I'm gonna start eating clams

[K8memphis]

Here. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071231/ap_on_fe_st/odd_rare_pearl

A guy orders a plate of clams and finds a beautiful pearl very round that may well be very costly. A $10 plate of clams. Hmm, I'd draw back a broken tooth and swallow the pearl probably.

Anybody have any good look what I found on my plate or look what I just found in my mouth stories? Bet there's already a thread.

[Domestic Goddess]

My mother found a pearl in one of the tiny clams that we foraged in the shores of Bacolod City in Negros Occidental, Philippines. I was in high school, gee it was mid '80s? My dad would take my brother and sisters and me to the nearby shoreline and we would dig for tiny clams (the size of a thumbnail). I forgot the name.

Anyway, my mother would briefly blanch them in boiling water and we would sit down and feast on the tiny, succulent morsels. To open the, you take a tiny clam, put your thumbnail in the middle of the clam lip and pry open. Suck out the juicy clam meat and toss the shell. Repeat a hundred times. Sometimes my mom would dip it in a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar.

That one day, my mom yelped and said there was a stone in the clam and it stuck to here teeth. When she pried it from her teeth, it was a tiny perfectly formed white pearl. She had it set on my ring that was missing one small diamond stone. It has made for a memorable keepsake.

[Alchemist]

This post is an answer to the "look what I found in my mouth" question.

THIS POST CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT SHOULD NOT BE CONSUMED BY THE DELICATE SENSIBILITIES OR THE WEAK OF STOMACH

I was down in Mexico visiting a friend a couple of years ago. My, father, Tom, and my business partner, Jason, and I arrived in town mid afternoon, and were engulfed in the chaos of a street festival. A Ferris wheel spun haphazardly, as did a good number of town drunks. Every vendor stand was cranking a static radio station, a tuba driven polka like nightmare, "Pato" rap, or a street version of karaoke. Barkers tried to get us to play rigged games of chance, or buy real silver rings guaranteed to turn your finger gangrenous in three days. To escape the melee, we retreated to a roof top restaurant to await our friend and her boyfriend.

Really, there is a point to this story, I promise.

So they finally showed up, just in time to jump in on the third round of ice cold Bohimias, and wee drams of Havana Club 7yr. We chatted during a spectacular sunset, and through the violet hour. We got to discuss the local delicacies. I started to get a hankering for some tongue tacos. So we wove our way to the stall only to find it closed. Luckily there was a bar right there that served beer and Cuban rum...

The next morning at 8:--for the love of god, I think I am going to die--o'clock we met again. I’m now sure it was a conspiracy because I soon found myself separated from my father and Jason, being led further and further into the bazaar by my friend’s boyfriend. We finally got to a stall where there is a towering pile of goat’s heads. My poor rum ravaged stomach completed a move that would leave the Romanian gymnastics team with mouths agape and green with jealousy.

We sit down and I hear him order me a taco of tongue, one of eye, and one of brain, and a soup for himself. Did I mention it was Eight in the F*&king morning? I knew I was going on and on the night before about how much I liked tongue tacos, but not at eight in the F#!king morning, when I was not sure if I could get through a bowl of oatmeal.

The toothless Grandma grabs a goathead from the pile and an apocalyptical swarm of flies rises from the devils mountain of carnage. My stomach does something that Greg Louganis wished he could do, my eyes roll into the back of my head, and I hear from far away…”Quieres cervesa?”

Can it hurt? I mean really, what could possibly be the down side? I’m guessing that club soda with Peychaud’s bitters is not an option. “Simone, Guay. Nessisito una chela bein meurta!” He orders me a really cold beer, and chuckles as I turn the color of military hospital walls.

The goat head is now on the chopping block right in front of me, mercifully free of flies. It’s tongue sticks out to the left and its lifeless eyes, one of which will soon be in my mouth, stare at the fluttering tarp that is keeping the pounding sun off our necks. The temperature is starting to rise, adding to my need to look around and see if the name of the stall was “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE”.

The beer came, ice cold with rivulets of joy clinging to it’s outside. I put it to my forehead, bliss, then opened it and took a long pull hoping to beat back the idea of what I was about to eat.

I am not a picky eater. I will try almost anything, and the things I don’t like I will keep trying until I can, if not love them, at least appreciate the manner in which they are prepared.

So I nursed my beer as Toothless Grandma cuts out the tongue, slices it nice and thin and then tosses it on a grill behind her. With a spoon she pops an eyeball out, I closed my eyes and imagined it skittered across the cutting board. I don’t open my eyes until I hear the hiss of the sliced eyeball hits the grill. In retrospect I should have just kept my baby blues closed and concentrated on the Modelo bubbles that were quickly making me feel reptilian. A vast improvement from when I sat down believe you me.

The point of this story is just now coming.

I open my eyes and Toothless Grandma has a cleaver in hand, over her head and is about to strike a John Henry blow to the skull. I hate to admit it but I think I winced a little thinking it was my skull she was about to crack asunder. The cleaver came down with a mighty, sickening thud and bone chips flew in all directions. She gave the cleaver a wiggle and the top of the head opened as beautifully as a morning glory. Little dew drops of blood nestled in the matted hair mere centimeters from what I was about to eat. With the eyeball spoon (bad cross contamination if you ask me) she scoops out some brains and flops them on the grill.

A pile of fragrant, hand made tortillas is warming on the side of the flattop. With miraculous asbestos fingers she builds my three tacos, adding cilantro and onion on top.

They look really good, and they smell wonderful. I order another beer, its like 8:10 by now, and start heaping Salsa Roja on the tacos. My dining companion’s soup arrives. It’s gorgeous, a huge bowl full of corn, carrots, succulent chunks of goat, onion, and a sprinkling of cilantro on top. I am very, very jealous. What he has is the perfect thing for a hangover, and he isn’t hungover. Yet another example of living in a hostilely indifferent world.

My plan of attack is that of an eight year old faced with a plate of Brussels sprouts. I’m going to take a big bite, chew as little as possible and wash the offending matter down with a monstrous gulp of beer. I figure I can get through a taco in three bites. That means I only have nine bites to go. I can’t decide what to start with. Do I start with the tongue, which will be the easiest, or go for the brains and eye first to get it over with. Round Robin seems best, one bite of each, order a beer every 3 bites.

The tongue is great. Rich and meaty with explosions of fresh cilantro and onion going off in counterpoint. This isn’t going to be so bad I convince myself. Then on to eye that wasn’t NEARLY as bad as I thought it was going to be. I am starting to feel macho, with two beers under my belt and a Mexican truck drivers breakfast before me. Then the brains. For the love of all things holy, I can’t believe how revolting this is. The texture is all-wrong, and by that I mean there is NOTHING good about it. My eyes bulge a bit as I reach a trembling hand towards my beer. Toothless Grandma is watching me, so I do my best to smile. I’m sure it was a horrible grimace with cilantro and grey matter in my teeth. The beer washes down the bite with only a tiny shudder.

Once again I turn to my dining companion. He is almost done with his soup. Jealousy once again rears its ugly head. I am about to ask him a question when he bites down on something that makes him wince. Into his upturned palm he spits a jagged goats tooth, brown around the edges, and worn unevenly from a lifetime of eating refuse, street jetsom, and garbage from big stinking piles in allys in the unsavory part of town. I gag, my insides roiling like an angry sea. I cannot get the crunching sound of my friend biting down on that tooth, and then him involuntarily swallowing plaque-riddled flecks of enamel. It takes all my will power to force down the rising gorge, and not projectile vomit unchewed chuncks of eye and brain under the table. I take a few deep breaths and thank god for my lovely plate of tacos.

[docsconz]

That is one of the best stories I have read in a long time, although I'm still not sure that the tooth was worse than what you were already eating!

[viva]

Frighteningly enough, I was eating some peanut M&M while reading that post - and got a visual and sensory image of that tooth while crunching down on the peanut. ::shiver::

[Peter the eater]

Great story Alchemist.

Last summer I got a bug-in-an-ice-cube with the gin and tonic I ordered. I can handle a small gnat or fruit fly or something, but this was an actual June bug . . . and it appeared painfully contorted like a frozen slab of Han Solo. How does someone not notice a brown ice cube?

We went elsewhere for dinner.

[K8memphis]

I'm totally grossed out. Twice and it wasn't the peanut M&M's thread.

gak double gak

But umm, y'alls' tales of woe made me think of another one. Not near as dramatic as either of those. But in my earlier years I was at a banquet stuffed into the middle of this overfilled room and very pregnant to boot. It was a smorgasbord type place and I guess they figured if less people could get back to the line the better for them. I noticed a green bean that wouldn't chew up and found a cigarette butt, the filter in my mouth. I guess the paper wrapper around it cooked in. So would those be smoked beans? Anyway, they awarded me a new plate of food.

That ice cube story is *chilling, truly. Few things strike fear in my heart like those flying monsters.

But the tooth story seems like an inevitablity when you think back on it. What an adventure. Seems like he got his *just desserts?

I thought my *puns intended were pretty cool.

[rezcook]

We eat steamed mussels quite a bit and every so often get a pearl. Not the $3000 type of the news story, mind you, but contorted, miniature, cigar shaped curios. We also came across some larger ones in chinese restaurants serving steamed giant oysters with black beans.

Ahhh Mexico...

First time there, we decided to abandon our fears and eat at plenty of Mayan run street vendors. Killing time while the wife called home, I was peering down a side alley, spying a stray dog sniffing around. The dog squatted and took what I believed to be a leak. Upon further examination, I realized it was not urine, but rather a pencil-thick stream of liquid doodoo.

"My god" I thought, "if the local dogs get Moctezuma's revenge, WHAT AM I IN STORE FOR?"

(OK, a little off-topic, but slightly appropo)

Squiggly things? One of my first forays into homemade ceviche was with fresh cod (I know I know...). As the pieces were slowly turning opaque, I popped one into my mouth. As I was turning it over along the roof of my mouth, I happened to look into the bowl of chopped cod with lime juice, tomato, onion and cilantro. Something was amiss...something(s) was moving...

Spitting the piece out and examining the bowl closer, I witnessed many worms, apparently quite agitated over the new acid levels, coming out of the fish and squirming like hell.

Check out the spit out piece. Yep, theres a sucker as well. It was JUST IN MY MOUTH!?

Yeeesh.

Moral of the story; don't use cod for cevice.

[Peter the eater]

That is a truly nasty story rezcook. Cod is the only grocery store fish that I have ever seen with a live parasite still inside. I don't know what it is about cod - maybe it's just a little harder to pick up the worms on the light table.

A few months ago I bought a "Club Pack" of garlic powder from Atlantic SuperStore - our regional version of Loblaws, Canada's largest retailer ahead of Wal-Mart, HBC and others.

There was a special prize waiting inside for me:

My reaction was as follows:

1. shock - what's that?

2. disgust - yuck, it's a fly!

3. curiosity - how long has it been there?

4. shame - I'll bet he tastes really really good.

5. excitement - I wonder how the manufacturer will compensate me!

To their credit, Loblaws swiftly replied to my email with the above photos and sent me a $10 gift card. I threw out the garlic powder.

[Sabrosita]

Living in Uruguay provided me with two great stories on this topic. Within a few days of arriving, we were enjoying the heart stopping national dish, the chivito: a burger made with flank steak instead of a patty, topped with mayo, cheese, fried egg and ham. Usually lettuce, tomato, and whatever more they feel like putting on it. So I munched a big two handed bite out of one from Lo de Juanito (named changed to protect the guilty). After the first bite I looked down and noticed a large squiggly thing in my sandwich. Unfortunately I had trouble explaining my issue to people as my vocabulary did not yet include the word Babosa, or slug!

Many weeks later, having recovered from this, my vocabulary now included the word for worm, guisano. A friends parents had brought back spicy aji peppers from argentina (oh, thank the lord, SPICINESS in uruguay). It was a joyous occasion, as I had greatly missed spice in my time there...until about on my third handful of peppers, I noticed my peppers moving. Yup, the bag was CRAWLING with worms.

I'll be honest it was so nice to have spice, we didn't even complain that much about the worms...