9 Bar

The last of my UK fare is a tasty little bar with wholesome ingredients and edgy packaging designed to appeal to both zen housewives and their rebellious teen progeny. You see, there's a big pot leaf on the front label. This is, of course, there to signify the inclusion of healthy little hemp seeds (only 3% by weight, 20% by label), not at all marketing ploy to attract drug addled teens. But who am I to judge, being a willing victim of the clever packaging myself.

"Whoa maaaaaaaaaaaan," I said to no one, pointing at the little package of wholesomeness and watching, unblinking, the world dissolve around me for five minutes until I was surrounded by three dimensional grids of white hot light.

Not really, I'm just a sucker for healthy little snack bars with "all natural" ingredients, particularly when the label prominently boasts about the protein content.

I don't remember how much this thing cost but, because it was in pounds, it can't have been too cheap. I think it was around a pound and it doesn't seem you can find them for sale in the land of dollars. This is good news for my wallet but bad news for my appetite as I could happily tear through a box of these tasty little morsels each and every day. Delicious, really, and it's all down to the fantastic mixture of tasty ingredients, listed as such:

Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin seeds, Carob topping, Honey, Raw cane sugar, All vegetable margarine, Dehulled hemp seeds (3%), Sesame seeds, Poppy seeds.

Fat, sugars, and protein, all blended in such a way to retain the characteristic flavors of the ingredients without being sickly sweet. Infinitely more addicting than the associated drug yet without any negative side effects (well, except obesity).

I doubt these will be making an appearance in the US anytime soon so, if I find myself in the UK before they're banned I'll be sure to start cramming them in my mouth faster than a stoner can say "huh?". What? I like to savor my food sometimes.

Ox Tongue

Tongue has been near the top of my list of meats I'd like to try for quite some time and for a very valid reason. No, this doesn't have anything to do with my obvious mental instability and apparent lack of decency but from my addiction to the act of repeatedly lifting heavy objects and subsequent need for massive amounts of protein.

The tongue is a very strong muscle so I figured it would be pure protein. As it turns out, there's also a lot of fat in tongue (fuel stores for delirious bouts of verbal diarrhea) but that's perfectly acceptable for my purpose of beefing up. It doesn't, however, do much for the texture and taste.

What I tried was essentially deli meat and I'm going to wait until I bite into a full, cooked tongue before passing final judgement. The couple slices of tongue smelled a little more, how shall I say, alive than typical deli meat. There was a definite aroma of beast to the two strange slices of meat. And the taste, the taste... almost like a meat paste; creamy, pungent, and with a texture that leaves an oily residue all over your tongue as one might imagine feeling in the aftermath of a make out session with one of these drooling, lumbering beasts.

Again, I'll suspend judgment until I'm able to bite into a whole, cooked tongue but for now, despite the density of nutrients, ox tongue is a no-go. Now I need to find some heart...

Banana Bread Beer

A sober, boring bastard, I'd rather drink juice than some concoction designed to hide the alcohol in an "adult" beverage. Even when imbibing the intoxicants I usually stick with one. This strange brew, however, wasn't so much designed to mask the alcoholic bite but to provide a new take on the beer flavor, as in a lambic.

I must admit I was a little saddened to find banana flavoring listed in the ingredients in addition to actual bananas. Being filthy, cheap, and a lover of bananas, I'm often caught cramming the unsavory brown ones into my gaping maw and have occasionally encountered a slight taste of alcohol. Fruit ferments naturally, of course. It's all a matter of culturing the proper microorganisms and adding bananas to an already well-controlled beer accomplishes just that.

There's a definite mingling of both natural and artificial banana aromas in the mix. The beer itself does not deviate in color much from a typical amber ale. The taste is milder than the aroma, subtle enough to be nice but not naturally situated well enough to make me actively want more. Good and interesting, but not amazing enough to warrant the purchase of future bottles. Just as well, I found it in the UK and haven't seen it around these parts.

Black Pudding

Black pudding... readers here in the US (I have readers?) will probably be envisioning a dark chocolate mousse and how horribly wrong they would be. Also called blood sausage, black pudding is congealed blood mixed with some fillers (which can include meat, fat, suet, bread, sweet potato, barley or oatmeal) that is cooked and made into a sausage. It's a traditional breakfast food item in England, Scotland, and Ireland with many other countries around the world having their own variation on the theme.

So, a rather disturbing little dish but I'm a full supporter of the idea that if you're going to slaughter a beast then you should at least give it the honor of using all of its bits for something.

I can't admit to being too disgusted at the thought of eating this little morsel I purchased from the supermarket close to where I was staying in Leeds. I've always been quite fond of picking at the charred blood after cooking a steak and was heartily looking forward to the experience.

The texture is a bit pasty, as one might expect from congealed blood, and interspersed with solid bits that looked somewhat like potato but could very well have been chunks of eyeball, either way would suit me. Being high in iron, the taste is slightly metallic and a bit meaty but altogether rather different than a typical sausage. I would liken it to a liver paste. It's often fried up with the traditional English breakfast but I had mine cold and straight from the deli in order to fully appreciate the flavor.

Not nearly enough protein for me to make it a regular meal item but I'd definitely prefer it over traditional American breakfast items.

Oat Milk

Soy milk, rice milk, and now oat milk, the latest (according to my experience of the world) in the line of plant-based milk substitutes. From what I can gather, oat milk has a bit of an edge on the rest.

Oats have been long associated with good heart health for their cholesterol lowering properties. They're also a great source of "good" carbohydrates and pack a decent amount of dietary fiber. All of these wonderful properties are inherent in this milky concoction. It's also rather tasty but, then again, I'm a fan of raw oats. Rather then make oatmeal/porridge and turn the little grains into mush, I prefer to just add some milk to raw rolled or steel cut oats and dig in. Occasionally, for a quick snack, I'll forgo the milk and just toss a handful of the oats into my feed bag.

The distinct oat taste was dominant in this drink and the crisp, clean flavor gave it a grassy overtone. The texture was smooth, and slightly creamy with a very subtle silty feel. I enjoyed it so much that I drank the entire contents of my container over the course of an evening leaving only a couple mouthfuls for the next morning. But the relatively low calorie count meant that this exercise in gluttony wasn't as disastrous as it would have been with a liter of real milk.

I haven't yet seen the stuff for sale in my local supermarkets in the US and I found this one on a recent trip to England. Here's hoping it makes its way to the States so I make this a regular part of my daily overindulgence.

Chewable Toothbrush

Breaking form a bit, as this is not technically edible, I'm including this because although there is a notice on the package advising you not to swallow the contents, you'd almost certainly survive the resultant ordeal.

A recent emergency forced me to embark on an overseas trip and anyone familiar with the current state of the aviation industry and travel abroad in general will agree that this is a grueling task indeed. One of the most horrible elements of traveling is the filth your body seems to produce during the endless sitting and waiting. Grease and stenches that ought not be possible from pure sedentary activities.

The mouth is one of the most horrendously effected areas of the body. A vile film covers the insides and the teeth grow a thick pelt of fur. With travel restrictions as they are, you may find yourself without toiletries in such a situation or, not wanting to unpack the entirety of your carry-on luggage in an airport bathroom, they may be effectively inaccessible. But fear not, travelers (to the UK, at least) the Chewable Toothbrush is here to help you.

Depositing a one pound coin gives you two little, translucent-green balls containing an odd looking, plastic venus-fly trap. Directions simply instruct you to open the ball, pop the little plastic jaws in your mouth, chew repeatedly, and spit the contents out when done.

The tiny toothbrush is covered in a refreshing minty baking soda based powder. Funnily enough, it feels as though you're chewing on a little plastic toy you purchased from a gum ball machine. I walked around the airport chewing on this thing until I came dangerously close to drooling on myself and then did the sensible thing: spat it into a nearby garbage receptacle.

So, not really edible (unless you want to brave the sensations of those little jaws scraping through your innards and out the other end) but close enough... and effective too. If you're traveling and in serious need of an oral cleansing, I recommend it if they're available.

Escargots

Most sound minded individuals outside of France shudder at the thought of eating a snail. Being that I'm neither from France, nor sound of mind, I've been wanting to try properly prepared escargot for a long time. My only experience with consuming gastropods took place a few years ago when I picked up a couple cans of snails on sale. The experience was less than pleasing and rather dampened my enthusiasm to experiment further but, seeing as though they weren't authentically prepared, I wanted to give the little critters another go.

Being presented with a bowl of steaming snails shells is odd in itself. Picking up the tiny fork and pulling the little slug through its hole to the world is even stranger. A lot firmer than one would expect, escargot has a consistency and texture similar to scallops as opposed to the slimy, softness of an oyster as I was imagining. Biting into one isn't all too unpleasant as may be presumed.

It's incredibly difficult for me to describe the flavor. The garlic and butter from the sauce was a bit dominant but the snail itself, apart from one strong note, is fairly bland. I remember that one strong flavor from my previous, canned experience and had been hoping that it was a component of the marinade but, alas, I was left disappointed. Bitter, but not the kind of bitterness one associates with a strong coffee, hoppy beer, or dark chocolate. This bitterness almost comes across as a direct signal to my mind that it may be unwise to ingest this creature and perhaps I should not proceed any further. But proceed I did until all of the little blighters were gone, their shells empty as my desire to repeat the experience.

So perhaps the taste doesn't quite suit my palette (unrefined as it is) but I am altogether happy to have given it a shot. So, unless banana slugs really do taste like bananas, I think gastropods might be out for me; though I'm quite prepared to continue foraying into the realm of edible "bugs" and such.

Cornish Game Hen

So the wealth of information available on the internet once again destroys my illusions and slays another mythological creature. The Cornish Game Hen, here made and packaged by Tyson and available in major supermarkets, is simply just a complicated name for a young chicken. They are not game, they are nothing but a small chicken, slaughtered before reaching full maturity. USDA regulations simply require that any chicken being sold as the mythological Cornish Game Hen weigh less than 2 pounds and be no more than 5 to 6 weeks old at time of slaughter.

Regardless, the novelty of finding what is often presented as an extravagant food item on clearance was too much for me to resist.

There isn't a lot to say about this one. It is a small chicken. Quickly gathering some recipes from the internet, I chose a quick and easy preparation consisting of butter, salt, and pepper. The diminutive size meant a shorter cooking time and a juicier end-product.

One can't even make the joke that it tastes like chicken because it is chicken. I found nothing different in the flavor to distinguish it from the mature variety and the only distinction was a softer texture which is probably due to the fact that it doesn't take as long to cook.

So if you want to pretend you're posh and impress others, you can probably pick one of these up for a decent price right now. Otherwise, if you want to be more cost effective or try something strange, I'd suggest turkey; they're huge and look a lot weirder.

Fuel Cafe Beer

On a whim I took a trip to the local alcohol megaplex in search of weird intoxicants. While there were some odd spirits in the place, my low tolerance and infrequent alcohol consumption forced me to steer away from the liquors. The wines were a bit too plentiful to tackle but a few strange brews jumped out at me in the beer section.

The first of my purchases and samplings was Fuel Cafe Beer, an American stout brewed specially for the Fuel Cafe in Milwaukee, WI. And what makes it unique and attractive (particularly to myself)? It has coffee added to the mix. Being a lover of all things coffee, I simply couldn't resist.

Most stouts have a burnt aroma and flavor which is understandable considering the malts are roasted, much like coffee beans, to give them such characteristics along with the dark color. Therefore, the pairing of coffee and stouts seems almost natural. The first I'd heard of such a concoction was from a Kurt Vonnegut memoir where he reveals that adding a bit of coffee to the mix was the secret behind the success of his grandfather's award winning stout.

Using Guinness as a point of comparison, this beer is a little lighter and nowhere near as thick. The coffee and stout aromas mingle quite nicely, the difference being so minor that the distinction is subtle.

Being a slave to the burnt, bitter taste of strong coffee, I found nothing unpleasant about the flavors. Again, the distinction was subtle but there are notes not present in stout alone. Beer-wise, not the best stout I've had but not too shabby either. Despite the addition of coffee, it's unlikely I'll be drinking this with any frequency. But since it was quite enjoyable, I'll probably revisit this oddity once in a while.

Dragon Fruit

The name is understandable. One could easily imagine the spawn of some fire-breathing beast to claw its way out of this scaly, crimson egg. But what lies beneath the skin is far less frightening yet still rather surprising.

The three common varieties of dragon fruit, also called pitayas, comes from cactuses of the genus Hylocereus. I had the most common type, Hylocereus undatus, the red pitaya. Its striking resemblance to the prickly pear made me think this at first but the soft, sensitive skin and succulent innards caused me to doubt my initial impression. The full-sized fruit is about as big as a mango and has a similar yet less weighty feel (because it lacks a large pit in the middle).

Slicing open the dragon fruit exposes its shocking secret. Beneath the scaly red skin is a pure white flesh full of tiny black seeds. The aroma is flowery and sweet, like a fresh flower on a dewy morning. The flesh looks like a bleached watermelon and, apart from the crunchy little seeds, has a very similar texture.

Despite the grand buildup caused by the odd look and pleasant aroma, the initial taste is confusingly underwhelming.

"This doesn't taste like anything."

Tasteless but not bland, it's hard to describe. However, the more bites you take, the more prevalent the subtle flavors become. Creamy, floral, sweet, and nectar-like; perhaps the mildness of the flavor is a good thing as a bolder expression of these characteristics could be overwhelming. If it weren't for the price, I could definitely make a regular snack out of this fruit. With any luck the few seeds I planted will sprout (like my prickly pear seeds did).

A very pleasant experience indeed. The dragon fruit isn't only a strange sight to behold but also a subtly delicious treat. Look for them in the refrigerated part of the produce section in your local supermarket.

Crenshaw Melon

Although I promised never to include something here again based on its enormity but I swear it wasn't the size that drew me to the crenshaw. Looking more like a gourd than a melon, I must admit that I had high hopes for this mass of ugliness.

The crenshaw (also spelled cranshaw) is cultivar of the Muskmelon species, like the honeydew but the fruit does not look much like its sibling. Yellow and with the appearance of shriveled skin, I was expecting something a bit more musky but, much to my dismay, the pale orange flesh tasted more like a bland cantaloupe. This is not to imply that it was bad in anyway, simply not as exotic and flavorful as I had expected.

I think I've learned my lesson with melons. However, if there are any particularly strange and delicious varieties out there, please throw one my way... just not too hard.

Pork Rinds

Yes, pork rinds are very commonplace and disregarding the fact that I think most people find them strange despite their widespread availability, the disturbing nature intrinsic to fried pieces of pig skin is not my reason for including them here among my studies of sickening snacks. So put your soiled undershirts on and hear me out for a second.

I used to be a porker myself and in order not to revert to my naturally round state I must adhere, with unwavering insanity, to a strict diet and exercise regimen. You have no idea what it takes to counteract the weight expanding effect of some of the foods I sample here for you, dear reader. But imagine you are in the chip and snack aisle in the super market, what would be the last thing you'd pick up if trying to stay fit and lean? Pork rinds, right? Funnily enough, they ought to be one of the first bags you reach for.

You see, pork rinds are full of fat. Unfortunately, fat has been so vilified in modern society over the past 20-30 years that it's become anathema to anyone seeking a healthy diet. But fat is essential to our bodily health and people are now having to take fatty acid supplements to make up for the dearth of a reasonable daily consumption of fat.

According to Men's Health magazine "43 percent of a pork rind's fat is unsaturated, and most of that is oleic acid -- the same healthy fat found in olive oil. Another 13 percent of its fat content is stearic acid, a type of saturated fat that's considered harmless, because it doesn't raise cholesterol levels." They also contain zero carbs and a one ounce serving has 17 grams of protein, a far better nutritional profile than your average potato chip. Needless to say, downing an entire bag in a couple hours isn't going to do you any good. Like all foods, pork rinds should be consumed in moderation but the satiating nature of protein and fat rich foods should help ensure that this snack isn't something you'll overindulge on.

For those of you who have never tried them, pork rinds are fluffy and crispy, tasting like fat with a slight pork flavor, just what you'd expect from fried pieces of pig skin.

So, by no means am I encouraging you to "pig out"... I'm just letting you know that they aren't such a bad alternative.

Kopi Luwak

In the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, and Sulawesi there lives Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, a small creature commonly known as the Asian Palm Civet. This cat-like creature can be thought of as the Asian equivalent of a raccoon in form and function. It has a varied diet and feeds primarily upon exotic fruits like mango, chiku, and rambutan. A lot of coffee grows in these Indonesian Islands and the Asian Palm Civet also likes to feast on the coffee cherries. Being a hardy little fruit, the cherry often leaves the civet with some flesh still covering the bean. That is to say, the coffee beans survive the digestive processes of the civet and are defecated out intact.

And this is where it gets strange.

People then collect the beans from the excrement, yes they pluck the partially digested cherries from the poo. The carefully selected fecal matter is taken away and washed, hopefully quite thoroughly. The clean beans are then roasted, packaged, and sold for $120-600 per pound, making it one of the most expensive food items in the world. That's some expensive shit. [Please forgive me for my inability to let that cliche pass unuttered.]

Why, you may ask, would people go to all this trouble and pay such exorbitant prices for something so conceptually disgusting? The partial digestion of the coffee beans changes their chemical composition and thus the flavor. Even seasoned coffee lovers can sometimes be taken aback by the bitterness and acidity of their favorite brew and the Asian Palm Civet has unknowingly found a remedy to this situation. Kopi Luwak has the distinct and bold taste one associates with coffee but without the bitter and acid notes. The flavor is smooth and bold and the lack of any caustic elements makes sweeteners absolutely unnecessary. For those who can't typically manage drinking coffee black, this would be the cup of java that changes your mind.

It is by the good will of another individual that I came to sample Kopi Luwak and even though the experience was highly enjoyable I don't think I'll be paying the high price for any further imbibing in the near future. Besides, there's something wholly satisfying about that bitter kick in my horrendously strong coffee... like a raging alcoholic taking a swig from their flask, it's strangely enjoyable to feel the burn, to savor the wonderful flavors and the tasking bitterness all at once. But, on the other hand, it is a lot fun to tell people that you're drinking poo.

Chocolate Soda

Have you ever wanted to drink a carbonated Tootsie Roll? Well, if you have then you're a) disgusting and b) in luck.

Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge brings back memories; horrid memories of projectile vomiting, diarrhea, jet lag, and the tumultuous transition from the place of my childhood to a frightening foreign land. No, this strange swill didn't cause any of these things but it's forever entwined with the experience.

In 1991 I came to the US with my family. I was young and it was my first time on a plane. The first four hours went fantastically but then I had my initial encounter with airline food. What followed during the remaining ten hours of the flight still exhausts me just thinking about it but there was one upside to the whole ordeal. It turns out that you can get through customs and immigration really fast if you have three children dry heaving so violently that their noses are bleeding... apparently that buys you an express ticket to the front of the line.

After a couple hours in the car we finally made it to our temporary destination where I was greeted with some very strange beverage choices, one of them being chocolate soda. I don't remember the brand so I can't blame Canfield for the resultant disaster but the stomach demons were awakened once again.

I was a little worried when I saw this stuff for sale at the local super market. Funnily enough, it wasn't with the rest of the sodas. Instead it was in a little section containing those strange diet teas (read: laxatives) and other oddities. Maybe the vomiting is actually a dieting tactic.

There isn't much to say about the taste beyond the Tootsie Roll juice description. I guess you could compare it to a very thin chocolate syrup, the cheapest kind you can buy. There's no sugar and the artificial sweetener is so overbearing that I could barely manage to swallow a couple mouthfuls. In fact, there's no nutritional value whatsoever, zeroes across the board.

This beverage was apparently incredibly successful for a few years in the 80s and I was about to say something like "and I can't imagine why" but then I reminisced with myself about that ridiculous decade for a couple seconds. And although these cans had probably been sitting on the shelf there since the early 90s, I didn't start vomiting this time but I wasn't able to get beyond a few sips so I might have if I had soldiered through the entire can. There's five left, who wants them? Drink at your own risk.

Aprium

Apriums are recently developed hybrids of, as the name may suggest, apricots and plums. Those fearful of "frankenfoods" and the genetic engineering/maniuplation of plants to advance, enhance, or enrich the viability and variability of consumer produce ought stay away as this is an entirely "unnatural" being. I fear not the sweet nectar of science.

Apricots and plums are members of the genus Prunus which also includes peaches, cherries, and almonds, hence the physical similarities between the fruits and pits and the potential for hybridization.

The fruit appears to be a larger than normal apricot with a deeper orange hue. This confuses the employees at your local supermarket where, although the fruit came from a basket marked aprium, the absence of an entry in the store's produce database leads them to run around frantically until they proclaim, unanimously, that the thing is an apricot.

"It's actually an aprium."

"Yeah, that's the same thing as an apricot."

Taxonomy and facts aside, the aprium indeed looks and smells a lot like an apricot. Dig in and you'll find the flesh combines the distinctive flavor of the apricot with the incredible sweetness and texture of the plum. The skin almost seems unsuited for containing the succulence of the ripe flesh inside and appears to bruise easily but without any significant impact on the taste.

Hybrids are interesting but this isn't one I'd go out of my way to buy again. With apricots costing about the same and plums much cheaper, I think I'll just stick with the parents. I do, however, appreciate the science and novelty. What will they think of next? I'm hoping for a cross between an orange and a banana... an orana. Just think of the possibilities... well, the one possibility: Orana Tang. I'd drink to that.

Vegemite

I'm going to take one for the team. While my childhood brainwashing in the harsh lands of Australia has resulted in me finding there to be nothing odd about the consumption of Vegemite, the whole idea behind eating vegetable yeast extracts can be quite strange to the inhabitants of the rest of the world.

Vegemite is effectively an offshoot of beer making and, for those who don't know, beer is a very popular beverage in Australia. Made from leftover brewer's yeast extract with vegetable and spices, Vegemite is a savory spread rich in B vitamins and certain amino acids (and deliciousness).

When confronted with questions concerning the nature of my favorite spreadable foodstuff, a common mistake is to compare it to peanut butter.

"You see... uhhh... Vegemite to Australians is like peanut butter to Americans... you know, one of those staple commodities that you're supposed to spread on bread... yeah, something like that."

This doesn't work. The questions get stranger and more off target as they try to gauge the flavor. So my current approach to the question goes something like this:

"Ummmm... yeah... uhhhh... oh, you've tried Guinness, right?"

Blank stare implying an affirmative quickly followed by a "duh".

"Well, imagine a very thick Guinness, like peanut butter thick [again, the peanut butter comparisons], but with lots of salt... lots and lots of salt."

This is followed by an unsubstantiated assertion that Vegemite is gross. But the facts are on my side. Observe a snapshot of the Wikipedia article on Vegemite correctly stating that Vegemite is both delicious and far superior to its competitor Marmite.

I rest my case.

If there are any curious individuals out there who would like to give Vegemite a try, it can be found in stores like World Market that carry international foods. I recommend making a Vegemite sandwich for your first experiment. Get two pieces of bread, toast if you wish, spread a layer of butter/margarine (unless you can't stand either) and a then a thin layer of Vegemite. Do not, I repeat, do not go overboard with the Vegemite; it's strong and incredibly salty. You can gradually increase the amount used if you find yourself actually enjoying the stuff but take it easy the first few times. If you give it a try and find you don't like it at all, please get in touch... I'll be more than happy to take the remains off your hands.

Soft Shell Crab

Staring down at my plate I find myself immersed in a surreal situation, simultaneously questioning my own sanity and wondering if perhaps I'm still stuck in a dream. There's a whole crab on my plate covered in batter and nestled between two buns, a meal delivered straight from whatever dark place spawns nightmares. I'm half expecting the beast to start waving his claws at me in protest of the situation and if I move my face closer, which one of us will bite first?

I firmly hold the beast between the buns and lunge at a claw, ripping at it rabidly like a stark raving lunatic... how apropos. The flesh is soft and the appendage offers little resistance to my jaws as I rip it from the socket.

Oh soft-shell crab, you delicious nightmare. When a crab outgrows its shell and needs to form another, it molts and shortly thereafter (approximately four days) can be eaten whole.

So I eat the limbs as they dangle lifelessly, yet still threateningly, off the sandwich so the little bastard can't escape. The meat is sublime... moist, flavorful, and easy to chew, like those really expensive crab legs you actually have to crack open to eat. Once I render the crustacean a decadal amputee then I get to work on the body. A word of advice for anyone else venturing to try soft-shell crab, rip off the limbs first and put them aside while you devour the body, save the best for last. The body is not bad bet there is far more thin shell material present and can be a little bland and feels strange to chew. Overall a great experience that was both delicious and disturbing.

Raw Oysters

I'd heard just as many awful things about raw oysters as I had good so my curiosity had been piqued for quite some time. My prior attempts to order these strange creatures at restaurants had been thwarted by them being out of season or not in stock at the time so I jumped at my recent opportunity to indulge while patronizing a local shack at the end of a dock.

And when the six monstrosities arrived on a plate I was fully expecting to enjoy my experience. I love raw fish and like cooked oysters so how could this be much different?

The sensation had been described to me before but I'd thought it an exaggeration; eating raw oysters is like swallowing a mouthful of phlegm. But not just any phlegm, mind you, but the kind coughed up in the midst of a horrid bacterial infection or after a long bender involving smoky bars and student parties. I was instructed to swallow them whole, sliding the grey ball of mucous down the back of my throat with a few shell particles and pieces of sand. Wanting to get a complete experience, I even chewed a couple of them but the gelatinous texture was far too disgusting, particularly with all of the grit scraping against my teeth. And what to say of the taste? I guess it wouldn't have been much different from cooked oysters if it weren't for the thick mucous membrane that tasted like, well, mucous.

The last couple mollusks were a challenge but my pyloric sphincter is strong and I was able to prevent them from hurtling back up, despite the nausea and slight heaves. I can't fathom the appeal and won't be volunteering for a repeat experience any time soon but I'm happy to have tried them nonetheless. For now I'll stick with the cooked variety.

Yerba Mate

It's a real surprise that yerba mate hasn't become more prevalent in the US as it has many highly marketable qualities. These include relatively high caffeine content for an "energy" boost and the fact that it is an "all natural" botanic used for hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of years by people in South America. It is used to make a tea-like infusion and this ought to be popular in a time where herbal teas are all the rage. Celestial Seasonings actually has a tea, Morning Thunder, where roasted mate is mixed with black tea but there aren't any major providers of pure yerba mate.

I don't quite remember how I came to be familiar with yerba mate but I was excited to find that many little coffee shops started providing a mate-latte drink where it was prepared much like a chai. Inspired by the signs of availability we sought out a provider online where my wife bought some pre-made infusions and mixtures while I opted for a bag of lightly roasted, crushed leaves.

As opposed to tea, mate is prepared with hot water, not boiling water, after a light soaking in cool water to help protect against the breakdown of some of the desirable chemicals in the leaves and prevent the infusion from becoming too bitter. Initial steeping doesn't take very long and the same foliage can be used repeatedly (I get at least three good drinks out of the same leaves). The traditional method of brewing mate uses a hollowed out calabash gourd as the brewing and drinking vessel with a silver straw, called a bombilla, being used to sip the liquid. Because I don't have these items I use a french press to do the brewing and the results are fine. I'll try pick up a gourd and bombilla when I visit Peru this autumn.

The aroma and flavor of yerba mate is very similar to green tea but stronger, more pungent, and with distinct notes of green vegetation, like fresh grass clippings. If steeped too long the brew can sometimes be a little bitter but adding a tiny bit of sweetener or drinking it with milk can counteract this. Overall it is a very tasty beverage and provides a reasonable dose of caffeine. Prices for the loose leaf variety can seem a little high compared with certain other teas but a little can go a long way, particularly if you use the same leaves for multiple infusions.

If you're a tea drinker, you ought give yerba mate a try... and if you're not impressed, please send me your leftovers.

Koolickle

Some things simply should not be. Some ideas are so repulsive that to make them manifest ought be an abomination worthy of incurring the wrath of each and every tempestuous deity dreamed up throughout the history of man. One such vile monstrosity is the Koolickle.

The Koolickle, or Kool Aid Pickle, is made (at the hands of the wretchedly insane, no doubt) by emptying a jar of pickles of all pickling fluids and adding double strength Kool Aid and some extra sugar in its stead. I'm not sure how many days it takes for the Kool Aid to ruin the savory dills, one source in the New York Times says a week, but you may notice the color of the pickles has been completely warped by the sickeningly sweet solution.

I had the... pleasure... of being introduced to Koolickles through the generosity of my wife's coworkers who, in some psychotic fit of madness inspired by the New York Times article on the phenomenon, decided to make a batch at work using grape Kool Aid. They may not have left the dills in the solution for an incredibly long time as they were still rather green but decorated with disturbing purple stretch marks.

The aroma wasn't wholly unpleasant but still quite disturbing. Artificial grape flavoring is fairly disgusting itself and was the dominant scent while the vinegar smell lingered low in the mix giving the impression that the grape flavored dill had soured and adding to the nausea factor.

Eating the Koolickle is an increasingly difficult task. My first bite was bearable, I dare say even pleasurable. The strange combination of flavors was curiously appealing with that initial taste. However, every subsequent bite became exponentially more repulsive. I tried to soldier on for honor, duty, and because I was hungry but I had to abandon mission mid chew with approximately one-third of the pickle remaining. My dry heaves threaten to turn into something more vicious so I quickly tossed the last of the Koolickle into the sink and left until I could stomach delivering the remains to the trash can.

But don't take my word for it. This could be the first edible oddities home experiment. Go get a jar of pickles, empty out the fluids, add double strength Kool Aid and some extra sugar, leave it all sitting in the fridge for a week, then eat and enjoy. Just don't blame me for any projectile vomiting that ensues... you can't say I didn't warn you.