What are your limits when it comes to food? Is there anything you just won't eat?
The reason I'm asking is that mondo Southern Living garden photographer Ralph Anderson and I recently ate breakfast at the North Carolina State Farmer's Market in Raleigh. I had a garden omelet. Ralph ate brains and eggs.
That's right. Brains and eggs. Pig brains, to be exact. And that's where I draw the line.
I guess I could never be English, because I refuse to eat organ food. No kidneys, no pancreas, no liver, and especially no brains. They look nasty, they're not good for you (liver is full of toxins it filters out of whatever animal it came from), but most of all, eating them is just not right.
I mean, how can you eat a pig's brain? That's what he used to recognize his mama. That's what he used to dream of freedom and justice. That's what he used when he became the first pig in history to decide the Earth was round, not flat, that U-2 is still the world's greatest band, and that a certain plant holds the cure for cancer -- right before he was slaughtered.
Besides, brains and eggs look horrible on a plate. When the waitress set it down, the first thing I thought of was that my cat had just gotten sick.
So spare me the organ food, Ralph. Next time when we travel, we're gonna eat parts of animals that are meant to be consumed -- lips. snouts, jowls, tails, and feet.
