I’m applying to study abroad in either Lyon, Barcelona, or some random place in Mexico next year. I’m in the process of doing the essays, and my personal favorite is this one from the french program:
Your host family enjoys eating brains and serves them regularly. How would you react?
Well, I could do a spit take…
So now I’ve been thinking about eating brains. Or at least what I would do. Yayfun.
I know that they’re expecting something akin to “well, it’s part of the culture and experiencing France and blah blah blah braincakes, I’m not your typical ugly American!” That is so boring, though.
I wonder if I would bring them brochures on mad cow disease. Something like that. Kind of a housewarming gift- here, I translated it myself! Oh, the bit where it says that your grandmother is a transgendered prostitute is a typo… um… that was really supposed to say that cows are funny.
And yet something occurs to me: What if I like brains? What if they’re just as good as chicken? Mmm… brains is tasty? This forces me to consider seeking a summer internship as a zombie, or at least becoming very obsessed with staring at people’s foreheads.
Or I could offer to make squirrel brains and scrambled eggs. I understand it’s a delicacy in parts of my home state. (I don’t know. I’m from there, but I’m not from there.
This could even be the start of a whole new phase in dieting. The possibilities are simply endless.
Now excuse me while I compose an inspiring word about blending into a culture to experience it fully.
Aw, there’s nothing wrong with brains. Quite nice scrambled with eggs, but very high in cholesterol. I would be a little nervous considering they’re finding cows with CJD in France now, too.
Now… oldie, that infected duck liver is good eats man! Mmmmmm… foie gras…
So I went to the home of my friend, whose parents were born in Europe. His mother serves up a mousse-like confection on scallop shells.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Just try it,” she replies. (Dangerous words, those.)
It turned out, of course, that we had been served brains. By the time she told us this it was too late to spit it out – the meal had long been over. Sticking my finger down my throat seemed an extreme reaction at that point. So you CAN eat brains without ill effect, if you don’t know what you’re doing. The scallop shells were a cute touch – misdirection at its finest. Because, you see, brains have a somewhat fishy taste, and the scallop shells reinforced the notion that we were eating some kind of rarefied seafood. It doesn’t taste like chicken at all. Unless you marinade your chicken in fish oil.
I find it hard to believe that they eat this “all the time”, though. I got the impression it was a delicacy.
Don’t fall for this andygirl. You know how when someone offers you a mint, they’re actually saying you have bad breath? Well, when someone offers you brains, they’re actually saying you’re stupid. So when those brains come to the table, throw the plate against the wall and yell, “To hell with you, you stinky cheese eating surrender monkeys! I’m an American dammit! Sure, we may be dumb but we can still kick your Frenchy butts!”
If you’re in a foreign country and feeling brave, find something on the menu you can’t identify and point to it and say “I’ll have that”. I tried this last year in Palermo, and got an entire baked cuttlefish. Cartilage and innards and all. In a nice ink sauce. A bit bland and chewy, and slightly alarming when it first arrived (and a great source of amusement for my dining companions), but otherwise not bad.
Hey, I’ve eaten dog meat! Couldn’t get out of it without seriously insulting my host, his culture and country…
My advice: suck it up, andygirl ONE TIME, and then claim to have an allergy…
(so far, in my Korean adventure, I have managed to avoid “Moon-oh” which is LIVE baby octopi! From what I hear, you stuff this squirming little mass-o-tentacles in your mouth, where it promptly attaches itself to your mouth/throat lining with its suckers… you have to quickly take a shot of soju (a Korean liquor) to stun it into submission so that it slides down into your esophagus and doesn’t asphyxiate you! Friggin’ EEEEWWWWWWWWWW!!!)
Well, you could marinate the brains in chicken oil. But better still, when the cow is still alive, make it think about chickens. Slap on a VR headset, or just set up stereo speakers playing clucking sounds in the pasture.
If this works, it could be just the beginning. We could have cows programmed from birth to think about entire meals. You’d have to place your order about eight years in advance, but still, imagine the possibilities. “Okay, first I want my cow to think about a shrimp cocktail…”
Having eaten hog brains a number of times (typically, scrambled with eggs, 'cause they’re kinda dry), it’s no big deal. I have had some small concern that maybe I might contract some kind of spongiform encephalopathy later in life–but I figure, by the time it’s progressed to the point that it can be diagnosed, I’ll be so out of it I won’t know what’s going on, anyway.
Just tell them: “NO THANKS-I DON’T WANT MAD COW DISEASE!”
-serously: a major french supermarket chain is now buying only Argentine beef-signs of things to come?
Don’t be rude. Just skoosh the brains around on your plate so it looks like you’ve eaten some. Brains actually deflate a bit when you skoosh them, so they’ll diminish in volume after a bit.
Kidneys are much more of a problem than brains. There’s always some guy at the next restaurant table in France, usually a tall rangy guy with rimless glasses, eating an enormous plate of kidneys. The sauce smells SO good, and the guy is eating his kidneys with SUCH relish, and you always find yourself thinking “this time, maybe THIS time, everything will be different and I’ll scarf a whole dish of rich, succulent kidneys without batting an eyelash.” So you order the rognons au moutarde and dig in, and after about the second kidney you feel as if you’ve been subsisting on nothing but kidneys for months.