Looking a pie in the eye
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
An emu pie bounced on to my desk last week (as they are wont to do).
It seems Vili's has decided to diversify to our Australian coat of arms.
Actually, emu is the new fad meat of the year. Hmmm. Well it'd be better than koala, I suppose (less fur to pick out from between the teeth). Nonetheless, I have to confess I am an utter food wuss.
As a wee lass, I became ill at the mere thought of New Zealand whitebait fritters. Not the taste, mind you - but all those sad, little, black eyes looking up at me from the plate. I cried for them every time they were put in front of me - the tragedy of these little lives cut short ...
For a long time I thought I was over such sentimentalities until, 20 years later, I was in Japan - and served a fishy soup. It was very strong and quite tasty. Then, suddenly, bloated fish heads floated to the surface, their blank, bobbing eyes staring straight up at mine, their little white lips still pursed together. Their carcass, beyond the gills, was just … missing.
“Mmm,'' said my Japanese host, scooping out a fishy eyeball and swallowing it, “Don't forget best bit.”
I'd rather not go into what happened next except to say Donovan Bailey is only the fastest person alive because no one was clocking me en route to the restaurant amenities that day. (For future reference, one can actually hurdle kneeling patrons quite easily - just watch out for the chopsticks.)
It does all make me wonder about human beings. Is there anything we won't eat? On menus in different parts of the world, there are pigeons, dogs, crocs, frog legs, camels, shark lips and fins, snails, possums, whale, honeyed ants, bees and even rats.
My boss tells the story of a German survival expert in the Kimberleys who ran out of food and so took to splattering golden orb weaver spiders between his hands and popping them in his top pocket for a snack later. (And, no, he didn't cook them first.)
Just as I was getting my head around that, a letter from Mum arrived recounting her banquet with some friendly locals in a Middle East desert: “There is a whole sheep or goat, including feet and head, but skinned and cooked,” she wrote.
“We were told the head of the sheep was the delicacy offered to honoured guests. Hamid ripped out the tongue and gave it to us, which was okay as I don't usually mind tongue anyway. But when it came to the eyes and brain, we ‘mafi shukranned’ very strongly . . .”
I don't know what mafi shukranning is but I suspect I would have been doing quite a bit myself. As I said, I'm a food wuss. Which brings me back to that emu pie.
“Mind over matter,” I had muttered over and over to my squeamish self.
Utilising enough mental preparation for a firewalk while karate-chopping a stack of bricks, I finally deemed myself ready ... and bit in.
It tasted like a sweet cross between beef and turkey. Not bad. But then, unbidden images of emus started stampeding across my mind. I had another bite but it was too late. Matter had won again.
Well, I guess we all have our Everests. It's just that some have use-by dates.
© The Advertiser & Sheryl-Lee Kerr, 22 JUL 1997