar SOMEDAY, what with the expensive tastes of her mother. Taco Bell. We'll be at the border."

Gentle Ben says: MMM, tasty iguana tacos.

One can only take his word for it. And now after such lovely bar conversation I can't even bring myself to eat a regular American chicken egg anymore.

But I think I will still be good go with the Cadbury eggs come Easter time. Yep, no babies on board in those.

No comments: